Hi everyone, my name is Monika Jacimovic and I am both a Solar Decathlete and the Interior Design Team Leader for Team UOW. I’ve been a part of Team UOW since the very first workshop and operate within the Design and Construction Team. I’m currently in my fourth year studying a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and am writing to you all from the comfort of my own little study nook at home.
During June, Team UOW held two Architectural Workshops, one at the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) and one at Edmiston Jones GBB, where we worked on developing the design of the Desert Rose. Following our workshop, we held a presentation at Edmiston Jones GBB to go over our most recent design changes and discussed ways on how we can improve and move forward in our design process.
Our first Architectural Workshop was held at UOW’s SBRC and focused on reviewing a new design for the Desert Rose House. Although we already had a house design, the new design brought in a whole new set of ideas and approaches to designing the Desert Rose. As part of our design brief, our objective is to design a house that is dementia friendly and accessible to its occupants. Therefore, when we were reviewing the architectural design of the house we considered all aspects that would both aid and impede the liveability of a person living with dementia and other age-related disabilities. By creating a pros and cons list we gathered a concise and factual template on how we could improve and develop the new design before we make our final decision on which design to proceed with.
The second Architectural Workshop, held a week later, was at Edmiston Jones GBB office. This time round we introduced an updated version of the new design to Mark Jones, the leading architect at Edmiston Jones, and listened to his feedback. Discussing the points Mark brought up, we then proceeded into dividing up into two separate groups. Group 1 focused on improving the new design and Group 2 focused on improving the original design and incorporating some of the new and innovation ideas brought forward since the previous workshop.
As part of this process, an important phrase that Mark brought up was that “design should celebrate life, not itself”. Using this philosophy, we modified both house designs and presented our ideas to the rest of the team. Due to the versatility of the new design, Group 1 presented four different room layouts for the Desert Rose, all using the same flooring size and outline as the new design. Group 2 however only presented one design of the Desert Rose. Although only one design was presented, it did however manage to knead out most of the inconsistencies and issues impacting the original design.
Due to the work already placed into the original design, and the work done to explore different ideas and options for the design, the final Desert Rose house will be modelled based on the original design plan using the new improvements done within the last Architectural Workshop as decided on the 29th of July 2017.
