This is the first action project for a class titled, Design and Engineering. So far we’ve talked a little bit about what design and engineering mean. Along with that, took time to understand the design process and what things are a part of it. For this first action project the goal was to create a student lounge based off of a room in our school. A big part of this explains how our design fits SDG 4.a which is to build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. With this action project in mind, we went to harold washington library to look at their student lounge to get some ideas and inspiration.
Here’s a few pictures inside of Harold Washington Library:
Library Lobby photos, RBL, 2022
Here’s my sketch based off the field experience below:
RBL’s Sketch, RBL, 2022
In my design I tried to create as many learning places for people as possible in a confined face. The main idea with this at the time was based off of a building at the school called the Salon. It’s a somewhat small space but has many different areas where you can sit down and do work. The problem in most of the spaces in my school are not extremely open and based around specific work environments. I wanted to open up the space a little bit more so there will be more options and give a different view to the room.
Here’s my design below along with an explanation of some of the things inside:
Student lounge 3d Design, RBL, 2022
I designed this with children and people with disabilities in mind because there not always taken into account when building spaces. Now to the explain the room, there’s a button outside of the door that could open it automatically. On the outside with the door there’s an automatic button that disabled students or faculty could use in order to get inside the room. This allows for a more inclusive space and also ties into SDG 4.a with making learning more accessible for people with disabilities. The red block is supposed to be a bookshelf/library. This is because we do have books at the school, but not a lot of places students can access them easily. The orange block is a simple storage shelf. The circular lamp along with the gray prism, is a desk area along with the purple circle chairs. Lastly, there’s the green couch with a circle table with a smart board in the front of the room.
In conclusion I did enjoy doing this action project because it got me to try to do new things like sketching and design. I also enjoyed going to the Harold Washington Library because it’s a place I went to a few times in the past so it was nice to go back again. One thing that made this action project difficult for me was getting used to using Sketchup again. It froze up on my computer a lot so that made creating the design really hard. If I was to do this again I’d draw out all of my designs instead of using Sketchup. Even though it would take me a while to draw, it wouldn’t take me as long to get a final product.
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