NateF-8b

Welcome to Nate's page



To design this kitchen I obviously followed the directions given in the book. Though you can see I took some liberties in the design. As you can see I was taught how to make the ceilings open. This will come in handy when I'm designing my actual home. I also used the soffit tool to make it seem like my cabinets were better designed. I will also be using the soffit tool to design the posts for decks and other things. Im sure though, that I will find tools that are easier than the soffits to make a deck post. The soffit skill will allow me to have an idea of how my kitchen and other parts of my home will look with and without soffits. I will be able to use the open ceiling tool to help me to design a home that looks both comfortable and modern. In this assignment I ran into the problem of overcustomizing my kitchen. When I did this I found that I kept trying to make my kitchen look better by customizing. At this point I decided to just strip the customization to it's original form. After that I re-customized the kitchen in a simpler form. I think I did a good job in following the directions of the book and getting this project done in a timely manner. I really didn't alter the design of the room that was given other than the open ceiling and the obvious customization of the cabinets and appliances. I think my design is creative in the fact that the types of wood work with the color of the walls and the metallic tinge of the appliances. All in all I enjoyed this part of the project and look forward to continuing my construction of my home.



In this assignment I worked on designing and building my porch whereas in my last project I worked on my kitchen. While working on my project I learned how to properly construct these two porches. As you can see one of them has a roof and the other doesn't. I learned in this project how to use soffits to construct posts, as well as how to alter stairs so that they would go downwards rather than upwards. The construction of the stairs will help me further in this program when I'm designing my own house. Though that really doesn't happen until CAD advanced. In the real world building a porch would be helpful when working on homes and other things, such as blueprints, construction, and becoming an architect. It is helpful to know how to design a porch in life considering how I want a porch on my home. When building this I ran into the problem of having the open ceilings work on the porch roof. Though I already learned how to create the open ceilings I ran into the problem of my program specifications being wrong. After running into this problem I put a ceiling over the roof, then rebuilt the porch and had the roof fit the proportions. I was successful in building the porch and I was creative in the manner that I designed the house and porch with corresponding colors and interesting types of plank wood. I found this project challenging while enjoyable.

In this assignment it was necessary for us to construct an outdoor area complete with a yard, road, and property lines. Since the last project I constructed all you see in the picture and added to areas in my house such as the basement and parts of the external decoration. In this project We learned how to design property lines as well as design and outdoor features. In this section it was necessary for us to make our property lines, this is how we got our yards and lawns to appear. We also had to adjust the level of our lawns so they met our stairs on our decks. With the ability to construct my property I will be able to design lawns and change elevations when I design my own home. The ability to design the outdoors and aspects of my yard will help me to be able to design a comfortable and enjoyable outdoors. I ran into the problem of creating a room when I designed my brick wall, now this may not sound like a problem, but it makes it impossible to have a lawn, so what I did to solve this problem was I cut out my gate and I made a small room around my whole wall, what you see is a single wall, but in reality it is two walls built extremely close together. I was happily successful in making my wall and expanding my giant lawnmower, which you can only see out of the corner of the picture. I was creative in the fact that I constructed a garage, though that was not part of the design the book gave, I also constructed my wall and put a pool in that you can see in the distance.



In this assignment I designed theses layouts which show the design of my plan with multiple different aspects. Since the last project, I have designed a three page layout that I have printed and also posted online. I have shown views of my house and I like the way they turned out. With this project I have learned how to transfer files from the plan design to a layout. Layouts are absolutely necessary to design buildings, for they are used to construct the building and as blueprints. I will also be designing my home and making it a layout so that is a use for this program's future as far as I am concerned. When designing this layout I found that it was difficult to view the sides of the home with items like my garage, road, etc. So to solve this i deleted all of my exterior items, and saved the file under a new name, so that I still had my old file. I did however accidentally find a way to change the size of my layout image sizes, but I didn't find this out until Lance found out the reason why the photo changed size. I find that was interesting.



In the assignment above, we had to design an entirely new home, that showed we could change the elevation of the areas terrain successfully, as well as put in supports for our decks easily. Rather than taking the diagrams for this home, as I did last assessment, I had to change everything in my project. I had to open a new file, change that files grid pattern, and construct a 32'x28' vacation home. I learned how to change elevation, which will be helpful later, as I want to design a home on a mountain terrain. I will also be able to enter points on a land that I want to build a home on, with the properly surveyed land. While designing this terrain, I ran into the issue of my terrain becoming to drastic, by which I mean the landscape was crazy, it wasn't a gentle decrease; more like a rapid increase and decrease of height. I was successful in altering the height by changing the heights of my contour lines. Doing this taught me how to successfully change heights and aspects of my land without trouble. An interesting aspect of my house, you see that I designed large marble stairs, the book wanted just a deck, but I think the stairs make a pretty picture.



In this assignment we had to finish designing our vacation homes, we added small details and other specifications to the land. I also had to design my own company name and logo. I learned how to manipulate the lines and CAD function, so that I could design what I desired. This function is helpful later in the program to design layers and areas that we cannot do as easily with wall, door, and other functions. I will also be able to be creative in designs that my employers may require to design later in life. I ran into the problems of my design being difficult, because I couldn't adequately manipulate the lines to my desire. I then used different tools and went about the project with a different approach and was successful. I designed my logo in a creative manner and am happy with how it turned out.


 * [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Low_Flow_Toilet.jpg width="258" height="330" caption="G1"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Water_Lip.jpg width="261" height="325" caption="G2"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Washer_and_Dryer.jpg width="274" height="324" caption="G3"]] ||
 * [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Recycling_Room.jpg width="256" height="299" caption="G4"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Windows.jpg width="262" height="309" caption="G5"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Solar_Panels.jpg width="276" height="315" caption="G6"]] ||
 * [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Urban_Area.jpg width="264" height="302" caption="G7"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Brownfeild.jpg width="264" height="297" caption="G8"]] || [[image:NateF-8B-Green_Thermostat.jpg width="276" height="307" caption="G9"]] ||

In the following paragraphs I will take you through different aspects of how my house is adequately suited to the LEED efficiency standards. There are five standards to the LEED system.

The first standard is Water efficiency. The purpose of this standard is to keep the use and flow of water environmentally friendly as well as easy. My first example of the standard is in the photo G1. This shows the use of low flow toilets, which reduces the use of water in plumbing systems, as well as reduces energy use. My second image would be in G2. This shows the sloping of land, this allows water to flow in a natural way and provides the ability to catch water for uses other than drinking. My last image of this standard is also depicted in G2, though it is not easy to see, you will notice that along the roof are gutters, these are used to catch water for multiple uses. Thus they save water.

The next standard is sustainable sites. The goal of this standard is to use sites that are healthy to the environment. My first example of this is in G7. This image depicts a home in a urban area. To build in an urban area allows people to walk more and use less environmentally harmful forms of transportation. Next in image G8 I have shown a home that meats the brownfield standard. This is sort of self explanatory, you build your home in a brown field that is undesirable for farming, or has been over farmed. Last I have another example in G5. In this photo you can see my foundation. I reused this foundation. This is helpful because it slows the use of concrete, rebar and other materials used in the building of foundations.

The third standard is materials and resources. The purpose of materials and resources is to keep materials used in both construction and home living out of landfills and to use all capable materials. My first example of this is in image G4 this shows the use of multiple recycling bins for multiple resources. This system allows organization in the use of materials that are no longer necessary. Also this keeps materials out of landfills that are harmful to the environment. My second example is also in G4 here you will see my wooden floor. Here I used boards from an old home. This keeps raw materials from being needed in construction. It also slows the process of over use of resources. My third example is in G5. You can see my foundation here. This foundation was reused from an old home that stood on the ground i built my house. This like in sustainable sites keeps the use of materials used in construction to a minimum.

Yet another standard is energy and atmosphere. The purpose of this standard is obviously to save energy while making the atmosphere of your home comfortable. My first example of the energy part of this standard would be in image G3. This depicts my solar panels. The solar panels are designed to conserve energy taken from local plants, and other areas. They also save energy produced by fossil fuels. My next image is G5. This shows an atmosphere part of my standard. These windows add control to the atmosphere. Light can now come in and I don't have to waste money on electric lighting. Lastly you can see in image G3 an energy star washer and dryer. These are efficient in keeping energy at a healthy level for the environment and my wallet.

The last standard is indoor environmental quality. This standard is all about controlling the interior of homes. In G5 you will see my windows. These allow me to control natural light and how much I use electric lighting. I have also added dimmers to my lights, though I do not have an image of that. My next image is in G9. In this picture you can see a very non-descript thermostat. This allows me to control tempertures in specific areas of my house. I have several placed throughout my house. These allow me to "zone" my heating, so that I don't waste heat in areas that don't require it. Thank you for reading my report on the LEED home system.



Recently, I was assigned a project to design and show the benefits of a single type of home. The options given to me were, a 1 story ranch home, 1 1/2 story cape home, a 2 story home and a split level home. I chose a 2 story home. The bonus of this home are plentiful and this home is possibly the most cost efficient home of the ones given. As for the cost, there is less property to buy, which will obviously cost less money. Also, the roof and foundation are smaller, which substantially saves both resources and money. As for maintenance exterior maintenance is more expensive and difficult, though it is expensive it is also worth it for the benefits of this home. The only other downfall of the 2 story home would be its inaccessibility to the disabled. It is difficult or the disabled to clean the exterior and to get up the multiple floors. The final benefit I will mention is the heating system. It is quite easy for heating, because the heat will rise, which makes heating the upper floor easier. Cooling is also easy because the roof is not connected to the inside floors, so ventilation is easier. Ways to compensate for the disadvantages to the disabled would include installing an elevator, or chairs that electrically raise up the stairs. Lastly, a way to work through the hard maintenance would be to buy a ladder, or hire others to do your work. Thanks for reading my report on multiple story housing.