Fire! Fire! Fire! Design by Patch (a bad example)

In the picture, a very unusual fire hose found in the Tecnopolo/University of Madeira, Funchal (Portugal). In case of fire, in order to use the hose you are supposed to break the glass of the metal case, get the key which is hanging from a small hook and use it to open the lock. Evidently, in a situation of panic or limited visibility like in a real fire (i.e. smoke in the room), the amounts of steps necessary in order to extract the hose seem to be too many and too complicated, possibly leading to mistakes (the actions to open the case are strictly sequential and arguably unnatural, like a protocol to follow).

A Portuguese friend, half serious half kidding, told me that the key could obviously not be left hanging out of the case because someone would probably steal it (this is hilarious!) leaving no alternative to the designers than putting it inside with the hose. However, I rather consider this fire hose as a bad example of "design patch" (in contrast to a good example of patch) where the designer, in order to solve a problem, introduce another and more complex problem, which leads to a more laborious interaction. In other words, the overall complexity of the system has merely been shifted from the problem of safeguarding a key to an interaction and security problem: what a good example of the Tesler's Law of the Conservation of Complexity!