Converting seawater into Fuel and Final Design.

The US Navy recently found a method to convert seawater into liquid hydrocarbon fuel. This breakthrough in technology enables us to open up the possibility of  building infrastructure on the sea. With that, buildings will have a seemingly, limitless amount of energy at their disposal. The infrastructures can also be eco-friendly they do not need to use conventional energy source which burns coal which then gives off carbon dioxide. This is very much an open possibility for the near future and we decided to use it to our advantage.

Our design plan will be to design a structure, not a skyscraper, for commercial usage only. We have a similar idea of that just that it is only for residential purposes but we find it tough to live everyday live on the sea with almost no nearby convenience stores or grocery stores.

With that, it has unmanned drones as transportation, we feel that if currently, mankind is developing drones like the MQ-9 Reaper for the US Air Force and other small but technologically advance drones, it is only a matter of times they start developing all those for transportation purposes.

With the shifting of most commercial buildings now on the sea, more land area will be opened up for residential spaces. With more area of land to build on, Living Spaces will be bigger and more big families can now live more comfortably and the prices of houses will also drop, leaving low-income and middle-income individuals or as a family, more options to find their perfect home.

Research upon Discovery 2: NORAD

GPS location of NORAD

Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker is an extensive underground complex used as a classified command center by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Built 60-stories into and under the Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the United States of American, the NORAD base is one of the most sophisticated in the world. It consists of brilliantly planned out floor plans that enables the military to work around the clock without facing much difficulties.

The size of the complex is almost equivalent to the size of 5 football fields. Why homes cannot be build like this? Through the research and analysis of the NORAD's underground complex, they are working around the clock, doing classified operations and projects daily and still be able to work out. Homes can also be build like this, an extensive residential complex, topped up with some leisure and entertainment facilities such as maybe a sports hub or a good count, beneath the Earth's surface. This could be the solution to cities that is experiencing land constraints, living spaces would thus be expanded as underground cities can be constructed deep and wide thus giving more space.

Cheyenne Mountain 

Research upon Discovery 1 : Transforming Floor.

With the demand that keeps increasing but little supple is available. Living spaces is shrunk gradually. Limited spaces cause people to encounter difficulties to create spaces. A research was conducted from the Space Generator Transformable Platform by Maria Maliskaya and Grigory Malitsky who won A' Design Award & Competition, 2012-2013, to know how a space can be maximized and the usage to be multifunctional.

The Space Generator Transformable Platform use the system of high adjustable module jack plate that serves as cells. By adjusting the height of the cells with the theory of hydraulic, pneumatic and electric mean. It enables the flat platform to be transformed into three dimentional multi-arrangement level which can create different sectional designs such as square, triangular. circular, etc. The concept is to realize the virtual reality into visual or physical world in three-dimensional procedure.

Methods to collect and represent Data.

A mini class activity was arranged whereby we had to sit together as to group to discuss ways on how we can represent and collect data. This activity is to enhance our thought process when we are doing our brainstorming for our topic. Our group were handed 'Case Study' , we are required to list down methods on how to represent it.

What our group came up with in class.

We also studied the points that other groups has listed down. Some of them are quite interesting that we did not list down. 

Brainstorming and 101 ideas of solution.

An exercise to churn out solutions and answers to the report questions was conducted. 101 ideas was the required quota to reach within 45 minutes. Through various techniques like brainstorming and forced connections along with lateral thinking, the goal was reached. Since our lectures said we do no have to consider the amount of money that has to be put into this solutions, some insane and but legitimate ideas for the future were being brought up, such as living on other planets or creating an actually space residential-like infrastructure in space just like in the movie "Elysium".

Mindmap of 101 ideas.

Four ideas particularly stood out most from the mind map, which are:
1. Transformer House.
2. Underground Cities
3. Virtual Reality
4. Building on water bodies

With transformer house we wish to create a small house within or some sort of amenities packed into a small contraption that requires a push of a button to expand into something bigger.
Underground cities is inspired by how high we can build and how deep into the Earth's crust can we venture into. Maybe constructing cites underneath like an ants colony.
Virtual reality is inspired by Science Fiction novels and movies where our subconscious mind is transported into a world cut out for all our dreams and desires.
Building on water bodies is quite a straightforward idea but we reckoned it will be successful and possibility of having it in the future is high as technology and science develops at a rapid pace.

Survey

We conducted a survey so as to increase our knowledge and understanding of living spaces in Singapore. The problem will be analysed from a view of public understanding. Questions will be designed in a way that participants and reporters grasp the most out of the given problem.

               

Through the means of sharing the survey will spread to a wide audience of varying ages all combating the problems of shrinking living spaces. A comparison between current homes of Singaporeans to that of foreigners' can be drawn as the survey includes nationality specific questions.

Majority of the participants belong to youth and young adult category who experience responsibilities for the first time and managing money etc.They are the individuals that have small budgets and cut corners to find housing. Majority of them are either studying or starting out their careers and hence money is a major issue.

As can be seen the reasons for shrinking living spaces according to young adults and middle aged individuals varies from person to person. Depletion of building resources and faulty government policies aside most participants picked the same combination of answers.

Finally participants were asked about what they think advantages of living in a smaller house are. Evenly spread out, some said lesser maintenance, cheaper and affordable, cozy and comfortable. All in all participants realize the advantages.

Overall, the survey shed some light on what individuals think about the shrinkage of living spaces. Answers gave insight into the publics'  understanding of the said problem and suggestions were made to the cause. 

Case Study 2: HDB Apartments

Our Objective: According to the Housing and Development Board of Singapore, 82% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, which is approximately 4.3 Million individuals. These HDB flats are generally situated near public facilities such as hawker centers, recreational centers and grocery stores it also costs lesser than privately built homes. With Singapore experiencing land constraints, the sizes of HDB flats has gone downwards over the years. A case study will be conducted to understand how drastically the size of HDBs has changed overs the past three decades.

Execution: A 30 year-old HDB will be compared to a newer HDB apartment and the differences will be closely studied.

Firstly, there are significant differences between the two living rooms particularly in terms of their sizes. This clearly shows that the sizes of old HDB flats when compared to a new one has gone down. This theory can be further backed up by with a statistical study on the flats. 

Conclusion: Over time, urbanization and development of the country to be more commericalize took up a huge amount of land in Singapore. By studying the change in HDB size over past decades, it is clear that factors such as overpopulation , land shortage have their impacts on living spaces that the people of  Singapore are experiencing. 

Case Study 1: Student Hostels.

Our Objective: According to Ministry of Education, Singapore, 18% of the total undergraduate students currently in Singapore are from abroad. This means nearly 180,000 undergraduate students from abroad are studying in Singapore currently. Taking this into account, accommodation for students is a huge factor. When students start university life they begin to be independent and experience a totally new lifestyle. A thorough study on the conditions of Singaporean hostels will be conducted so as to understand what differences the student faces when living in a house as compared to a single room in a hostel. In other words what students feel from living in a bigger space to a smaller space.

Execution: The case study will be conducted at two student hostels namely "Nanyang Hostel" at Prinsep st. and "Palm and Oak hostel" at Short St. A comparison between the different types of rooms available (i.e single-room, double-sharing, 4-sharing etc.) with respect to their size, facilities and storage space. 

Analysis: A thorough investigation on the facilities of Nanyang Hostel were conducted along with a brief interview of the students currently staying. The individuals living belonged to a wide range of backgrounds. There were students from China, Korea, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Conditions were scanned and documented. Space per head was calculated after investigation. The hostel covers 2 floors.

Conclusion: Hostels are social places for students. They require space to work and basic amenities for recreational purposes. Ideally lockers and additional storage places would help students and young adults to live more generously.

How High Can We Build?

Facing with land shortage, the most straightforward method to solve this is to build super skyscrapers to expand living spaces.From the Pyramids of Gizato the Burj Khalifa , mankind has come a long way in building tall structures and developed technologies that enable us to build higher up the sky. But how high can we build exactly? According to the information video above, scientists and astronomist came up with a theory that building a structure from a Earth, right up to the very far out of space may be possible. This is because when anything that goes beyond Geostationary level, the gravity is actually pulling away from the Earth. Thus the tension of the Earth's gravity pull and the one that is above Geostationary level may hold the structure in place.

List of tallest buildings in the World.

Interview

For one of our case study, I interviewed my friend, who is born Hong Kong but studying here in Singapore about his house there and the conditions that he is living in compared to his house in Singapore.

Q: How big is your house in Hong Kong?
A: 2 bedrooms , 1 master and a smaller bedroom , a living room and a kitchen. 1 commonly shared toilet and no balcony.

Q: How many people are you living with in HK?
A: 6 people.

Q: How do you feel living in such a small space?
A: Very unhappy, there are insufficient space to move about as up to 6 people share a small area, difficult to put things, especially large items like luggage. Have to share a common toilet which is troublesome if you are in need to use it. Noisy environment, everybody is speaking at the same time in a confined space. Going to the toilet at night can be hazardous as it is difficult to find the switch to the lights, knocking yourself against random items such as buckets is common.

Q: Do you like your house here in Singapore more or in HK?
A: Singapore, as it is significantly bigger, more pleasant to the eye and it is a newer flat compared to the one in HK.

Q: How big is your house in SG?
A: A liviing room, 3 bedrooms, 1 kitchen, 2 toilets and a storeroom. It is also 1.5 times bigger than that to the one in HK.

Q: Does living in a small space has any form of benefits??
A: It can train your patience as most of the things as well as amenities are commonly shared. You will have have to wait for others to finish using it before it is your turn (eg, Toilets , TV)

From this interview , we can roughly find out how is the living conditions like , and also the benefits of living in a small space. My friend is kind enough to take pictures of his house in Hong Kong and send it to us. Here is his small apartment in Hong Kong.

Bedroom

Kitchen

Living Room 

Design Process 4. Lifestyle

So far, my Design process research has covered 3 main aspects, Overpopulation, Land Shortage and Money, now its the last research aspect that our group had done, Lifestyle. So what is lifestyle?? Its the things that we do and go through on a daily routine such as education for the younger ones and working or business for the adults. It can also be tourism or matters that involves a family. 
First , education , more students are going out of their native country to pursue further education. With that , a country needs to build more student hostels. For a country like Singapore where we are facing land constraints , the government may be building more hostels in a small land, thus , more students have to share a hostel when compared to the past. This results in a shrink in living spaces even more international students studying abroad. 
Secondly , the family factor , obviously having a big family of more than 4-5 people will definitely reduce one's personal space. For example, a married couple with 4 children (that is also my stakeholder) living in a standard 1000 square foot home when compared to a married couple with just 2 children living in a house with the same size will undeniably experience more cramped up living. 
Lastly we have Tourism. This factor is more indirect than others but our group felt that it is necessary to include some research about it too. Who doesn't like travelling overseas with your loved ones and enjoy life right?? The tourism industry is booming right now across the world and Singapore in particular , generate income and keeps our economy growing by relying heavily on tourism. With more tourism , more hotels have to be built, this may limit the spaces for residential buildings like HDBs or private condominiums. With that plus Singapore's small land , living spaces will be reduced as more land is being used for the construction of new hotels and commercial infrastructure  such as shopping malls.   

How are Living Spaces getting smaller?

If you compare the government flats (or HDBs) built in the past and the new ones , you will find a significant decrease in size. I had previously visited some of the new government flats and new condominiums in Singapore and they were all much smaller than my current old government flat which is built in the late 1980s located in Pasir Ris. From the kitchen to the living room and to the bedroom, all of which are smaller than mine. My old flat is able to fit a 5-seater dinning table in the dinning room, whereas some new condominiums that i visited could hardly even fit a dinning table. All these were the result of land shortage and population growth, more people, lesser land, results in a shrink in size of the flat as governments and developers needs to fill in more people in a lesser area of land. With that, prices of land and apartments have also gone up significantly over the decades making it more difficult for young couples who wants to settle down and they are also on a really tight budget.  

Places where living spaces are getting smaller.

Map of Hong Kong.

Mumbai's overpopulation problem.

For most of us , the first place that pops up in our minds will be the cramped up city of Hong Kong. Hong Kong sits on a relatively small area and with natural factors such as mountains and rivers, that small space is reduced further. With a population of 7.15 million living in a small area, it is one of the most dense cities in the world. I just read an article about how families can live in a 40 square-foot space, which is not much bigger than your typical king sized bed. Another place with serious problems is Mumbai, it has a small land area and a poor transport system., thus many people who are working in the city lives near the city, the result? Living spaces of 4.5 square meters per person and property prices sky-rocketed , mid-town flats can costs up to $1m-$3m.  

Who are affected by Small Living spaces??

Generally, I think bigger families will be directly affected by the shrink in area of living spaces as we all need personal space to move about and carry out our personal and daily routines, thus by having a big family, like 5-6 people, living in a small area will turn out to be really cramp. For me, i am stepping into the shoe of a stakeholder who is a 45 year old man with middle-income and 4 kids , living with his parents. That makes up a total of 7 people living in a relatively average sized flat. The experience is tough as the kids needed money for school., i also imagined that my kids were NAFA students and that they all had to buy the expensive sets of Rotring technical pens. Thus, with such high expenses and an even higher property price in the current market, it is difficult for me to buy a bigger apartment to fit my entire family comfortably. Going deeper into brainstorming, I think Musicians and Artists may be affected as well due to their huge amount of equipment. Musicians may have multiple guitars or drumsets, or a huge grand piano, all these takes up considerable amount of space. Artists may have huge canvas paintings to store and tons of paint, brushes as well as other mediums of art that they use.

Extreme transformer home in Hong Kong: Gary Chang's 24 rooms in 1

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world and its severe shortage of land made living there relatively difficult. Most of the apartments there are really small and cramped up , families usually live in houses that are around 600 square foot. The YouTube video above which was shared by my group's leader , Krishna , showed an Architect named Gary Chang , turning his small little apartment ,which is just over 340 square foot in area , into a home full of hidden rooms. His method of movable walls using tracks installed on the ceilings is simple ,low-tech but yet very effective and the design is also very contemporary. This can be the future of maximizing space in micro-apartments and will be especially useful in other places such as Tokyo , London.

Design Process 3 ,Money.

In many big metropolitan cities around the globe , economy and lifestyle are very fast paced. Cities such as Paris , New York City , London , Tokyo and Singapore experiences an ever growing economy and time , is money.Standards of living in those cities are rather high because of their strong economies , and this will definitely affect the people living there in terms of purchasing what they want. Of course , by now most people would have already found out that Singapore was named the world's most expensive city to live in 2014 , a study result which includes 131 cites done by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Singapore topped the list because of its strong economy and currency , also the cost to run a car and soaring utility bills and not to forget , buy a house. It is also the most expensive place to buy clothes. With all these factors combined , a full-time working class adult needs to spend quite a lot of money in month.With money invested in everyday necessities like clothes , it is very difficult for a middle-income adult to actually own a big house in Singapore. This is made worse by the fact that Singapore faces land constraints and an increase in population. Nowadays , a brand new 3 bedroom condominium can set you back at around $900,000 - $1M+ . A condominium with the same size , or perhaps even slightly bigger in other countries such as United States of America (USA) , is probably going for half of that price.Given the same amount of income per year , I am sure that one could probably invest in a much larger home in places like Malaysia , Indonesia.  Therefore , a working class adult living in cities which has a very high standard of living , is going to face financial constraints when going for a home with a considerably large area.  

Bibliography!

All of us will not like the feeling of people using our works and not crediting them to us. Thus , it is very important that we make a note and credit the actual owner or creator of a particular information or work piece by doing a bibliography. Studying in a tertiary level , learning to write a bibliography is an important step towards working in the society when things can get very tense. It is necessary to include our references in our research and  so as to avoid plagiarism. In NAFA , we have the access to the NAFA Style Guide which guides us on how to write proper bibliographies depending on the resources that we have taken from , be it an online Encyclopedia , books , videos or podcast and many more different sources. These are the bibliographies that my group did for our Report , it is all based on the NAFA Style Guide.

Bibliography:

1 'Joint statement by fifty-eight of the world's scientific academies'. InterAcademies , Created 199. Accessed January 25th 2014.
<http://web.achive.org/web/20100210203604/http://www.interacademies.net/?id=2547>

2. Lim,W.S.W. , Cities for People: Reflections of a Southeast Asian Achitect. 1990 , Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd.

3. Wassener , Bettina. 'Inside Hong Kong's incredibly cramped cubicle apartments'. The Sydney Morning Herald. Vol. 42 , Issue no. 2 , October 15th 2013 , Accessed Day January 26th , 2014.

4. Jacobson , Mark ,'Mumbai's Shadow City'. The National Geographic Magazine. Vol. 22 , May 2007 , Accessed day January 25th ,2014.

5. Conran , Terence. How to Live in Small Space. London : Conran ,2013.

6. Parikh , Anoop. Making the Most of Small Spaces. New York :Rizolli ,1994

Empathize

From a designer's point of view , having to empathize about the client's needs is a very essential skill. First of all , by putting one into the client's shoes trying to feel and experience things from his or her point of view can help us to understand what the client actually wants and thus , by understanding that , the designer can draft out his design which suits almost perfectly for the user. For example , lets just say that I am an Architect or Interior Designer. I have been given the task of having to build an Old Folks home , I will firstly consider what an old folk's essential needs , in this case , probably more elevators and more handle bars.  And then , I will go into more details , like for example , the design and the layout of toilets , it should not be too cramped up and must be equipped with handles for the old folks to hold on to , and what if some accident happened in the cubicle?? An alarm system may be installed in case of emergency , when the old folk accidentally slip and fall for example , they can press the alarm button that should be located at a convenient location. Therefore , by imagining myself as an old folk using all the facilities in the Old Folks home, I will know which are the areas that are most important and some of the very important support tools that should not be overlooked. Thus through this example , having empathy towards a client's or users' needs can significantly improve one's design and also greatly satisfy the client and user.  

Stakeholders.

After doing the mindmap and presenting it my own class 1F as well as 1D , we were told by our teachers that we need to find out who the stakeholders are in relation to our topic. So we came up with 3 stakeholders. A 45 year-old man with mid-income and is a father of 4 , a student and a 30 year-old bachelor. As for me , I am given the role of the 45-year old man and we were suppose to express our thoughts and feelings about stepping into this person's shoe.
Being a father of 4 , the expenses is going to be really high , i thought that if my children were arts students , the material costs is going to be so high , for example Copic markers and Rotring technical pens , and i would have to give them sufficient amount of money for their studies. Not to forget daily necessities too such as food  and water. I am also living in a relatively small flat with my parents , I can sense how cramp the living space will be having 8 people cramped up in a limited area of personal space.

Design Process 2.

In the previous post , my group and I discussed about Overpopulation and Land Shortage as two of the main issues that led to living space getting smaller and smaller. Now we will talk about the money factor. Money , which is a very important resource perhaps the most important thing anybody could possibly have.
Buy a living space for your own personal or social needs obviously requires money and what happens when property prices in some cities or countries , like Hong Kong, Singapore, Monaco are sky-high?? The result , a small apartment.

Take Hong Kong for example , its property prices are the world's highest in a Savills survey of ten cities including the likes of New York , London and Tokyo. And with the gap between top-end markets and cheaper ones are getting narrowing , thus resulting in an overall increase in property prices. For example , Residential buildings stand in the Mid-levels of Hong Kong , a 1000- square foot apartment would cost about HK$15.9 million on average. ( Source : bloomburg.com)

Residential building in Hong Kong.

In conclusion , if the price of an apartment per square foot is too high for a mid-income working adult to afford, then , the only thing they could possibly do is to buy and move in a small area of living space as we all need a shelter above our heads.

Design Process 1

The first week of Design Process and we were split into groups and choose our topic , for us , group xky , we choose "Living spaces are getting smaller". We choose this topic because as all Singaporeans know , we are currently paying a very high amount for very little space. We also researched about other countries such as Monaco , Hong Kong , Mumbai and Shanghai.

We researched on the causes for smaller living spaces and came out with a few relevant points.
1. Land Shortage. The most obvious reason in our opinion. Residential estates are built on land of course , and if there is not a sufficient amount of land?? The house are cramped together in a small area , leading to more housing units , but smaller in size.

Singapore , one of the smallest countries in the world.
Source: travel-singapore.com

   2. Overpopulation. Overpopulation can lead to a higher demand for housing , and when the population over-powers the land available , the city or country will be a extremely dense city. Take Mumbai for example , the largest city in India is ranked top in the world's most dense cities ranking table. It has a population of 14.3 Million cramped up in a space of 484 square kilometers , with some mathematics , we will end up with a number of 29 650 people living per square kilometer in the city. ( Source: citymayors.com). With so many people living in a single square kilometer , the government obviously could not afford to built big house to fully house those people , thus living spaces are smaller when there is overpopulation.

Mumbai , the world's most density populated city. Source : saphana.com