Drawings & reflection

Due to our modelling having taken longer than expected – with a pressurised session due for tomorrow morning as we race towards the deadline – I find myself at home, up late, working on content for the poster that supports our design.

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Knowing that George is home working on the floorplan and technical data, and Marcela working up our precedence studies and concepts, I have the overall sketches, performance schematic, room sizes and infrastructure plan to complete, to add to our poster design tomorrow morning when we meet.

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I’ve added a couple of designs also for our flat pack furniture – needed to maximise shipping container space – plus a quick logo for our building – the Life Shell.

Could this last minute work have been avoided? If we were to do this again next week then I’m certain we’d structure our weeks schedule more strictly.

We probably spent a touch too long on design and planning, although slightly conflicting information from our lecturers had us scratching our heads, lack of thought for how we’d actually build the model resulted in time that could have been used more efficiently, and leaving the poster till the end all were roadbumps as we’ve travelled through the week.

The team has worked well I think, although there was a difference of opinion at the design decision stage, a good compromise was worked out and I must say I’m pleased with our structure design which has a lot more performance positives than I saw originally – where at the start of the week I was more for a conventional ‘boring’ approach that simply fulfilled functional requirements.

Life Cube inspires design

A little late in the week, but this is the Life Cube which has been something to draw a little inspiration from.

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An emergency shelter deployable that packs into a tiny box, and erects in 5 minutes with room for 5 people.

Carrying it’s own air supply it is ideal for first response and emergency deployment applications.

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Researching fabric structures this week I have been amazed at what’s possible and already in production thanks to innovation.

Many inflatable deployables are used already by industry, military and aerospace. The military field hospitals and surgeries particularly are extremely well designed and pertinent precedent studies that have informed our project.

The thermal properties, lightweight space saving aspect and minimum material production value certainly give this form of construction good credentials.

I’ve seen innovative uses also such as covers for loft extension/roof work in place of scaffold, and wind breaks for house protection use in areas prone to hurricanes.

This is a structural form that we’ve not touched upon through university lectures in any detail but seems to me to have huge potential, with likely more attention paid to it in the very near future (particularly due to it’s flexibility and green credentials).

Florence Nightingale Unites Students in Fight against Ebola

Florence Nightingale or “The Lady of The Lamp” was a Supernurse born in 1820, who through the course of her work developed ideas and theories that have influenced the world of medicine in fields of hospital planning, military health and sanitation.

She trained in Germany, and went on to play a part in healthcare during the Crimean War, developing the treatment of soldiers in the field.
Returning to England she established the Nightingale Training School in London before her death in 1910.

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