Essay on Class Log Heat Absorption

Submitted By lmbohm
Words: 846
Pages: 4

For my eighth grade project, my topic of interest was architecture. I decided to use architecture by design a house and then building a mini model of it. I feel that my project connects to the area of interaction “approaches to learning” because I used collaborative skills, problem solving and thinking skills to do each part of my project. The house needed to be affordable and modern enough for the average US family. Therefore, the house needed to be two levels, have a main floor and an upstairs, it needed to be simple, and have an open floor plan. A lot of modern houses have very open floor plans to give the house an open and bigger feeling. I also put in big windows to let in a lot of light, to also give the house an open feeling. The final outcome included each one of these necessities to create an affordable and modern home for the average US family. I used three main sources for my eighth grade project. To inspire my ideas for my creative and modern home, I often looked at architecture magazines. Then, for my digital model, I would refer to my first mentor, Joe DeSousa, because he is a professional architect and works on a lot of homes and housing developments. Joe helped me learn and understand how to use the online software, SketchUp, create the program for the house, create the digital model, and then create a simple and efficient roof for the house. To create my 3D model of the house, I referred to my grandpa, Rodney TeKrony, to help guide me in building the model. He used to work for an engineering company, and often works with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for families in need. After researching about simple and modern houses that average families in the US can afford, I had to make a few changes of how to create and build my model. I found that most modern homes have a very open floor plan, so I made quite a few changes to the program to make it have an open floor plan and for it to fit the family’s needs. Most of my windows and doors had to change then as well because of the change in room sizes and the floor plan. I had to make the windows large enough to let in lots of light so that the house had an open feeling, but I also had to make them small enough that they would fit in the rooms correctly. I also learned that a lot of stairs in modern homes have a landing in the middle that basically turns you around to then start walking up the stairs in a different direction, so I had to create an efficient set of stairs that not only gave the model a very open feeling, but also a very modern look. By the time I had finished my roof, I had created 3 or 4 different versions of my roof because I had to make it efficient to where water and other things would just run right off of the roof and not get caught somewhere to create damage. My exterior designing also had to look very modern and most modern homes have a material called stucco somewhere on the exterior of the home, so