Designing an Environmentally Friendly House that Accommodates the Needs of a Family in Jakarta 

The personal project is a chance for me to further cultivate my own personal interests and passions outside of the conventional school subjects, causing me to decide to revolve the project around the field of architecture. Growing up, I had a strong passion for drawing and designing. I have also travelled to many different places across the world, and with my mom being an interior designer, I went on trips to many different architectural projects, leading me to experience many different kinds of architecture across the world first hand, which fascinated me. My traveling experience and my passion for drawing and designing led me to this decision. In the simplest of terms, architecture is the study of art and science. It uses concepts and techniques to arrive with the best feasible designs to make in this world while dealing with decisions varying from personal decisions to societal norms, making it a field that carries such a big impact on individuals and societies which fascinates me. 

Involving this personal interest of mine, I decided to address the environmental issues we are facing as in the process of developing my goal, I learned that the majority of the construction of buildings in Jakarta, has a profound effect on the environment, to the point wherein Jakarta’s air quality was recorded once as the worst in the world with an Air Quality Index level of 163. Therefore, I realized the nation had to take action, and I realized that I had to take action and highlight the situation among the members of my community. With my personal project, I aim to research sustainable architecture and develop skills in 3d modeling. Then, design and create a maquette of an environmentally friendly house that accommodates the needs of a family in Jakarta. This will provide me challenges to overcome as my skills and knowledge regarding design and architecture still needs a lot of room for growth as an architectural project will give me first-hand exposure to working in real life which I was not able to acquire in the usual school setting. This will be highly challenging because I could not design an efficient, sustainable, and functioning house without prior research from an abundance of credible sources as architecture requires the understanding of many complex concepts. Due to the fact that I am designing a house intended to be efficient in Jakarta, I would also have to observe the vast number of regulations and rules in Jakarta as well as Jakarta’s biotic factors which will create challenges as it will interfere with the architectural principles. Considering myself having no prior experience in 3d modeling, it would be challenging for me to use and understand the 3d modeling software in order to design the house.

Global Context

The global context of my Personal Project directly relates to Scientific and Technical innovation because this context insists us to investigate and explore the impact of scientific and technological advances on the environment and I will be addressing the environmental challenges faced in my community by researching and understanding the fundamentals of the science behind sustainable architecture combined with the basis of prior knowledge and experience that I had on the topic and then innovate technically through the construction of my own maquette of my environmentally friendly house showing the characteristics of sustainable architecture which would be constructed initially from scratch.

Product

As intended by my goal, I designed and constructed an environmentally friendly house that accommodates the needs of a family in Jakarta. The product is presented in a digital 3d model form as well as a physical maquette form. In reference to the rubric I had developed, I ensured that the product is sustainable by incorporating techniques and concepts of sustainable architecture. The structure utilized appropriate materials, components, and systems in order to design the house in the most user-friendly manner as it is targeted towards an audience of Jakarta families. I had constructed a detailed maquette of the home using appropriate, suitable, and correct materials and created the elements in the maquette made to the correct scale of 1:50.

As the environment in my community is facing challenges, the creation of this house hopes to address and change the community’s habit from destroying to conserving through the use of scientific laws, strongly relating and accomplishing the exploration of my chosen global context, Scientific and Technical Innovation. The increase of this innovation in the community would stimulate sustainability, conserving our environment by technically innovating through the construction of environmentally friendly houses, developing scientific innovation amongst us and our communities as a whole.

Reflection

  The personal project has provided me with the chance to obtain an inclusive connection with my personal interests, in this case, the field of architecture more particularly the intricate architectural style, sustainable architecture. Upon fulfilment and completion of this personal project which comprises designing a house and the creation of a maquette, the degree of knowledge and understanding that I have obtained exceedingly attained a really high degree in comparison to before the commencement of the project. The project has provided me a chance of witnessing valuable first-hand exposure to learnings about the following field which I am unable to obtain so in a usual classroom setting. Subsequently, the designing and construction of the house dramatically increased the knowledge I had gained before the initial start as it reinforced me to understand the topic at a deeper depth in order for me to come up with an efficient design solution.

Linking back to the global context, Scientific and Technological Innovation, the experience has given me new insights and exhibited to myself, the complexity and level of imagination needed to innovate, scientifically and technologically particularly, and has given me a grasp on the key to designing a sustainable house to accommodate certain needs. To possess the most efficient and effective design, the design itself should be directed to accommodate the user’s requirements, therefore achieving its goal. Moreover, my design will later invigorate others to use sustainable technology in designing houses to their needs. 

IB Learner Reflection

The entirety of my personal project allowed me to mature as an IB student which fulfilled me with the qualities and attributes of the various IB learner profiles. One prominent learner profile particularly during the initiation of my project was risk-taker. Since I conceptualized that designing and constructing a house would be a part of my goal, I saw it as an intimidating task to execute for someone my age and degree of understanding. Therefore, this was required to be approached with determination simultaneously with the resilience to be capable to commit to the following goal.

Being a communicator was highly relevant throughout the process as it reinforced me to engage in verbal communication with my supervisor and peers in which I had to actively listen to their teachings, inquire about ideas I was uncertain of, feedback, and ultimately applying this information I had gained to my environmentally friendly house. This in turn also served as a way for me into becoming knowledgeable, another learner profile which means to develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across different concepts. It has pushed me into engaging topics that own a global significance, in this case, sustainable architecture.

Additionally, I was a thinker as I had to utilize thinking skills in analyzing issues and making reasonable decisions as this project has incited my thinking and analytical skills. Each and every resolution made from distinguishing a goal to determining the measurements of the house requires thinking skills primarily those which involve unconventional circumstances where my ability to efficiently utilize thinking skills to solve complex problems under pressure has developed to a greater extent.