People used to misunderstand that human beings are the most dominant creature on this planet, but it is not always true because when we face natural disaster such as flooding, earthquake, and so on, there are not many things we can do to control it. Along with this thought in the class, we have discussed the that hit Haiti and took away a lot of important things from human beings. Along with this disaster issue, we talked about our contributions to the world as designers in class. As we are designers, there will be at least one thing we can contribute to the world as designing something for human beings. Therefore, my first project has started to find out what can I do to contribute something to society as a designer. Now, the most important thing is to provide space where people can stay and cure their damaged heart in Haiti. Along with this matter, I was assigned to build a shelter with Brittany Stiles, Meghan Kaufmann, and Shane Jones for UNCG faculty and students. The shelter needed to be tested by the aspect of sleeping. I had to design a shelter by using only five found objects and two binding materials.
As usual, I spent a lot of time for brainstorming to make strong connections between my idea and the real structure. Since I had to build a shelter with five found objects, I started to think about an inspiration to make the entire process easier. And then, I started to think about the well-known structure for sleeping. For example, when you think the chair, there would be a standard shape of chair which fits human body well. Since it is about building a makeshift shelter with five found objects, there were more difficulties than in the usual design process. I came up with a peapod as an inspiration. I thought about the structure, which needs to provide comfortable and sufficient space for at least one person. A peapod embraces more than one bean. I thought that its curvy shape provides smoother overall shape to make the occupant feels comfortable in and out.
Before I start working on building the actual structure, I had to find five objects to make shelter; therefore, I got PVC pipes, cardboard, plastic, and sponge. The actual design process was started after I got an inspiration, which is the peapod. I worked with making an actual structure with PVC pipes. At first, I started to join pipes with duck tape and connected each pipe columns with wires, but the pipe columns were not strong enough to stand against wire. Therefore, I got rid of all wires. I covered all pipes with cardboard again and covered all pipes with strings over the cardboard. String covered pipes make a better interior atmosphere.
Then, I made three parts such as two walls, roof, and floor. I considered that it needed to be waterproof, acoustic, and keeping warm since it is a shelter for sleeping. I located plastic between cardboards to make waterproof walls. I made a bubble wrap door on one side of a wall to control the natural light. Before that, there was an idea to make a skylight on the roof, but the idea was removed because I thought the door was enough to control the natural light. And then, I was thinking about the roof part and the floor part to make it smooth since the inspiration was peapod. Therefore, I decided to make the roof and the floor in a curvy shape. We inserted boosters under the top layer of floor to make the curvy shape and to provide more comfortable floor for the occupant. Duck tape was used as a primary binding material and string was used as secondary binding material.
After constructing of the actual structure, we had to make a graphic to help the audience understand our shelter. In my opinion, this is more important than the entire design process because most audiences do not have enough understanding about the field of design. In other words, the designer should be able to persuade a client with professional design knowledge. The size for the graphic was 18" by 24', but we could adjust it. The graphic needed to include the entire process such as inspiration, process sketching, process photos, material board, and summary of team process.
To sum up, I was fortunately placed in a group with awesome group members. Since I started to work on this project, I thought about what I can contribute for my group so I took up a positive attitude during the entire design process. The strongest part among the entire processes was great teamwork so I could make it work. In the middle of the process, I doubted whether we could complete our project or not. However, based on the great teamwork, we did make it successfully. I wondered that what kind of outcome we could produce with these found objects because it was the first attempt to make a thing with five found objects. In addition, without using many tools to build it, I found out that the most functional tool is my hands. Whenever I am about to design or build something, I used to think about the materials first because I believed that better materials produce better outcomes. However, at least for this project, I learned that better quality of materials do not always produce better quality of outcomes. Throughout the entire design process, there were a lot of big and small mistakes, but it led to the better outcomes finally. The most important thing that I have learned throughout this project is there is at least one thing that I can contribute to the society for people, who are having sorrow, is building a shelter to cure their broken heart at least.
