PROJECT UTOPIA 2021

Project Utopia 2021 was a project where students were put into groups to work on redesigning the Fremantle Port area. Fremantle Port is to be relocated and the space left behind as it is valuable real estate. Our goal was to choose a certain part of the port and design something in that area. My team did building regulations for the entire port area.

Design Thinking Process

The design thinking process helps both teams and individuals to find solutions to problems. This process includes empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test.

design thinking process

When we first started the project, we had lots of ideas but no agreement or facts to back it up with. It was rather difficult but as we thought more, we realized that with buildings comes building regulations and that a beautiful city would need strict regulations. After having several conversations and struggling with my group I now realize how hard empathizing can be. I feel like empathizing without much background information can be very difficult. I also feel that this project was too short and that we didn’t have enough time to properly think about it more. Defining was different though and we didn’t have much trouble with it, but I did find researching about ways to solve problems was quite difficult. When it came to ideate it was rather challenging since our group had a lot of ideas but with no research to back it up. I feel like ideate is very frustrating when you can’t just build whatever you want with no meaning behind it. Whilst we were making our first prototype Dr Shayne Silcox advise that we change our building limit from 4 stories to at least 20. He mentioned that the government wanted compactness, but we decided against it because then it’ll end up like new Fremantle and new Fremantle and we didn’t want that. What we did instead was that we raised our building limit to 6 stories instead. I feel like the design thinking process was helpful when it came to helping us follow the steps and keeping us in line when we wanted to skip a step.

Vision Board

Making the vision board was the most frustrating part of the project and we spent a long time trying to get the details right. We were quite worried when we did the first prototype of our vision board because compared to the other groups we didn’t have as many photos. The hexagon in the middle of our vision board was done and redid around 10 times. I did the painting for our vision board, but you couldn’t really see it. I feel like the reason this happened was that we rushed the draft and changed it a bit and now, we must redo it because it wasn’t up to standards. It might have also been that we weren’t so confident with our draft, so our vision board changed a bit. Through this experience, I have learnt to plan things ahead and to put more effort and decision into the first time in doing something.

Public speaking

My group presenting to the class

Before presenting to the parents and guests we had to come up and practice some public speaking along with writing a speech.  I personally struggle with public speaking, and I hate standing up in front of an audience. Dealing with the nervousness and trying to look at the audience occasionally was the hardest part for me. When speaking to a group of people I find looking them in the eye is the scariest thing and I found it quite hard to do it in front of my peers let alone strangers. Overcoming this fear was also quite hard because I had a time limit which made it more stressful. When it came to speaking with the parents it became somewhat easier because it was more like a conversation, and it flowed more smoothly. I still dread public speaking thou but now that I’ve done it slightly more it doesn’t feel as scary, but I would still try avoiding it.

ASC Capabilities

ASC Capabilities

The ASC Capabilities are skills that we will need in our lives no matter what we’re doing.  During this project, I found Effective Communication with my group that hardest since we had quite a lot of arguments about our project. After having an argument amongst ourselves we had a set path which made our communication a lot clearer and made working together easier. Our group never had a ‘leader’, so it was constantly changing. I didn’t step up to lead that much but when I did, I felt insecure and didn’t really like it. I should be more confident in the things I do and step up more often, so I don’t feel as. Overall, I didn’t try to do some of the capabilities and they just happened whilst others I will need to try to do it.

I learnt lots of skills in this project like how to speak more confidently and tricks with public speaking. I also got reminded about some of the capabilities and their importance. During this project, I also got to know my group members more and had fun cooperating with them. Overall I found that this project was really fun because it had a real-life connection.