Finale: Poster + Model

Poster (1)

Poster (2)












(poster 3:coming!)


Pictures of the model.

Mosman 3:Progress Development

This week, we concentrated on materials.

Selection of materials

For windows,we've decided (and it was also suggested by our tutor, Sean) to install double glazed windows in all areas so that it could keep the house warm during the night

For the roof,we've tried a couple of materials like mudbricks, strawbale and rammed earth.
And we have difficulties in choosing due to the shape of our roof.

For walls and floors,we've decided to use concrete because its high capacity in thermal mass.

This is a picture of a rammed earth wall

Rammed Earth Construction

Rammed earth is a simple construction technique based on compacting earth between formwork to make a homogeneous mass wall. It has recently become popular in Australia, the USA and other parts of the world because it is recognised as a sustainable building material. Few realise the full extent of historic rammed earth construction and the varied techniques used in the past.

To construct a rammed earth wall, a formwork box is constructed using two parallel timber sides, supported on two or more horizontal timbers. Vertical timbers are then placed through holes in the ends of the horizontal timbers thereby restraining the formwork. These vertical timbers are connected at the top using rope, forming an open box.

Soil is taken from the ground and if necessary sieved to remove larger particles. Additives such as straw or lime may be mixed into the soil, which is then dropped into the formwork in layers, usually around 150mm high. The layer is then compacted using a heavy rammer. Upon compaction of one layer, another layer of earth is placed in the formwork and the process repeated until the formwork is full.

The formwork is then removed and placed on the next set of horizontal timbers where the process is repeated. Once the formwork has been moved on, the horizontal timbers are removed from the wall leaving characteristic holes. Upon completion of one horizontal level the formwork is moved vertically, the mass of standing wall being known as a lift. A rammed earth wall can thus be constructed using very little manpower and crucially without recourse to temporary works such as external scaffolding.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Drammed%2Bearth%26fr%3Dytff1-wdgt%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dytff1-wdgt&w=242&h=234&imgurl=www.dur.ac.uk%2Fp.a.jaquin%2Fimages%2Frammed_earth_formwork.gif&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dur.ac.uk%2Fp.a.jaquin%2Frammed_earth.htm&size=9.4kB&name=rammed_earth_formwork.gif&p=rammed+earth&type=gif&no=1&tt=8,101&oid=99f992e0c5077a9a&ei=UTF-8

Mosman 3:Design Development

How 3 designs were combined into one.

Initially, we agreed to take Munya's design (re:week 9/10 initial drawings) as our main design feature,and Ilya's roofing system( for the roofing system) as well as Kartina's water feature concept into the design. So we've taken the pros and cons from each of our design and combined it into one.

And oh,not to forget, we did take into consideration as well the comments from the client group and the tutors.

Munya's design(Comments from the client group and tutor(alex)
-great design.
-not too sure about the location of the rooms and bathrooms
-great ventilation system

Ilya's design
-great roofing system
-the tutor also commented on the glass windows,he suggested glass windows should be put to all north windows and eaves should be installed where the windows are located.
-she has used concrete as her main material ,and the tutor commented on that saying with concrete houses like these it is not a good idea to use stilts.


Kartina's design
-good water feature -for cooling effect
-comments from the client group:the site is independant.(must find source for electricity and water)
-too much space used(minima concept should be applied)


So,we the pros and cons,we've decided to analyse more on how to make the house:
a)energy sufficient
b)minimal
c)cool ( and thats because its hotter during summer and we would like to concentrate on the main criteria of this climate--hot-dry)

Mosman 3:Week 9/10 Progress + Development

We were asked by our tutor to do a research on the sun angle and rainfall analysis.

Here are the results:
That's for the annual rainfall.We've come to a conclusion that it doesn't rain as much in a year. So probably for the chosen material it would be the best if we were to use mudbrick (because we need to reapply the material at least, after every wet season)

And here is the result for the calculated sun angle

Mosman 3:Week 9 Design Development

Each of us were asked to produce our initial sketches/drawings of what we think might be the ideal design for our chosen climate.

And here are some of the scanned images from Munya,Ilya and Kartina.

Munya's Design

Basically, Munya's design concentrates on the ventilation of the house, thermal mass and other aspects such as the sun angle (how far the eaves should go,etc.)

Ilya's Design

Ilya's design is concentrated on ventilation of air through the house and she has designed an open courtyard for the air cooling effect during the day.

Kartina"s design

Kartina has concentrated on building a space where it could symbolize a village.Unfortunately, the task requires the minima concept. She has also included a few water feature concept such as ponds to keep the are cool during the day.

The designs were then discussed with our tutor and then the designs were later combined into one.

MOSMAN 3: Domus

Week 8 Progress

This week we were given several pictures of the area that were assigned for the hot dry climate option.
We are not really sure of the name of the place, but most of the file pictures were named Djjilumbuddi. We tried "Google Earth" to identify the place ,unfortunately no results were found. Due to this problem, we would just assume that the place is somewhere in the Great Sandy Desert area in Western Australia.

Map of the location

(We will update on our designs for Week 8 soon)

Richard thankyou very much for the beer and pizza that you provided for all of us it was very much appreciated!!!

Bi Fold Doors

Bi Fold glass doors are a good way to accommodate a transforming house. Allows for maximum aire flow when hot but also keeps the inside warm when needed.

Louvers

This is an example of louvers at the top of the walls to allow for air flow.

DOMUS PRESENTATION:
This is our presentation of our domus idea, including our model and our posters.
Well a very stressful week for us and I am sure for many other groups also. Let's see a lot of work and not enough hours in the day to do it all!!! One thing that made things a lot easier for us in this final week was that our model was already built (we were very organized I think and completed it the week before!!) and also that we had started the layout, and our cad drawings were well underway. Well no matter how prepared you think you are there are always a million and one things to do at the end which we found and that meant that we had to literally run to Cavalier before closing time to get our posters printed. It was a tough decision as to what to include into the posters and what not to, it was really all about how can we explain our scheme but also address the brief at the same time?


Anyway all worked out well in the end as we had a really good review, (something that we weren't overly confident about once we turned up on Friday for pin-up as the standard was so incredibly high!)























































Our review:

Went really well considering our non-existent confidence. We did our presentation by each talking about a poster each, and any questions that were asked regarding our poster specifically we would answer it or if one of us had a mental blank one of us would jump in. Overall the reviewers thought it was a really great concept and that we addressed all aspects of the brief in-depth. Things that need to be improved on in the future are our poster presentation (which is understandable as there were so many fantastic posters!!), as well as our model making skills could be improved, using the laser cutter instead of hand next time to have a really polished model.


This is the overall gist of our design:
A 'pod' house ideal for the hot-humid environment. The main design features that are carried through all aspects of the design are passive cooling and opening the house to t he surrounding environment.


Poster 1:
Shows our design on the 12x36 metre site, the floor plan which clearly shows the pod idea with a rectangular plan, to minimize east and west glazing and walls and maximize south and north facing windows and walls. The floor plan also shows that there really aren't a lot of solid walls rather bi-fold doors, showing that the house is very minimal in construction. Also shown are some of the development work for domus and also the services discussed. In the end we devised a system that would work well in the environment and also incorporates water re-use. Firstly there are 3 water tanks, one rainwater which is located under the house to keep cool. The second tank is rainwater again but is located outside for solar heat gain, for hot water use. The final tank is treated grey water for re-use for the toilet and washing. There is a composting toilet system employed, the treated water then gets distributed for outdoor use. For power and hot water we chose solar panels located on the roof with batteries under the house for storage of electricity.

















Poster 2:
On this poster we included our inspiration such as other hot-humid houses and two sections and four elevations were also included on this poster. The sections and elevations really depict the use of timber louvers for all the pods and large expanses of glass. The elevations and sections also show how the pods all connect, but are all individual, distinguished by the different roof heights.


































Poster 3:
Shows the surrounding environment, the pictures really show why we wanted our design to be like, we wanted to be in the environment as it is so picturesque. Also depicted is the dissecting of the building as it is quite hard to understand what rooms are and what are not. Also included are three dimensional pictures of the domus in the environment which give a better understanding of the overall design than sections, elevations and plan can. The other drawings included are a wall section, showing the lightweight construction as well as a diagram showing the cross ventilation that occurs in our design.

Week 11, Fiday 18th May, 2007
Detailed design and representation of domus

This week I drew up the final floor plan for our domus idea on cad as well as the beginning of the elevations on cad for the final. As shown a few things need to be changed and added. The items that need to be changed include vegetation, services, stairs and balustrade. One major thing that need to be changed are the line weights, need to work out what information is the most important and what to reduce down in pen thickness for the least relevant information.

We're still keeping the main principles that we developed including:
-lightweight construction, for cooling purposes
-louvers at the top of the walls for cross ventilation
-large expanses of bi-fold doors for cooling purposes and also to bring the outdoors in
-windows opposite one another for cross ventilation
-movable timber screens for cooling purposes
-'pod' design or zoning of areas for cooling purposes, also to distinguish private and communal space
-grouping of services together so minimal plumbing etc.
-elevated for ventilation
-large eaves for shading purposes

Basically our design is about being as comfortable in the space as possible, keeping the house at a comfortable temperature and numerous different ways to achieve this.














During this week we researched for more in-depth information into the services for our domus idea as it is an essential part of the whole concept to be 'off the grid.' So the following are our final for services for the domus idea.

Services for our domus idea:

-Power:
Solar panels with adjustable frames for optimum solar gain.
-Water:

*Rainwater tanks:
Storage tanks supplied for firstly roof water catchment tank under the house, second a tank for grey treated water that is in the open and the third tank will be for hot water use such as shower and kitchen which is again located outside for heating purposes.

*Black water:
The toilet water supply will be grey water supplied, and the system will be a septic tank and treatment tank, for water re-use on the garden areas.

*Grey water:
A treatment system again for the water from the laundry, bathroom, and kitchen which can be re-used in the house. A storage tank for the treated grey water will be supplied.

-Waste:
Chooks and worm farm for food scraps.

-Windows:
Double-glazed windows with a high performance external tint, a low e-coating and timber frame will be used as it can reduce cooling energy requirements by almost 70%.

Week 10, Friday 11th May, 2007 Detailed design and representation of domus

During this week we used our set of design principles, basically elements that were the same throughout all our designs and also individual aspects that were liked in each of our designs. We tried to incorporate everything we liked about all of the designs some worked some didn't, one thing that made the process a lot easier I feel is that we all had fairly similar ideas of what we wanted the final product to look like and without to much conflict within the group, which also meant that things got completed a lot quicker.

Mosman 3: DOMUS

Project 3:Domus (MOSMAN 3)

Our team , (Munya,Ilya and Kartina) has decided to choose the "hot-dry" climate . The reason why this climate was chosen is because it is challenging and from our different cultural background, we have never experienced living in a desert environment before.

Week 7 Progress

For the first week of this project, we were asked to analyse our climate zone.

Characteristics of Hot-dry

• Summers are hot, and it seldom rains.
• Winter days are cool and warm, however winter nights are ultimately cold
• The air is dry
• Intense sunshine and little cloud
• Glare is a problem in this climate
• Big difference between day and night temperature.

We've discovered that there were a lot of constraints in designing a house in this particular climate. So we've decided each of the problem into several solutions.


Problem 1: Intense Sunshine

• The intensity of the sun in this area is quite high, therefore when building a roof, we need pale surfaces to reflect the sun. This does not only apply to roofs, but also to other surfaces like walls,etc.

• For windows, we did a research on the sun angle and we've discovered that the sun angle during winter days is 48'C and during summer days is 94'C. With this discovery we now know where we should place our windows and how far the eaves should go in order to block overexposed sunlight. We've also discovered that we should consider of having small north windows set high under the eaves. However, there is an disadvantage to this, because smaller windows would reduce night ventilation.

• Vegetation is also required to be planted around the house.

• The use of solar panel is highly recommended in this climate.
  

Problem 2: Low humidity of air

• Water features such as fountains and little garden pools are beneficial, if water supply permits.
• It is advisable to have a lot of plants around the house so that the house will have a natural evaporative cooling effect from the plants.

Problem 3: Large temperature difference during the day/night

• Bedrooms should be of lighter construction, so they cool quickly at night
• Areas other than bedrooms should be of heat storage materials (concrete, bricks) so that it will keep the room at a lower temperature during the day.

Team Alie, Alex, Amy. Domus team design sketches.

Our final team design has been formed. Here is the plan, section and elevation sketches along with a perspective drawing. This design incorporates the major aspect of pods joined by a linkway. The plan is linear along the east west axis to minimise sun heat penetration with large open spaces, allowing for the entire building to be "transformed" through movement of screens and doors. The roofs of the pods are different to the roof of the linkway in order to distinguish the spaces on a broader view, without compromising their ability to transform into different spaces, whether public or private.

Team Alie, Alex, Amy. Domus concept sketches.

These are reviewed sketches of our Domus concept after conciltation with our clients. The first plan shows an almost completely open area, between two platforms which are the floor and roof. The "pod" theme still exists, with shower/ toilet pod separate to the bed pods. The plan is rectilinear to bring unity between the separate pods, however, creates massing on the east and west sides. A mre linear aproach would be desired.

Domus Assignment Initial Concepts.

Specific details relating to my domus idea

These specific details include our own ideas or what all our plans have in common and also some suggestions that our clients made