What is Project Utopia?

Project Utopia is a project that we have done since the beginning of Year 7. We have studied what makes a place liveable by looking at liveability factors around the World and our local area. The Fremantle port is going to be moving to Kwinana around 2032. Our Project Utopia is meant to create ideas for how we could make the new port at Fremantle as liveable as possible.

Liveability Factors

At the start of the year, we starting learning about what makes a place liveable and the liveability factors. We learnt about some issues faced in specific areas like high temperature and how those places created a solution for that issue. We learnt that there are many different ways to solve issues that may seem impossible to fix at first.

Liveability In Our Suburbs

Early into the year, we were assigned a task to research the liveability around our local area. We would take photos of things that contributed to the liveability of our area and give an explanation to why they were a nice thing to have. This helped us to get a better understanding of how Perth makes itself as liveable as possible and gave us guidance for what we should add in the port. 

Fremantle Excursion

In the early weeks of term 2, everyone in year 7 had the opportunity to go on an excursion to see the Fremantle port. The area there was huge, meaning we had a lot of space to work with when we planned our own vision of Fremantle. Even on bus, the port took a very long time to travel across. This excursion was very important for the design process later as it gave us an idea of the space we were working with and we got to see the style of Fremantle, which was important for structure design.

Ideating in Groups

After the excursion, our class was split up into different groups so we could come up with many different ideas for things that needed to be planned for the port (e.g, Transportation and Housing). We had to think about what would best suit Fremantle and it’s citizens for these different topics and had to create the best ideas possible. Some of the working my group (Hayley, Niki and I) had completed is viewable via 

Vision Board

After some planning our groups were required to make a quick, simple vision board that would explain the main ideas that we were hoping would get used in the Fremantle Port. The vision biard would also consist of a map of the Current Fremantle port so that people looking at our vision board could understand the space we had to work with. The map had highlighted locations of the port where certain buildings could go, apartments, housing, businesses etc. The vision board can be viewed via 

Presenting

In the final few weeks of Term 2, groups presented their vision board to teachers and Grandparents who had attended to the event hosted that day. The groups had an opportunity to pitch their idea to an older audience who could provide valid feedback.

Final Research

The next big step for this project was to get into different groups and focus on one main idea for the entirety of term 3. Our group (Zac, Kelvin, Jarvis and I) were responsible for the creation of an entertainment space. We created a 3D model of a Mall we could create in Fremantle via the usage of apps like Minecraft and websites like co-space, that allow you to create 3D models easily and in a group 

Pitching to the Class

After we had created our 3D models and completed all the research we needed to complete, our group was ready to pitch our idea to the teachers and the class. We created a short compilation of clips showcasing both the Minecraft and co-space 3D modelling.

Final Pitching

After the pitching to the class, it was time to finally settle down and complete the final part of this project. Presenting our pitch to our parents. In one of the final weeks of Term 3, Parents were invited to come to our classrooms and have us present our idea to them so they could get a better understanding of the project. The parents then spent time questioning us on certain areas of our planning and our pitch and sharing their thoughts and opinions with us.

Project Utopia

With the pitching to our parents done, there was nothing left to do in project utopia. I really enjoyed this project as it gave me a chance to work with people I usually wouldn’t work with and made me try my best to think outside of the box when it came to creating the best most sustainable things possible for the Fremantle Port. I hope another project like this can happen in the future.