ArchWonder

 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

 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

 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