Students develop their understanding of their client/user to insure that they are designing to the client's needs and desires.
Students create a design checklist to make certain that their design includes all components and systems critical to creating a habitable and comfortable space.
Students research relevant zoning and building/construction laws related to their build.
Understand
In the Understand section, you should identify each specific requirement that the engineered solution must meet. Requirements can be features that the solution must have, such as wheels, a handle, or an amount of profit, but also can be factors that restrict the solution as well, such as weight, price or who the user will be. These are also called Constraints. (Note: Understanding both the client and the user is important, and is part of this stage of the EDP. This is analogous to the Empathize stage of design thinking, but the EDP Understand stage also includes a concrete identification of all requirements the solution must meet. Engineers come back to this stage repeatedly as they identify additional requirements during the design process.)
Understand: Defining Design Requirements
Students should open the Understand section of the EDPL. They can use the Navigation pull down at the top of the page.
The requirements list is a list of characteristics that the design must have (criteria), as well as a list of the constraints that are placed on the design.
Students should refer to information from their research to fill out the requirements about client and design preferences.
They should use appropriate construction standards and codes to determine dimensions and design elements for their tiny house
All requirements should identify the source of the requirement. In this case, it could be from a client interview, the RFP, market research, or a test result.
Possible narrative:
On this page you will create a documented list of all of the requirements that your solution should meet, based on the needs of the client. You should document each design requirement with an appropriate source that indicates where that requirement came from. This will provide a dated list as you add requirements later in the process.
What are the requirements that must be met by your solution?
What local zoning and building code laws apply to your tiny home?
What are the desires of your client/customer?
What are the technical requirements (e.g. dimensions that must be considered)?
Later in the design process, students will test their prototypes against all listed requirements.
Note: The reason for dating each entry is that the list can be updated if needed.