Project 3: Living and Working Smart

Container homes: Tranquil Lake Pad

For our last project, we had to design a home using 3 containers for our artist. I had to design the container based on my artist and just for my artist to live in. This project was based on living smart and living in compact design and working with small spaces. Since the first project, I have known more about my artist, Haris Rashid, and his work also and how I could design the home just for him and fit his needs and make it comfortable for him to live in.

The first thing I had to do is know what spaces my artist would need, public and private space. I had several main spaces that I had to consider when I design the spaces in my containers which were: gallery (public area), bedroom and living room (resting area), kitchen, toilet and workshop/office. The second part I had to consider is the arrangement of my containers. I have laid out my container to be like this, having two smallest containers at bottom and one long container on top of it, to separate the different areas and spaces. First containers at bottom is only for public area, which is the gallery, the other container at bottom is for workshop/office where it is a private but also public area when he wants to invite clients in. Lastly, the top container, which is the main house, is all private only.

During the whole of project 3, we had to do a lot of technical drawings and perspective drawings  for our final presentation. We had to do it several times because it was corrected over and over again to make sure all off our drawings were correct. I had trouble doing some of these drawings such as the oblique because my containers were arranged in a weird angle and I wasn't sure how to draw it but at the end I did it with also some help from lecturer. Perspectives were also a very important part to put in our final presentation because it shows the interior view of the different spaces/rooms I have in my house design.

One of the things that was a challenge for me in this project was to make sure that I have put my key words onto the design of my house. This was difficult for me because my keywords were a bit difficult to use. I used my keyword exotic by placing a lot of house plants around the house and I tried also from the furniture, I used vibrant by showing the bright red colour scheme I have throughout the house, and I used experimental by having many different mechanisms in my house.

One of the main things we needed to have in our house is a compact design and also a mechanisms which I had quite a few. My compact design was a seat/shelf unit where the TV wall could be moved to reveal a small seating area and the other side is a shelving unit where she shelf can also pull out.

Coming to the final presentation, we had to compose all of our drawings onto two A0 using digital and then print it and then render. This was one of the hardest part for me because I was afraid of rendering and making a mistake and also took a long time to render everything. I also named my house 'Tranquil Lake Pad' since the site that my house is in has a small lake and the area can also be quite and breezy. My site was located in Bangsar South.

Lastly, we had to do a model for our house design. This I found very difficult and also took a very long time for me to do because I had quite a lot of small components. It was really challenging to make all the furnitures in the house but luckily, I did almost all of the furnitures. If I had enough time, I would've tried to make the mechanisms actually work and able to move so I could show the judges. Also, we had to do a sample board by including some of the materials that my design of the house have.



 

Finally, the day of our final presentation.. I was nervous but I knew what was to be expected since I've done a presentation in my first semester. I was more confident this time around because I knew what to say and what to do also. The judge who critic me was very harsh but also gave me a lot more help for my next semester and future assignments and told me how I could improve which I am grateful about. I really enjoyed this project because I could finally design the interior of a house and the outside of the house. It was really fun designing all the interiors and rendering the interiors of the house drawings. The model was quite hard but it really did help me improve to make my modelling skills much more better in the future. The rendering of the drawings also will help me to improve my rendering skills for future assignments. I am grateful to all the lecturers that had helped me.

Solution to Lighting Problems

ASSIGNMENT 2

Solutions & Proposals

CAR PARK

A car park is the ‘front door’ of the building, while also serving its primary functional role. Therefore, the car park needs to have that initial appearance, ease of use, signage, bright lighting and clear directional marking. All of this will help a car park to be a more safe environment. Furthermore, a light and airy environment should be one of the major goals of a car park. These are all problems that the Suriamas Condominium have: no bright lighting and no bright signages to indicate which block is where. This makes the car park in the apartment very confusing and not safe, especially during the nights. 

       

      

-Dark corridors during day to clubhouse

-Dark corridors at night on each floor of the building

-Lack of light in parking lot during day and night

-Broken lights found everywhere -causes lack of light

Solution to Problem:

• Add more colours: 
• Adding more colour helps reflect natural and artificial lights on the material’s reflective properties which will overall make the car park more brighter and safe for people to go through and park. 
• Bright colours could be added to the columns and also to the floor so the light can reflect of the ground, automatically making the car park brighter. 
• Pigmented resin coating systems can be used to protect the parking structure but also adding more colours and improving lighting levels through the reflective properties. 

   

 

• Change type of light: 
• Another way to fix the light problem is to change the intensity of the light bulbs to make it brighter. One of the problems that this apartment have is also that the light intensity is very low, therefore it does not really have a major impact when the light is turned on, it is still dark. 
• Also, to change the type of light used since most of the light in this car park is mostly broken or can break easily and then the light will not work. 
• LED luminaries, such as the Monsun 2 LED lights, could perhaps be used in the car park instead because it conserve energy and cuts operating and maintenance cost. 

CLUBHOUSE CORRIDOR

Another place that also has a lighting problem is in the corridors of each floor and also the corridor to the clubhouse. For the corridor to the clubhouse, it is pitch black when the light is turned off during the day and it is dark in the corridor of each floor during the night when some of the lights are broken or not even on. First of all the corridor for the clubhouse, it is dark during the day and therefore residents won’t even know that this corridor actually goes to the clubhouse because the corridor is not welcoming, dark and no signages. 

Solution to Problem:

• Add more colours:
• One of the ways is to add more colours as some colour can reflect lights. 
• This corridor to the clubhouse needs to add more lighter colours so the light can bounce around and brighten up the corridor space. 
• The use of soft lighting can also be used with the natural lighting to brighten up the corridor since it is not really possible to change the overall architecture of the building so soft lighting could be used instead. 
• At night, LED lighting tucked away in the ceiling can really brighten it up and also make it feel much more welcoming for residences. 
• Also, adding more decorations such as wall paintings could help too. 

RESIDENTIAL FLOOR LEVEL

The corridors for each floor in the resident building is one of the most important place to make resident feel safe, easy to find the apartment directions and to do this, one of the main concerns is to have bright lights in the corridor. However, the corridors here do not have bright lights as some of the lights are broken and perhaps not enough lights or not that bright of light used. Especially on the highest floor of the building, the corridor is dark when it is at night and this is a problem because it can be dangerous.

Solution to Problem:

• Add more colours: 
• Most of the walls and ceiling in the corridor has a very duel white paint that has been ruined by water and not been painted over again. 
• One of the ways to fix the light problem is to have a brighter neutral colour on the walls and ceiling as the light can reflect, making the corridor brighter naturally.

• Change type of light:
• Another way to fix the problem of lack of light for both corridor for each floor is to change the type of light used. 
• LED luminaries should be used instead because it is easy to install and reduces the overall energy consumption. It also has a long service life that keeps maintenance costs low. 
• The types of LED luminaries could be used are recessed luminaries  or diffused lighting could also be used as it minimises glare. 

The type of light used in all the corridors and in the parking area right now is open fluorescent luminaries. However, this should be changed to LED lights instead as there are more advantages of using that instead of fluorescent. 

• Fluorescent lights (disadvantages): 
• Contains mercury -the amount of mercury in a fluorescent lamp is about 4 milligrams; this is an incredibly small amount and this is converted into mercury vapour when the lamp is turned on and is important for the lamp’s ability to make light. 
• Since it is small amount of mercury in it, it will finish quite fast which is why the lamp will not be able to emit that much of a light and is why these are broken quite fast. 
• It also has a higher initial cost and aren’t as efficient as LED. 
• Also, it has lumen depreciation where the colour varies and fades; at different stages of the lamp’s life, different light levels will be produced which will result in dark corners in different areas of the space. This is why the corridor some parts are darker than others, inconsistent because of the type of light. Life rating is an average of only 20,000 hours. 

• LED lights (advantages):
• It is energy saving and can save up to 45 to 65 percent in energy cost if changed to LED from fluorescent. 
• It has a much longer life than fluorescent with 50,000 hours.  
• It also contains no mercury which makes it more environmentally- friendly choice and this os important as this is a residential building. 
• The LED lamp also does not burn as fast to fluorescent which is why it will require very low maintenance and less broken lights in the corridors.