Final Major Project (Project Proposal)

Title: A design to make laundry easier than ever 

Progress and Achievement

            I have improved my skills in researching and finding inspirations through out the foundation course, but the ways to evaluate my own work by myself and other students in the course is what I think the most important thing I have learnt. Since during days in high school, teacher is the only one that evaluates my work.

Context

            To me, laundry is the most irritating one among all housework. It is actually not that annoying until I found others is leaving their clothes in the washing machine/dryer forever when the clothes are perfectly done or dry. I remember one time, I was arguing with another girl in the laundry room because I placed all her clothes to the surface of the washing machine that make her to wash her clothes all over again. (The surfaces of the washing machines are always dusty) All these inconvenient, interested me towards an idea for my final major project. 

B

A

C

D

A – showing how dusty the surface of the washing machine is.

B – perfectly washed/dried clothes are always left in the washing machine/dryer

C – people used to remove all the clothes in the machine to the surface if no washing            machine/ dryer is available.  Sometimes I can even saw underwear on the piles of clothes, which is not that decent, since most halls are co-ed. 

D – rubbish bag are always used to move dirty beddings to the laundry room (not environmentally friendly since students throw the rubbish bag after they put the beddings in the washing machine) 

Project Proposal Aims, Methods and Realization

            The purpose of this project is to design a flat-pack and multifunctional design for laundry. I aimed to design a flat-pack structure that can be a laundry basket for dirty clothes in a room, a mesh bag in the washing machine/dryer and a bag that can avoid the cleansed clothes from getting dirty again.

            To start with this project, I would like to design questionnaires for students who lived in halls because I would like to know more about their experience and difficulties they found in the process of laundry.  Next, research details in how washing machine and dryer works (e.g. temp. and volume of water, speed of spinning..etc) and different kind of materials that are usually used to make laundry basket or bag. Instead of researching only in common materials such as plastic and metal, different kind of textile/fabric can also be research in order to find the best materials for the design. I should research on Anthropometry because the design is used to carry heavy clothes, so I want to know which is the best way for human body to carry weight.

            Before I investigate ideas through making sketch models (simple ones), I would like to get some inspirations around the city since I found different kind of structure and shapes inspires me a lot from the experience of previous project I did in the foundation course. After that, design development take place together with sketch models making (more details sketch models made in workshop).  Then, designed questionnaires will be used to determine which designs are worth to develop further more. Lastly, design outcome will be done and research on machine that might be used before making the final product to prevent any danger cause by lack of understanding of specific machinery.

Evaluation

            In order to evaluate the progress of my Final Major Project, I would like to write a reflective journal daily and summarize the journals weekly on my reflective blog. Questionnaires for peers will be the starting and ending part of my Final Major Project, since students who lived in halls will be the major subjects who used the design.