Shelters presentations

On 20th November 2020, in the Atrium of PMB Building, the presentation of ten Cardboard shelters in scale 1:1 took a place. The Shelters were developed by students of the Qualifying year of Architecture, within the module Integrated Design in Architecture 1, led by Aurel Fabri, the Module convener.

The Shelters soon attracted the attention of students and University staff. As a result, a selected number of these shelters were later displayed in our new Library building. There, they now stand as sculptural objects, but also as elements creating specific, comfortable and cozy spaces, attractive and enjoyable by all Library users.

Our greatest congratulations to the students for their success! We believe that their achievement is a good inspiration for all; and we believe that is worthy to follow up in various forms.

Specifics of the Shelter Project

This architecture project has been implemented for the third year in a row. This year, students took advantage of past experiences and developed high quality designs.

What makes this project quite unique in the students’ career is that they go through the whole process of design and assembly, from initial research of the theme, through the development of the original design idea, to the final completion of the construction on a scale of 1:1. In this way, the project fosters the development of both hard and soft skills. In particular, it:

• helps students to gain a better understanding of the structural principles in architectural design
• fosters independent and self-motivated learning through design-based task
• allows students to learn from applied experience, which supports immediate, qualitative and lasting learning.
• develops teamwork skills. As the development of each Shelter structure is a joint work of a group of students, quality communication and cooperation is crucial for the successful completion of the project.

Stories of students on the development of their Shelters.

The inspiration or concept of our shelter comes from the burning flame. Because of the complex shape of the flame, we simplified it and finally formed such a triangle structure with radian. The structure of the whole shelter can be simply divided into two parts: three keels and ten flame-shaped frames. Three keels as the main support of the shelter, and the frame inserted with the keel plays a role in fixing the keel. The production process of this shelter is very clear and simple and can be divided into two phases: 1) making the pieces; 2) assembling them. However, simplicity does not mean that it is going to be an easy task! Since the actual production process was slightly different from the original idea, we have encountered several problems to solve. They pushed us to constantly improve the structure during the production phase. For example: as the cardboard was not big enough, we could not cut out any structure directly with a piece of cardboard, so we had to split the structure into several pieces and planes, and then splice and paste them. Or, to mention another problem that we encountered, we had to deal with the largest keel in the middle, which had to be very long, but also had to bear the maximum force. If it was too thin, it would have easily bended and broken, so we used two thickest pieces of cardboard to make it. After overcoming all these difficulties, we finally completed this incredible task: to create a shelter with aesthetic and structural significance! Moreover, we gained a deeper understanding of how structural, mechanical, and aesthetical issues are intertwined and have to be considered at the same time during the design process.

Inspiration to design of our Shelter comes from honeycomb which consists of hundreds of hexagons and is really stable in the nature. Our shelter consists of 60 hexagonal prisms with a length of 1 meter and 34 hexagonal prisms with a length of 0.2 meter. As you can see of it, there are two layers of hexagonal prisms. We connected different layers of hexagonal prisms by inserting first and then glued those in the same layer together. There was a problem we faced when construction is that the cardboard is too weak to support such a heavy shelter. In order to solve this problem, we added hexagons to each tube which can make the structure more stable. For the appearance, it is elegant and beautiful due to the only element we used for it. For the interior space, it offers a large space which can satisfy different requirements of people who used it. In addition, the solid wall on both sides protect the privacy of its users and the void wall at the back allow the light coming into the interior space and making it brighter.

Our shelter is inspired by star and paper-folding, which leads to the choice of combining geodesic dome and folded-plate as our structure. The whole shelter is divided into two parts, built with pieces of cardboards in shapes of rhombus and triangle. Then, they were reinforced by UHU, glue gun and 502 glue. Adding binder clips is the last step to increase the bonding strength. During construction, we found that the bottom part was easy to move, which weakened the stability of the shelter. Therefore, we fixed its “feet” to the floor with triangular cardboard. In terms of the appearance, the angular shape obtains both firmness and beauty. The structure also offers both warmth and security with all the coverings. The interior provides enough space for 4 to 5 adults to sit and 1 to 2 to lie. Also, a 175cm tall man can stand comfortably in the middle area. When lying down and looking up, you will discover a star-shaped ceiling with some small openings where the light can go through to create a sense of shining stars. The experience will be better if using the flashlight in the dark.