University House Design Project: Residential Home in Footscray Park

This project presents the design of a three-bedroom residential home located in Footscray Park Campus, Melbourne, near the Marybymong River. The design prioritizes ease of movement, with the lounge as the entry point featuring a sunken area to enhance aesthetics and ceiling height. Privacy is ensured by isolating the master bedroom, and the dining area is adjacent to the kitchen for convenience. The design incorporates cost-effective wet area placement and a front-side swimming pool. Sustainability is a key focus, including rainwater harvesting via a pitched roof, solar panel integration, and the use of trees and flower lawns for air filtration and aesthetics. The design also emphasizes natural lighting through strategically placed windows with solar shading and the use of eco-friendly materials like precast concrete walls and a steel roof structure, promoting energy efficiency and environmental responsibility. The project includes references to relevant research papers.

House Design 1
HOUSE DESIGN
By (Name)
Course
Professor’s name
University name
City, State
Date of submission

House Design 2
House Design
The building we are going to design is a three bedroom residential home that is to be
built on a plot in Footscray Park Campus that is along the Marybymong River in Melbourne.
The house is expected to have a total area of 250 meters square. This building has been
designed in a way that permits easy movement of individuals using the spaces within. Once
an individual gets into the building, the lounge is the first room one gets into. The space has a
well-defined sunken part that plays a major role in enhancing the room aesthetics and also
increasing the ceiling height of the area which makes the room more habitable as compared
to one with lower ceiling height. Privacy has been taken into account since the master
bedroom has been totally secluded from the other 2 bedrooms. A dining room has been
designed to be next to the kitchen since the two spaces complement each other.
The arrangement and location of wet areas makes the design to be cost friendly to the
client. All the wet areas have been designed to be at the rear side of the house which makes it
easy and cheap to do the plumbing fixes. Locating the pipes at the back of the house ensures
that the front elevation aesthetics are not compromised. At the front side the house there is a
swimming pool which adds beauty to the compound and makes the environment around it
cool since it lowers the humidity levels.
The building is intended to be sustainable and several design precautions have been
taken into consideration. Firstly, the harvesting of rain water will be carried and this has been
enhanced by a pitched roof with gutters fixed to it. (Arayici, et al., 2011). This water is to be
used for activities like flashing the toilets and watering of the flower beds and also laundry
activities. Solar power harvesting is another sustainable consideration that is to be taken into
account. Solar panels will be fixed to the roof surface. The solar energy generated will be
used hence minimizing the use of electric power hence cutting down bills.

House Design 3
Having trees and beautiful flower lawns improves the aesthetics of the compound.
The trees also act as air filters thus providing clean air within the compound. Having standard
window sizes ensures that there is enough natural lighting getting to the rooms during the day
thus discouraging the use of artificial lighting in all the rooms within the house at that time.
The windows in the design will encourage entry of fresh air to the rooms hence saving the
costs of using mechanical ventilation (Lee & Ha, 2013). The windows have also been
strategically located to give the best views of the surrounding environment to the user of the
spaces. The windows have solar shading devices that will prevent unwanted rays of the sun
into the rooms.
The choice of materials also is carefully taken into consideration to make the house
eco-friendly. The walls will be made from precast concrete walls with the aim of avoiding the
use of materials that might cause harm to the environment (Tan, et al., 2010). The roof
structure will also be made out of steel. Steel comes in the place of wood thus saving the trees
that could have been brought down to make timber for the trusses and other roof components.

House Design 4
References
Tan, X., Hammad, A. and Fazio, P., 2010. Automated code compliance checking for building
envelope design. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 24(2), pp.203-211.
Lee, S. and Ha, M., 2013. Customer interactive building information modeling for apartment
unit design. Automation in Construction, 35, pp.424-430.
Arayici, Y., Coates, P., Koskela, L., Kagioglou, M., Usher, C. and O'reilly, K., 2011.
Technology adoption in the BIM implementation for lean architectural practice. Automation
in construction, 20(2), pp.189-195.