Peer Review - Des.

Team Des. were tasked with creating a means of transportation between their two hotel designs on Waiheke Island and in Auckland city that incorporated a renewable and non-renewable energy source of some kind. The idea was to create a means by which occupants could fly over from one point to another (one hotel port to another) and one non-flying transport that would achieve the same intended goal. With their vehicles designs, Team Des. looked into the application of a port area into the overall structure of the design of their hotel on both sites. 

        The team had shown extensive research into various design concepts and how they related to their own design ideas and the idea that neither vehicle conveyed a set definition as to what a utopia or dystopia is but rather that that is all dependent on how the occupants within the vehicles interpret it to be. This gives meaning to the reinvention of a design to convey both and yet neither the idea of a utopia and dystopia-like atmosphere.

The team also used 123D Catch to create 3D versions of a hair brush and a coffee cup as starting points for the development towards ports incorporated into their hotel designs. To further develop their ideas for a hotel development, the team sought to capture 'movement' in the form of a short animation/movie to show this movement within nature, for example the movement of leaves in the wind etc. 

        After the first stages of development, the team came about using a different medium to explore their ideas than the coffee cup used in their 3D creation; a plastic bottle. Des. explored the idea of deformation, melting and deforming the bottle to create a more abstract and significantly more interesting form. This lead to the discovery that when the bottle was melted it created a highly abstract form from the exterior and a simpler, cleaner, sinuous form from the interior.

The team created and two vehicles and explored the different variables of weight, weight distribution and size of materials etc, and recorded the many experimental trials, seeking to improve the design at every stage. The first design trial was a plastic bottle that was filled with an air and alcoholic vapour combination that when ignited creates an instantaneous burst of energy that leads to an immediate forward thrust ( an immediate propulsion system ) that acted as a non-renewable fuel source for the transport design. The second transport design was a simple flying lantern that involved the same design principles as a hot air balloon (the heating of air to create a dense rise of steam that with convection lifts the balloon into the air). Team Des. also designed a third vehicle. Their mock up test model was created using a plastic cup with plastic straws inserted into the bottom that is placed on top of a plastic plate. when the cup is filled with water it then rushes out from the straws, seeps beneath the plate and creates forward momentum to move the vehicle.

The team become interested in the idea that their hotel could be a very elaborate and abstract form that was buried underground as a means to convey an interesting aesthetic. There basis was to create a form from which the occupants can interpret the ideas of a utopia / dystopia like environment in their own way. Team Des. presented a large amount of work, research and development that detailed their vehicle designs and their hotel form and structure. The overall presentation was well prepared and themes were well conveyed in a fairly professional manner that was easy to understand.