The situation
Because whenever someone says ‘let’s build a platform’, it is worth asking: who collects the wardrobe, where does it go and what if it looked much better in the photo?
Projects · PPNT Gdynia
Podaj Dalej — it was going to be a furniture-sharing platform. Luckily, we ran a pilot first.
Because whenever someone says ‘let’s build a platform’, it is worth asking: who collects the wardrobe, where does it go and what if it looked much better in the photo?
32resident submissions
34pieces collected
18items passed on*
~50%reuse during the pilot*
* as of 18 April 2025; collections and releases continued until the end of April
Case at a glance
My responsibility
I helped turn a good idea into a service we could honestly test. I researched needs, designed the roles of giver, operator and receiver, mapped the furniture journey and named the assumptions most likely to fail spectacularly. After the pilot, I translated what reality taught us into a UX brief, recommendations, an Implementation Guide and a Starter Kit for future implementations.
What remained
The pilot reduced the risk of investing in the wrong solution. PPNT gained evidence of resident interest, a map of operational dependencies, full-cycle data, the decisions required before scaling and materials for conversations with a future operator, partners and technology supplier.
The challenge
On one side: ‘too good to throw away’. On the other: ‘I could use that’. Between them — an entire service.
A serviceable piece of furniture may be waste to one person and a valuable resource to another. Matching them is only the visible part. Someone still needs to qualify the item, arrange collection, store it, maintain its status and complete the handover.
For PPNT Gdynia, we designed Podaj Dalej as an urban circular service rather than another marketplace. The aim was to test the entire system at controlled scale: resident submission, qualification, logistics, storage, catalogue and reuse.
My role
I helped turn a good idea into a service we could honestly test. I researched needs, designed the roles of giver, operator and receiver, mapped the furniture journey and named the assumptions most likely to fail spectacularly. After the pilot, I translated what reality taught us into a UX brief, recommendations, an Implementation Guide and a Starter Kit for future implementations.
The work
Instead of polishing mock-ups, we put real wardrobes, tables and armchairs through the system.
See both ends of the system
Research with residents and the local creative sector revealed two connected needs: useful objects became waste too early, while makers, institutions and small businesses needed easier access to materials, equipment, transport and space.
Design roles, not just screens
We defined three interdependent roles — giver, operator and receiver — and mapped the item's journey, decisions, responsibilities and statuses from submission and qualification to transport, storage, catalogue, reservation and release.
Name the assumptions that might fail
Rather than debate a complete platform, the team selected the riskiest hypotheses: resident demand, remote quality assessment, logistics and storage capacity, and whether the creative sector would naturally engage as receiver and expert.
Run the full cycle at small scale
The pilot covered Redłowo and a warehouse at PPNT. A simple form, catalogue and spreadsheet supported the operator's manual work. This tested behaviour, cost, dependencies and the real journey of each item — not merely an interface.
Treat friction as evidence
Thirty-two submissions led to 34 pieces collected from 11 addresses. The pilot exposed mismatches between declared and actual condition, coordination load, critical logistics, storage limits and lower-than-expected creative-sector engagement.
Turn learning into implementation readiness
Evidence informed the target service logic, readiness criteria, pilot and full-operation variants, risks and materials for a future operator. The Starter Kit helps other teams design locally instead of copying the Gdynia model.
Reality called our bluff
A simple form is enough to start
Residents could enter the service without complex technology. But the form must require photos, dimensions and operational data: simple for the user cannot mean incomplete for the operator.
Logistics is part of the experience
Transport and storage are not platform back office. They shape cost, speed, catalogue credibility and the experience of both sides.
The operator is the service's heart
Every item triggers a chain of decisions and contacts. Without clear ownership, even a strong interface quickly diverges from reality.
Partnerships must be designed
Furniture availability did not automatically activate the creative sector. Its role, point of entry and value proposition need the same care as the resident journey.
The outcome
The most valuable result was not 34 collected pieces. It was what they exposed.
The pilot reduced the risk of investing in the wrong solution. PPNT gained evidence of resident interest, a map of operational dependencies, full-cycle data, the decisions required before scaling and materials for conversations with a future operator, partners and technology supplier.
For PPNT and the city
Clarity on the operating conditions required before another pilot or a move towards city scale.
For residents and receivers
A clear alternative to discarding usable objects and access to resources that would otherwise enter the waste stream.
For future implementations
The Implementation Guide and Starter Kit cover service design, flow, risk and readiness before an expensive platform is commissioned.
An honest outcome
Can this now run across the whole city? No. That is exactly why we piloted it.
About half of the collected objects found another user during the observed period. But that result relied on intensive manual coordination, one warehouse and the controlled scale of a single district. Instead of pretending the service is ready to grow, we now know exactly what must change in logistics, qualification, data, storage and partnerships before growth makes sense.