Independent Project:

During this unit, I decided to produce architectural design concepts for a residence, from houses to apartments to mansions and homeless shelters, that people would consider purchasing, or satisfy a specific demand.

Final Presentation:

Design Studio House Poster

Padlet:

SWOT and Design Brief:

Before this unit began, I was required to produce a design brief, which documented our criteria, our goals, and our constraints. Although the brief is completed now, it went through multiple revision stages. The first stage was considering the strengths and weaknesses of each project and deciding which to pursue: the SWOT analysis.

 

SWOT analysis:

Wooden airplane strengths: It provides a product which I can truly appreciate.

Weakness: highly complex, designs difficult to draw.

Opportunity: Learn significantly more in fusion and illustrator, and challenge my skills in laser cutting.

Threat: Too ambitious, won’t complete the product in time.

 

Residence Design

Apartment, mansion, house architectural design strengths: simple concept, easy to complete.

Weakness: nothing is being produced out of this project.

Opportunity: Learn more about the architecture of an apartment, mansion, and house. Pursuing this project may also enhance my sketching and designing skills.

Threat: None at the present moment.

 

Design Brief:

After careful selection, I decided to devise an architectural design for a residence. Following the SWOT analysis, I produced a design brief, which recorded all necessary information to conduct this project.

First Draft:

Shortly after submission, I received feedback from Rachel:

Design Problem – How will the amenities differ when you’re looking at people from different social classes or looking at different locations or different types of residences?

User/Audience – How will you make the price as well as aesthetic/design appeal to the whole general audience with such a wide range? Would you be able to specify more if you had a specific audience (e.g., billionaires) that way you’d be able to align the price, quality, size and maybe even location?

Goals – Will there be enough time to have designs for mansions and apartments etc.?

I really like how you are planning to create a physical scale model of your design (if the circumstances allow), it’s a really cool way of showing the product, even if it will be constructed at home. Your brief is very clear overall, I can see the direction you want to pursue. Nice work!

Second Draft:

Following the feedback provided by Rachel, I elaborated on the amenities given to each social class within the same amount of space. In addition, I also managed to align the general audience and narrow the range to the middle-upper class. Although I didn’t achieve my desire of constructing a scale model, I developed several architectural designs for houses, apartments, and homeless shelters.

Variation 1: House

The first design variation I developed was a house, following a modern architectural aesthetic and contemporary window layout. Although I was eager to produce architectural designs utilizing different styles, the majority of the examples I found had geometry which was beyond my capability of designing. The first three designs which are featured here were inspired by houses of similar style along my neighbourhood street in Vancouver, Canada. After I became accommodated with the style, I developed the final three, which I am quite satisfied with. Because I selected my audience to be within the middle-upper class range, I wanted to invoke comfort, stability, and artistry in this regard. These houses are stylish, their windows are large (natural light was proven to increase happiness), and most houses here feature gardens and driveways.

 

Variation 2: Apartment

 

The second design variation I began developing was the apartment. Because people residing in the middle-upper class range who dwell within an apartment like this generally live in the city, I similarly want to include as many windows as possible. The metropolitan landscape is devoid of nature, I want to encourage the residence owners to sustain plant life. I also imagine living within a cramped apartment within the city may be unsatisfactory to some owners, so the inclusion of windows and balconies provides the illusion of increased space. In many of these designs, I also incorporated methods of preventing flooding on the apartment, after realizing the flat roof designs, although stylish, were inadequate. Most of these designs contain overhangs, and the second and third design includes an angled roof. The fourth design didn’t include these features because it was a concept for an earthquake-resistant apartment. The structure is embraced by a steel birdcage frame, supported by concrete and rubber shock absorbers, and held firm by shear walls and hysteric dampeners. Although the design certainly isn’t pretty, the concept seems functional. These apartments were mostly inspired by a stack of books in my room.

 

Variation 3: Homeless Shelter

My final design variation involved the homeless shelter, constructed to facilitate large volumes of people. The first design concept was illustrated to invoke safety and stability, which I believe homeless people will probably lack. The columns, the stylish parapets, and the solid rectangular shape all contribute to providing an atmosphere which satisfies the demands of homeless people. In addition, I included a large amount of windows to increase ventilation, because more people requires more air to breathe. However, the building appears too unwelcoming, despite my attempt of utilizing a billboard. My second design addresses this issue, by introducing a new, geometrically complex design concept. Similar to my previous design, the structure incorporates more windows, although in this scenario, this design feature seemed unbeneficial, because in my opinion, it decreased the overall sense of stability and safety. The complex geometric design also does not achieve the structure’s primary goal of supporting large numbers of people. Thus, I believe the first design was the better of the two.

 

Final Design: House

After careful consideration, I decided to produce an architectural design of a house. This house was originally solely the main structure. However, after discussing the architectural design with Lucas, I received feedback to include a garage and attic, in addition to lamps. Following that feedback, I included a driveway which connects to the garage, and a garden along the perimeter of the main building, containing a garden gate and garden fence. In addition to developing a design with basic measurements and labels, a perspective drawing and level breakdown was provided alongside. Overall, I believe I responded successfully to the design problem of producing a functional architectural design with necessary amenities, and additional amenities regarding the social class. All information is well documented, and the design concept appears functional and attractive, something that satisfies the demand of the audience. This project was definitely challenging in its own right, restrained furthermore by our current circumstances. The design concepts were fun, although difficult to develop, and several other designs were discarded in favour of better ones. If I had the chance to receive more feedback, and fewer limitations that restricted my project, I’d be more satisfied. However, I’m still pleased with the result, and throughout this project, I’ve enhanced my architectural design abilities. However, this project still requires a more detailed presentation, which I certainly could’ve achieved if the situation allowed. Although I never managed to construct a scale model as I anticipated, this project was still a major success.

 

Wearable design poster is found here

Unit objective: produce a wearable product that the audience would consider using

Padlet:

Design Concepts:

Design 1.

The concept behind this design is simple: a shirt which contains two shirts, one on the surface and another which can be revealed when you fold the shirt inside out. Although this provides more variety in style and colour than a conventional shirt, I didn’t like the concept for its dull nature, especially since I didn’t place much thought into it. However, that isn’t to say that such a design would fail to succeed in the real world.

Design 2.

 

My second design concept involves a hat which has the capability to retract slits along its circumference,  revealing expanding sheets of nylon powered by servo-driven, unfurling aluminum arms, becoming an umbrella. A handle concealed within a pocket inside the cap functions as the umbrella handle, which is just a segmented plastic rod which has the ability to bend into the shape of a handle. Although the concept behind this design seems simple, producing it in the real world would be an unreasonable and absurd task. Furthermore, I didn’t spend much time thinking of this idea, so this design feels inadequate, and thus, was not selected. This design was inspired by the heat-shield mechanism which is contained within the James Webb Telescope. It’s a tennis court-sized heat shield contained inside a small box a fraction of its size.

Design 3.

This concept illustrates clothes composed of individual pieces which can be customized by their user. Each piece is a component of an item of clothing (e.g., sleeves, torso, collar, hood, etc.), and can be connected via zippers sewn into the cloth. The components each have standardized sizes, and are available in a variety of colours and fabrics. This way, if clothing sustains damage, becomes tarnished, or if seasons change, the requirement to purchase completely new clothes is eliminated. If the thought of zippers sewn into fabric seems disturbing, another alternative involves embedding nickel or cobalt mesh into the cloth, and charging it with electricity, allowing the metal to become magnetic and the separated components to attach. Using nickel or cobalt mesh has the added benefit of being more flexible than zippers, however, this option didn’t compensate for my lack of sewing skills. Thus, this design was not selected as well.

Design 4.

This design concept displays a fabric which suppresses and heals wounds the moment one appears. The cloth is composed of several layers. Between two layers of fabric lies sedative pads to numb the pain, a layer composed of individual, segmented bags of disinfectant and water solution, and a wound protection pad which functions similarly to a bandaid, which adheres to the wound after the other layers are depleted. This product was inspired by the ammunition canisters contained within the American Sherman tanks of WW2, which were protected by layers of rust inhibitor, which would cool and quench bullets on impact, and prevent the tank shells from exploding. This product was within my ability range, and I was considering using this concept as my final design. However, this piece on its own felt like far too little for this project, and I instead pursued larger ones.

Design 5.

This design concept involves cloth which has the capability to passively kill mosquitos, and a wristband which actively does. The mosquito-eliminating cloth is composed of several layers similar to the previous design. I selected this design concept as the final design because it was the clearest cut, and also because I was capable of creating it. The fact that there were two also felt like the right amount to create during this unit in the time limit we were provided. However, this last statement turned out to be false, and I didn’t produce the final product in time.

I later abandoned the sampler entirely because I couldn’t find a method of incorporating it into the wristband, which was composed of wood. The screens also were not screens, the finished product would instead have laser-etched areas where the screens would supposedly be, and neither were the tasers, which would instead be cylinders glued to the screens.

Feedback:

[8:59 a.m.] Sophie Bai [STUDENT]

great drawings and detailed description

[9:00 a.m.] Kanglee Park [STUDENT]

i really like how you added all the descriptions next to the drawings

[9:00 a.m.] Theo Koh [STUDENT]

I like how you made specific detail on your draft

[9:00 a.m.] Joy He [STUDENT]

I like the well made drawing and the descriptions in material and details

[9:01 a.m.] Rachel Fung [STUDENT]

I really like the drawing, and the labels of broken down drawing of the mosquito eliminating cloth makes it really clear. Consider the colour because it could make it stand out more

Following Rachel’s suggestion, I made a refined version of the sketch which would be presented on the design poster. This version is bolder and features colour.

During this unit, I used adobe illustrator to produce the vector drawings for this design. I was also considering using Fusion 360 to produce the wristband, however, I thought building it out of wood would be a far more interesting and engaging challenge. Although I produced a vector drawing, I didn’t get the chance to laser-cut the components, or piece the parts together. Neither did I get the chance to create a sample of the mosquito eliminating cloth. Although I didn’t complete the designs within the time limit, that’s not to say this design was not successful in responding to the design problem. I think these two concepts in conjunction with each other could establish a reasonably effective barrier against mosquitos attempting to sting the user. Modern day mosquito protection clothing, although protects the user against the threat, simply does not remove the source of the problem. This product however, plunges the knife into the heart of the issue, instead of taking a defensive position like most other mosquito protection products do. However, this product does come with the drawback of being exceptionally more expensive than its contemporaries.

Overall, I think that this project was not very successful. Although the design concepts are very thorough and well thought, the final product did not come to fruition, and thus, the primary goal of this unit was not achieved.

Next time, I’d try to focus more on creating my product, instead of focusing the majority of my attention on the concepts.