Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Week 1

The Summer team is off to a great start! Now that we have moved into our Mountaintop space in Launch Bay C, we have begun researching, brainstorming, and creating. Our preliminary work has included setup, planning, shop training, and familiarizing ourselves with our workspace and resources. With these initial steps out of the way, we can move on to our next phase.
After reviewing the raw data collected by the travel team, we determined that the main issues we want to explore are heat, ventilation, and sunlight in the homes. We will be keeping in mind cost, climate, and aesthetic value as we explore solutions to these issues. We may also explore finding a way to incorporate plastic into our design to help reduce the abundance of improperly disposed plastic waste found in Senegal.
Our first step will be constructing a 2m x 2m room made of concrete blocks with a corrugated steel roof, one window, and one door. This models a typical Senegalese living space and will be used as a control for comparing any new techniques we experiment with this summer. We have an initial list of materials we will need and some of our team members are already started constructing our block mold in the wood shop, so as soon as we get permission and have everything we need, we will begin constructing our Senegalese model.
We have also begun brainstorming and looking into possible techniques we might want to try or expand upon after we have completed our first model. We have considered rethinking the standard cmu block to incorporate a brise-soleil component in it. The advantages of this approach would be that it provides ventilation and airflow while obstructing direct sunlight. The cons would be that it allows for bugs and dust to enter the space, so we would have to figure out some kind of screen system to prevent this. 
Another technique we have researched is the use of earth bags for construction. This seems like a viable solution because sand is abundant in Senegal, so material cost would be very low. Sand also serves as a good insulator, so this could potentially keep the spaces cooler. These are still in the very early stages of the project, but we excited to start building and to see where our preliminary ideas take us!

No comments:

Post a Comment