On the 2nd day of the design week I started the day with 2 of my group mates. This is because Sam from Chichester College stayed in college to start working on the model making and Haroon from Hazelwick College also stayed in college to continue with his 6th Form studies while working on some research for the project. In the morning I started working on the Mondays blog with my other AT group mates we decided to finish the blogs as soon as we can so we can start with the research for the Eco-cabin.
After we finished the blogs we then talked about the rough design of the Eco-cabin to refresh our minds from the day before. We then then start developing the eco-cabin with its workability and all in all perfomance as a whole. We then finalized some of the materials and mechanisms for the structure.
We then start looking at the internal layout for the cabin as a group with Laura and Aiden. While we were working on the layout we came out with some examples sketches for the floor plan however we did struggle with laying out the furnitures due to limited amount of space.
Throughout the day we develop our internal layout by looking into exisiting similar products such as caravans and camping buses in this way we can apply some of the space saving furniture layouts into the cabin for example pull out and hidden furnitures. We found the research very useful in terms of kitchen and bedroom layouts the furnitures were very compact but still have enough space and function for the occupants. We then also consider that the eco-cabin will only be used for short period of time which will probably only be for a week therefore there will be fewer items and furnitures.
Furthermore another reason why we striggled with setting up the internal layout is because of the limited space left when the furnitures are place in the cabin this is because it is required to have enough space for disabled access around the cabin. For the first step of considering the movements required for wheelchair were the doors we decided to have a double door for the main entrace which also provides lighting/ventilation in the summer and sliding door for the toilet this is because it will be easier for wheelchair users to just slide the door across rather than open a door which will need a lot of openning space.
Further in the day we also talked about the external wall and other components of the cabin. Initially it was suggested to use cork for the whole insulation of the house however after further research we decided not to use it due to high cost of the material. We replaced the cork insulation idea with Kingspan insulation with 40mm thickness which is reasonable enough to keep heat in and cold temperature out of the cabin this also gave us an advantage because it allow us to eliminate minimum amout of internal space taken away. The same insulation will be then used through out the whole cabin. The final development for the eco-cabin of the day was the external cladding our group mate Charlie introduced the group a new material called Neowood. This type of material is a recycled manufactured plastic which can be finished by the desired paint or appearance, very environmentally friendly and waterproof.
Before the day ended we then finished the internal layout for the cabin. It allow enough bathroom, kitchen and bedroom space considering the wheelchair space requirements.