Sustainable Design
This project started with me thinking I would struggle to find materials and finish the project. I felt that this project would be a big step in my academic career. This project made me demonstrate almost all of the HOHAM skills as well as many of the 21st-century skills. I enjoyed the challenges that came with building a structure.
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When going on the field trips I realized how many options humanity has already laid out for me in the form of sustainable design. The field trip to twin buttes enlightened me about the ways they kept heat in by using wood chip bricks. One of the guest speakers walked with us around campus and told us about the landscape of the different areas. These resources helped me critically think about how my structure would remain sustainable.
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Sustainable design is a structure or constructs that provide use without using materials that exceed its building cost. A cabin in the woods is sustainable for maybe twenty years when it has burned enough wood to build another cabin. A sustainable house would provide its own energy, keep heat in, support itself as an individual object.
The empathy interviews told my group about what the students want. Some students wanted privacy, some students wanted an outdoor space. The empathy interviews were a great starting point as now that we knew what some students requested, we had ideas to build off. Without the empathy interviews we wouldn’t have had a good idea of what the students needed/wanted in their school, therefore we would have had to make up more of the project than we already did.
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When given the freedom to prototype my group aimed big in our prototyping phase. We made two prototypes, one was the original idea, which we learned there was not enough space for. There was also another prototype which we put at exhibition This process gave us many ideas, and a feedback form gave us the idea that we decided to build.
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Our first prototype showed a basic structure that was buildable. The first prototype had clear imperfections and my group and I fixed them coming to our second prototype. Our second prototype was more structured and understandable. Our final project was based on a piece of feedback my group got on our second prototype.
HOHAM #1: During this project, most of my 21st-century skills had increased. Although many of my skills increased, the one that elevated the most was collaboration. This really showed how building my structure required a lot of coordination and communication. Everyone in the group had to help out or the project wouldn’t have been finished. The group had to coordinate how much each member had to pull a string in order to suspend a tarp. This project really helped me with my ability to help others.
HOHAM #2: After this project, my ability to problem solve has improved greatly. My group ran into quite a few problems and we all had to come together and problem solve. When we didn’t have enough money to buy the tarp for our project we came together and created a Gofundme. Problem-solving was one of my weaker areas out of the 21st-century skills and this project helped me improve them, therefore, improving my capabilities as a student.
HOHAM #3: A problem that I solved in this project was when we didn’t have enough money. Our project revolved around a tarp and we needed to purchase. In order to solve this problem, we tried to make a Kickstarter but that only caused more problems. My group eventually came to the conclusion that a go fund me was a viable option.
HOHAM #4: The original idea for the project was to build a gazebo but when the prices came in it was way out of reach. Our group at the height of our project only had $120, the gazebo was $5,000 to build. We were not going to be able the get enough funding so we changed the idea altogether. This setback turned into a point of learning as how to accept our limits.
HOHAM #5: At the beginning of this project, I had big ambitions for how we could make the Animas campus more sustainable. I believed I would have succeeded and finished the project when the structure was built. After a week thinking this, I got taken back by reading what the definition of “Sustainability” was. Once I realized that my original idea was very unsustainable, and we didn’t have the budget for it, we changed to a much more sustainable idea.
HOHAM #6: If I were talking to a new freshman starting this project I’d tell them to have high ambitions, but not too high. My group had high ambitions but came out with something much simpler and it did fine. One group had much too high ambitions and tried to follow them through the entire project and ended up not finishing. Being realistic about how much you can get done in 2-3 weeks is key to finishing this project.