To start off project Utopia, we read a book called the Giver. All the people in Jonas’s community believe that they live in a utopia, but this is impossible without feelings, emotions, and choice. This book helped me to understand why my design of Fremantle Port needs to be a community where all people can be themselves and thrive.
Research
Our first step for the project was researching. We did this by looking online at websites, videos, and pictures, learning in class, asking our visitors, and going on an excursion to Fremantle Port. I learned about livability and the UN global goals that we incorporated into our design by focusing on a few, including affordable and clean energy. The visitors that came in gave us feedback and new ideas to consider, including an idea for using electric buggies instead of cars to reduce carbon emissions and I appreciate their new perspective. All these factors helped me to understand how to make a community where all people can thrive.
Excursion
To help us understand what we were trying to accomplish, we went on an excursion to Fremantle Port. We talked to some locals and took a tour around the storage sheds. This excursion helped me to identify what some problems were with the port, including the traffic, amount of pollution and the noise for the residents. I learnt about why it is so important to create a sustainable and green community.
Planning
During the planning process, we came up with ideas and picked the area we wanted to focus on. We came up with many ideas, including a floating restaurant, giant shopping center and a massive water park. Our ultimate idea was to create a community that can survive a pandemic, such as COVID–19. I liked this idea because it incorporates the Global Goals and livability factors and helps people be safe in their community.
Vision Board
Another important part of our planning process was the planning of our vision board. We drew a plan of where we wanted each section to go and after that we found some images that we wanted to include in our final vision board and placed them on a piece of butcher paper in the sections we mapped out. This helped me to learn about planning and how to plan a vision board.
Final Prototype
When we finished our planning, we started our final prototype. We made by gluing photos and words to our vision board. We also had to prepare a speech about what we were going to say on the presentation day. Our speeches had to include information about the most important parts of our design, why we wanted to include them and where we got inspiration from. This speech helped me to become more confident about public speaking.
Other Influences
The ASC Capabilities were a big part of my process because they show the different capabilities you need to do to be a good team member. They show the different things you should do in yourselves, the community and the world. They also helped us because we wanted to be creative, leaders, problem solvers and organized when we were designing our community.
The design thinking process helped us to plan and prototype our design. We followed the cogs around and did every step. This project helped me to realise why the design thinking process is so important for planning and why I need to use it in future projects.
Reflection
I think that Project Utopia was a great project to work on because it helped me to learn about a wide variety of subjects including the liveability factors, the importance of planning and why I need to do it and how to use the ASC capabilities and design thinking process. Project Utopia was a wonderful learning process for me.
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