The DP House

For as long as I remember, I’ve always played video games. Whether it was alone or with friends, it had been enjoyable regardless. Then came Minecraft, a sandbox video game that put your imagination to the test. I could hunt evil creatures, gain new items, and build civilization. But what struck me the most as a child had been creating. The idea of designing was interesting to me as a child. I would always imagine what the next house would look like as I make it in the game. Not everything would look well, it was a matter of trial and error, but this sparked my interest in architecture.

I have no experience designing a house through 3D modeling; the only thing that had driven my interest in it was video games. As silly as it sounds, I wanted to bring the creations in video games to life, but I know it wasn’t realistic. I realized that I wanted to create things and see them personally; this made me interested in architecture. People in architectural firms design things for clients, satisfy their needs, and add their flair to them. I thought that this was pretty similar to Minecraft; everyone had their unique way of playing the game and building their own houses. But video games weren’t the only driving force of my interest in architecture; my parents had been one as well. When I was 10, my parents had a house planned in Bintaro to move to a school nearby. My parents didn’t want to reveal much information regarding the project; we had never gotten to live there. I had often visited the developing house on the weekends, but it had ended abruptly. I never got to know the details of what happened, but I was sure that my parents and brother had been looking forward to their new house. This was my inspiration for a personal project. My goal for the project is to research architecture designs and develop my skills in 3D modeling. Then create a 3D house tour video in a render.

Global Context

My project prioritizes the global context of Personal and Cultural Expression because of my imagination and interests in architecture and the dedication I give to my parents. The workload of having to design, creating visuals & plans, construction drawings, and dealing with deadlines will be challenging. With the new online learning environment, Personal Project will be different from the past, proving to be a new challenge for me. With tight schedules and ever-changing subjects, it will be challenging to learn new skills and honing them as I go on in 10th grade. To express my thoughts towards this project, I would have to create a 3D model that has meaning in each detail. Understanding my taste but satisfying both my parents’ needs and wants would be how I can apply this global context. I have to express all sorts of thoughts and knowledge into my creation and enjoy my creativity and aesthetic. This will be shown throughout the design process to create sketches, Sketch-Up models, and physical models. As I start to learn 3D modeling while researching all sorts of houses around Indonesia, I hope to explore my personal style of designing things and going beyond my parents’ expectations.

Product

The final product, otherwise known as the dream house, includes elements of simple furniture and minimal colors. The house is titled “DP House,” taking into account my parents’ names. The materials are inspired by Scandinavian architecture while also including components from various architectural works based in Jakarta. The house area is 375 m2 with a length of 15 meters, a width of 25 meters, and a height of 10.35 meters. The house consists of 3 floors. The first floor has the foyer, guest area, garage, dirty kitchen, laundry room, and the maid’s living space.

In comparison, the second floor has a living room, kitchen, and backyard. The third floor is the bedroom area, although there is a small living room as well. The choice of material had primarily been marble, plaster, concrete, and maple wood. As maple wood has a cool undertone, it had complimented the white colors in most of the house. I had mostly referenced my mother’s taste in interior design to guide myself in knowing what ideal rooms would look like.

The product is a digital one that focuses on touring the rendered house on YouTube; it features my explanations of various rooms in the DP House. Ranging from an introduction for the home, a tour of each area in the home, and explaining the house’s interior and exterior materials. The content showed plenty of the house’s interiors, having enough explanations and uses of each room. There had also been reasons for creating each space to reveal more about my clients’ requests. I would progress from describing the first floor, then the second floor, then the third. In conclusion, I would tell the materials to know more about the minor details & also the reasoning behind choosing those materials. The YouTube video is meant to give a first-person experience of what the house would look like.

Reflection

I have faced several challenges throughout my Personal Project journey, but overcoming them was most definitely worth the effort. My goal had been to create my parents’ dream house, which meant that satisfying their wants & needs had to be done. During my process of 3D modeling, I had received loads of requests from my parents; this had been beneficial in developing my time-management skills.

As a person who emphasizes personal & cultural expression, I understand my current house & my grandmother’s house. Implementing certain parts of the two places while also receiving new ideas allowed me to grasp better when to do work. During my product creation process, I have developed a habit of waking up at 5 AM to do work. One thing I had noticed was that my productivity had been better during the morning rather than at night. Now I have created my workflow where I would mostly 3D model in the morning, receive critiques and suggestions from my parents in the evening, and continue doing bits of work at night. This new workflow allowed me to do hobbies or learn during the evening while I am still productive during the morning & night.

Problem-solving skills were immensely used throughout the process of my project. Whether it be solving my clients’ problems or technical difficulties in 3D modeling, I would have to find the best solution for all. The majority of skills I had used were either trial & error or empathy. Trial & error were mostly used whenever a problem arises in 3D modeling. There would often be problems that may seem small at first but would take hours to fix. Many may think that trial & error would be an inefficient method, but I have learned many things from this process rather than YouTube. Although during desperate times, I have relied on various SketchUp videos to understand some concepts further. The empathy skill was to understand my clients’ perspective to change unsatisfactory parts of the house.

After experiencing a lot throughout the Personal Project, I could give some recommendations as to how you could have a better experience if you were to start a 3D modeling project. The first recommendation would be to never take for granted your 5 ATL skills. Throughout the Personal Project you should always develop your thinking, social, communication, self-management, and research skills. If you were to ever ignore one of them, then you will have a harder time later on.

The second recommendation would be to experiment with your 3D modeling software. While watching tutorials may seem useful, try to spend each day finding out about features and learning them. Personal Project is a long process, so make sure to understand the basics and to never rush, or else the model may not meet your expectations. Grouping the 3D objects in multiple different layers will also be useful along the way as it will make your workflow more efficient.

IB Learner Reflection

As much as various learner profiles have developed, my project has mostly made me Balanced. At the start of the Personal Project, I never really took the time to make a schedule or create goals each day, but later on, I knew that going forward like this would be detrimental for my workflow. While there was undoubtedly a lot of work to be done, I had slowly begun to understand how to sort out my time. My intellectual balance was done by taking breaks while also knowing when to do work. Simultaneously, my physical balance was done with an adequate amount of sleep while retaining my productivity the next day. My Emotional balance was done by spending some time on my hobbies each day. Stress had not been a problem once I started to develop balancing these three aspects.

Doing 3D modeling, mathematics, and solving problems on the go all required me to be a Thinker. These three tasks had taken up most of my time for the project. As a Thinker, 3D modeling required me to have the right perspective and understanding in a 3D program. I would need to visualize it and then implement it into various shapes and sizes. This was where math came in; calculations were done to get specific measurements. As for problem-solving, I would always have to choose the most efficient & practical methods to lead to the most results.