Good discussion at our presentation

We presented our SGT Rock Village project for the Sustainable Global Technologies studio at Aalto University on the 20th February. First we introduced briefly our objectives, possible energy solutions and some aspects of sustainable design. Then we had an interesting discussion with our audience about the challenges of designing a project for users of special needs, the possible methods of activating potential funders, the pros and cons of using the renewable energy resources in the Rock Village and traditional building system vs. alternatives.

We got some really useful comments and ideas, which are collected to the picture according to our themes and objectives (click here for a larger version).

We also met shortly today on the 21st February and agreed on having some time for individual research. Our next meeting will be on 6th March. Then we’ll be ready with our initial research phase!

Preparing for presenting our project

We met today on the 14^th of February and worked on the mid-review presentation of our project for next Monday. On the 20^th of February, we will present our project for the Sustainable Global Technologies (SGT) studio groups at Aalto University. The presentation will take place in three phases. First, we will distribute a question/topic for each SGT group to reflect their opinions upon later.  Then we will introduce our project shortly. In the end of the presentation the groups will come up with their ideas and present them to the audience followed by open discussion.

Today we were also refining our funding application for the field trip (urban laboratory). As we have now booked our flights, we will start the travel arrangements. Today we agreed on a preliminary schedule for our trip and are now contacting possible funders. During the field trip our planning team will for example visit the project site and Al-Amal Institute as well as meet local community representatives. 

Next we will prepare our presentation for next Monday and look forward for fresh ideas and interesting discussion!

Final Project Plan

After our group met on both the 31th of January and the 7th of February we are now ready with the project plan. The project plan contains a lot of information of both the project as a whole as well as detailed information on deadlines etc. I will discuss the most important points of the project plan.

First of all could be mentioned that we have agreed on going on a field trip to the site between 6-11.4. All group members are coming except Susanna who unfortunately is on another trip at that moment. We will now be looking into flight tickets at those dates. Other relevant dates are some deadlines about our project.We have decided that the initial research should be ready 29.2. This means that everyone should be able to present some results that they have come up with. The final deadline for the research is 31.3, this means that we should already have some concepts and options about the energy solution for Rock Village. This includes cost analysis and dimensioning of the alternative methods.

We have decided to give everyone some areas of responsibility. This doesn´t mean that everyone will be working alone with their own projects but this way it will be easier to proceed with the project. Axel will be looking into solar energy solutions, Panu into the option of using biomass as energy source and Susanna will go deeper into the wind energy possibilities. Hossam will be responsible for finding sustainable building materials and Susa will be in charge of investigating the socio-economic opportunities in Lebanon. Susa will also be responsible for the communication.

Our group will now continue on the research and hopefully will we come up with some sustainable energy solutions for Rock Village!

Meeting on the 30th January 2012

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We met on the 30th January at the Aalto University Design Factory Studio in order to proceed with our project plan. Our first aim was to think about the goals of our project; what is it all about and why are we doing this? We listed our first insights from last week and came to a common understanding about the meaning and objectives of our Rock Village project. The goals are to be defined during the way, but our keywords included phrases like sustainable energy, people with special needs and the importance of implementation phases and modularity.

We were also discussing about the main stakeholders of the project and our own role and ambitions. Who is the client? Who are we? Who are the other main stakeholders? And what are the needs and aims of these stakeholders? We identified as our main stakeholders the future inhabitants of Rock Village, deprived communities, NGOs (Al-Amal Institute for the disabled), ourselves, governments, donors and sponsors.

We came up with some important questions that we need to find out for our project plan. We were thinking about the site for the village; why has it been chosen and what does it mean for the planning? What is the estimated energy consumption of the village and how is it divided during the day? Who are the future inhabitants of the village, is there some special needs we should take into consideration? And more practical questions like can we read the Lebanese law in English somewhere online?

We decided to have a new meeting on the 31st January and finalize our project plan with more defined goals, stakeholders etc.

Meeting on the 24th January

Meeting on the 24th January

First meeting was held on Tuesday 24th January at Architectural Department room AS0. All group members were present. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss about the case in general and to get started with the project plan.

In the beginning of the meeting we briefly got through the main points of the material we were given the day before. We also discussed about communication methods (e-mail between group members and Facebook group to communicate with other Rock Village project people) and document sharing channels (folder in Optima and e-mail).

Here is a list of the topics discussed during the meeting and also names of the persons responsible to do some background research about the topic for the next meeting:

•    Wind Charts (Susanna)
•    Temperature (Axel)
•    Solar radiation (Axel)
•    How much Biogas could be produced per day (Panu)
•    Local companies for photo voltage units (agency..)
•    Alternative sustainable building material& appliances (Hossam)
•    Sewer treatment/network/ (Panu)
•    Project Plan proposal& Final product (Report, Concept, Dwg???) (Susa)
•    Minutes of meeting (Susanna)

Next meeting was decided to be held on 30th January after the lecture.