Project 1: Development

For awhile there it seemed that we were completing a construction assignment because there was a lot of little contruction detail sketches, but this was all part of helping us to understand how the building would get put together.

And so after a few more sketches, our building design was taking shape...

We decided to move away from the traditional design of a 'Mod-5' which incorporated two classrooms and a shared wet area/storage/office, by designing a singular classroom which incorporated its own wet area and storage within. Therefore our design was more flexible as it worked independently. Our design was based on a 8 x 6m grid. Setting out this grid early on in the project proved very useful as it not only helped us in determining our steel structure quite easily but it also allowed us to repetitively utilize 2m long panels on the facade evenly. And so the main feature of our classroom became the movable recycled plywood panels. But not all the external wall panels could be movable and so it was decided that they would be a form of SIP- Super Insulated Panel, providing enough thermal resistence to balance out the heat loss/ heat gain from the weaker parts of the structure. The butterfly roof allowed for openable windows to provide natural ventilation and also provided the correct angle for the solar panels.

Internally our design incorporated an enormous lattice-like shelving system (inspired by the work of Shigeru Ban) which provided storage as well as a space to display work thanks to the small external windows. Our design also includes a clever panel which when used internally, divides the wet area from the computer/reading space, but when slid out of the building, creates a unique outdoor learning space.