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The Prospectus - Can Recycled Concrete Make a Building More Affordable and Ecological?

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 Can Recycled Concrete Make a Building More Affordable and Ecological? Deciding on the question for the prospectus has been a long road that felt never-ending at times. Arriving at the question took a series of selections, a series of moments of zooming in and becoming more and more specific and precise with what it is exactly that I am trying to answer with my research. This question, specific and precise as it is, is one that can be answered with a process that can be quickly followed, and easily run through.  The presentation of the prospectus, begins with a series of questions that become more specific and more isolated on one topic, then goes into questions on topics that can help answer my initial question, then goes into options for what ways of researching, what forms of documenting the research are being considered or make the most sense. I feel this is the most logical path to follow when presenting to the honors board, what exactly I am trying to research, and what question
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Recycling and Upcycling

 Last week I got some advice on how to narrow the lens of my project since I knew it was still a pretty broad question and it needed more specificity. One of the pieces of advice was to find exactly what is interesting to me, the ecological aspect of the construction or the materials alone. After some thought, I decided to first look into material and see if that was what had originally sparked my interest because all of this really goes back to affordability and what material affects affordability, or if material affects it substantially. Going back to that, the advice to focus on a single material or practice was definitely what I needed in order to move forward in my process. The first thing to do was to think about the easiest building material to use, which is concrete, and see what sort of processes one must go through to recycle concrete, how effective it is, and what effect it has on affordability. I found quite a few different articles and links on recycling concrete and how i
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Plastic and Waste

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 Since we are studying previous projects this week, this project in particular speaks on the use of recyclable materials, such as plastic bottles, as a building material and how that eliminates waste from the environment. This case study is interesting as my topic of choice research-wise is that of material used in typical construction and its effects on affordability, like that of recycled material or local and easily sourced material. This case study sheds some light on the technicalities of projects such as this and whether they are worth pursuing. The plastic bottle projects and their construction were very interesting to read about as they depicted how they are put together in these projects and how the assemblies could be used for both projects big and small.  This case study talks first about the assembly of two furniture projects, TrussFab, and the SIE43 Chair, both different ways of using plastic bottles to create new furniture.  The second set of projects talk about the assem
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The City vs Nature

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While participating in the studio travel to Los Angeles, I thought a lot about what exactly I am trying to study, and what exactly am I trying to dive into regarding home and affordability, and availability. I came to a conclusion about my study and a topic that I have not really considered heavily till now. I looked into affordability, and what material and economic practices building or otherwise can affect that affordability. Another thought came to me while walking the dense urban streets of Los Angeles when I went to the observatory and watched as the lush urban landscape caved into the natural landscape that surrounds the observatory. This brought the question of how we compete with the growing population without compromising the beauty of the natural landscape that surrounds us? How do we continue to make housing and other sorts of architecture without trampling the natural elements that we find so beautiful? Those natural elements bring us serotonin just by seeing them out our
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Affordability - Construction

        I started this week by studying and searching for affordable building practices or construction options to see just how many options we have as architects.       Things like, what house types are the most affordable? What materials can be used the most cost-efficiently? What sort of building practice can affect the cost of the home?        Some of my findings were obvious, like finding types of materials that are multi-use, meaning not having to use 4-5 different materials to get the aesthetic you want or to create the house type the client wants. Some, not super well known, like the use of straw bales, Cob (which is a sort of mud-like material I had never seen), and earth bags, which I knew nothing about.           Here are just two of the pages I looked through in my search for affordable options regarding house cost: What Is the Cheapest Type of House to Build in 2023? (homebuyer.com) 8 Low-Cost Building Materials for Your Pandemic-Era Construction Project (constructelements
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The Process - The Choice

 I figure the best way to begin is to just go for it, so here is the first post on this blog. Choosing an idea to move forward with is challenging, to say the least, as I have so many options I could pursue and study that would each be interesting and fun to dive into. I could go with a typical choice, talk about the future, well, an aspect of it, and how things will likely advance or are looking to be advancing in technology or otherwise. I could also take the environmental route, I might talk about carbon emissions, efficiency, and better building practices. I could also follow the affordability path, look into why housing has become so expensive, why it's so hard to get an apartment that's both affordable and close enough to campus to not feel like it's the same as my hour commute from home.  Of all these choices, each one still affects my life, just in different ways. Whichever path of research I may be leaning towards or that I may take, I feel they all have an audienc
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