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

Development work-Week 9
This week our task was to develop a set of principles that we were all happy with that our future designs would all include. I must admit I really didn't think that this task would be as easy as it was. Using the research that we had compiled really helped make this process a lot easier as they were guidelines as to what fundamental to our design and what wasn't.. The two fundamental ideas for our future designs were passive cooling and bringing the outdoors in. During this design phase we were really conscious of the fact that we had to include the 'off the grid' aspect. So to address this we talked about things such as grouping the services together and discussed what type of systems we should use that would best work not only for the environment but for the overall scheme.

The bringing the outdoors in and the passive cooling aspect really go hand in hand. the most important part of the design is that we need to feel comfortable in it, the ways in which to achieve this we felt were zoning of the areas known as 'pods' which all our individual designs incorporated. Other ways to cool the house which we wanted to include into the final design were cross ventilation achieved via louvers and large windows and doors opposite one another. Other ways in which we discussed to open up the house to the surrounding environment included movable screens, a lot of bi-fold doors and bathroom that opens to the environment which is not only for aesthetics but for ventilation purposes also.

Team meeting minutes from Friday May 4th, 2007
All team members present
Discussion about our three ideas and collaborating them into one final idea

More Development

Further Development

Here is my refining ideas.
Combined all the ideas that the clients wanted and tried put them into the idea. The main was that all the flooring was the same material so it feels like one big area when all open.