Project Utopia

Project Utopia is about Fremantle port as the port is moving and the place that is currently the port will have to be redesigned. This project was brought to my school and our year group was able to create design ideas for the port. This was a great opportunity for us as we got to experience lots and even went to see the existing port and got to let our creativity design our future. This was because of the reason that the port was moving and needed to be redesigned and also because our year was moving into a new topic of being able to design our perfect world also after a book we read called the giver. This book was about how people tried to create a perfect world and hide secrets and memories from the people to keep them happy and not sad or scared. This project worked by us getting split into groups and then we got to go visit the existing port and we then had to choose on a place we wanted to redesign and come up with what kind of building or structures we might want to put in the port. We then had to create in high detail what we were making and designing, we then made a vision board to display out great ideas and create speeches to tell and show people what we wanted the port to look like in the near future.

My Groups Ideas

In my group, we chose to design three things that were a park for greenspace, a café for a place to work and food/drinks, and a museum to show the past of Fremantle and its port and also to promote aboriginal culture. We thought of these ideas as the museum is because many people don’t want to port to leave because it has also been there so it can keep some of the port’s memories there and also because of the aboriginal culture of this land we added indigenous culture into this museum. We made the café for a form of work to provide some jobs and pay and with more indigenous culture having aboriginal ingredients in the foods and finally a park for greenspace a place to relax and play and it also has many indigenous things like plants and also native plants, a playground with the rainbow serpent or the wagyl and also an aboriginal mural around the park.  We thought of these ideas because of people not wanting to port to leave and also not enough people showing equality to the owners of this land and also to help with poverty and life on land. The outcome of this is it can show people the history of the land and the port and can bring memories to the people who want it to stay.

What I Have Learned

Throughout this project, I got to learn not just about the port but also about some people working on it and some very important people who do similar things. This included me getting to meet some amazing architects a past mayor of Fremantle and also many people working on the project. We also got to talk to one of the people managing the project Mrs. Lockwood.  I learned all about how the port works and about the different places at the port and also how it functions. We learned how the old docking bays are being redesigned and made into different things like a restaurant and a film studio for people wanting to be actors or photographers. We also learned about the observation tower and how it was built many years ago and the windows are designed in a way to make it cold in summer but warmer in winter with the angle and colors. We also learned all about the UN Global Goals, what they mean and why we have them like they are to show the goals the world would like to achieve by 2030 and they are most of the current world problems e.g. Poverty, Hunger, Global Warming and many others.  We also look at some of the liveability factors like the economy and if it will work well, the culture of the area and if there will be culture like a church or cultural murals and also society and how we can bring the locals together. Another thing we learnt was all about sustainability and how we can make our area sustainable and clean. We looked into this by researching some of the different plants that are saltwater resistant being next to the ocean and also what kind of materials we might use. We also looked into what energy sources we could use like solar over wind as wind farm must be a certain distance away from a city or housing and how much space it would use.

We also looked into the design thinking process with steps through the project being empathise, define, ideate, prototype and feedback. These steps can be taken by first thinking about what you want to do then defining your thoughts into a couple of main ideas then ideating those ideas and making a prototype followed by getting some feedback from piers, teachers, parents, and other people you might meet to help with the project. Following your feedback, you can tweak your ideas and then make a new prototype and get some more feedback.

In our project we also had to practice public speaking and our speech. In our speech, we talked about what we did in the project and why we did this. Our speech was first presented to our class to practice and also so we could get feedback on different things like our posture and if we needed to change our speech a bit and then we also spoke to the parents of our year group who came in to listen to our projects and what we did. Our group did well as we all knew our speech well and didn’t have to pause very often. We also were very fluent with our speech and were not mumbling or to quite when speaking.

In conclusion we managed to create many different designs for the new Fremantle port. Throughout this experience we all managed to learn many new things and express our imagination in all different ways. I had lots of fun during this project and would have loved to work on it further.