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Insulating House Coverings

January 2013 - May 2013

Six Team Members

My team partnered with the Appropriate Technology Collaborative (ATC) to address the issue of significant room temperature drop at night in houses located in the mountains of Guatemala. Many people living there developed respiratory problems from breathing in cold air all night for years. Therefore, we designed cheap, effective and sustainable detachable insulating house coverings with combinations of various materials for panels and fillers to solve the problem. The design was implemented in Guatemala and on-site data for future improvement were collected in May 2013.

 

Inspiration

Communicated with the executive director of ATC to identify design resources and limitations.

Interviewed people who worked on projects in Guatemala to understand the situation of the area.

Studied videos of the houses in the mountains of Guatemala taken by ATC and developed insights into the issue.

Performed desk research and proposed design opportunities. 

A typical house in the mountains of Guatemala
Two Guatemalan women with respiratory problems 

Ideation

Brainstormed design concepts to prevent significant room temperature drop at night in houses located in the mountains of Guatemala. 

Created sketches to share ideas and obtain feedback.

Developed drawings and step-by-step prototyping plans of design concepts. 

Prototyping plan of a window covering concept

Cotton panels were sewn together, filled with fillers, and then installed on to the windows to help insulate the houses better 

Implementation

Purchased prototyping materials from local and online stores.

Fabricated window covering prototypes by cutting, sewing and supergluing various materials.

Conducted cooling and heating tests on the prototypes and finalized the design through iterations of designing, prototyping, and testing.

Implemented the house coverings in Guatemala and obtained on-site data for future improvement in May 2013

Cooling test data
Installing ceiling coverings in a house in the mountains of Guatemala
A Guatemalan family with the window coverings to be installed in their house
Before and after implementing the house coverings
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