Modular Desert Community

My name is Will and I'm currently a freshman in high school. The project initially started as a way to incorporate my other instructable into one big project. However, as you can probably tell I got very carried away with it and ended up building one of my favorite miniature models I've ever built. the physical model is mostly made of corrugated cardboard because it's cheap and what I had on hand. the general idea I had when building this was to create a modular community that stacked vertically and could easily be adapted to fit different needs in different environments.

• cardboard
• 15'' square dowel 1/4'' diameter
• glue
• trees to decorate (optional)
• A lot of patience

When I say a lot of patience I mean a lot from start to finish it took me roughly 7.5 hours to do just the model

In the ideation phase, I had 2 main requirements for this 1. it had to be modular. this is mostly because I love the way modular buildings look. It also makes a good medium for adaptability to different places and climates. the second thing I wanted was that it stacked vertically. this was mostly for aesthetic purposes and some very specific situations. I was aiming for that look that The Stack Modular Housing in Manhattan has. I was mainly going for the staggered rectangular design. The design revolves around the different-sized rectangular prisms with a multi-story staircase and a landing on every floor or every other floor. For the prototype, I love using tinkercad it's really fast and easy to use with all of the parts pre-modeled and constrained the system all in all works amazing it's drag, drop, and go.

this is one of my favorite parts about modeling in 3d first I can have a "physical " reference when I make concept art. I use different perspectives in tinker cad then screenshot it and throw it on as a reference layer for my art. The first one I draw is what I like to call a feasibility check. I take a portion of this cut out a slice, and figure out if it's at all feasible to build or live in. This should be the first image as you can see I divided up all of these different rooms into smaller sub rooms there was one thing I did figure out with this feasibility check the large unsupported overhand on the 4th layer. to do a second feasibility check I went to a family friend to who I pitched the concept after a thorough discussion we concluded that an overhang like that would be feasible if it did not support extra floors. he pointed out many great ideas like adding a large water feature to the side of the building. the next 2 drawings I did were to validate my design I made three different ones Picked my favorite one refined it colored it and photoshopped some people and plants to simulate what it would look like in the real world.

FYI I used this free template maker for all of the cuts it can be found here its an amazing tool that streamlined my process by hours.

• general settings for all boxes (inches)
• type card box
• thumbhole size 0
• material thickness 0.03
• width 2.5
• box 1
• length 7.5
• height 7.5
• box 2
• length 8
• height 5
• box 3
• length 5
• height 5
• box 4
• length 7.5
• height 7.5
• box 5
• length 6.5
• height 5.5
• box 6
• length 3
• height 3
• box 7
• length 6.5
• height 5.5

Next up we have the stairs

• 72x "3 x 3/4" ( stack 12 on top of each other to make a staircase. see photo for reference)
• 13x "3/4 x 1.5" (one for each landing)
• 1x "6 x 13.5" (the parting plate)

finally, you need to make a pallet in a 4x6 matrix with dimensions 15''x 7.5'' and remove the first row up. ( see photo for reference)

This project has been enjoyable and interesting to work on. there are some things I did well on and some gross oversights in the design. but overall this project has gone very well. I've compiled a list of everything I think I did well and things that need improvement if I had more time:

• Things I did well
• Physical model. The physical model turned out far better than I thought. I attribute this to the simple boxy design while making it visually interesting using different size boxes
• Drawings. I mostly attribute this to the use of tinker cad with the ability to use forced perspective.
• Things I could improve
• The CAD. It was only ok. This is mostly due to the rushed nature of the prototype CAD stage. in the future I will try using more advanced CAD/BIM tools.
• livability, This one was due to the fact I straight up didn't have enough time to do anything more than the proof of concept sketch where I just divided the rooms up and added very basic furniture/appliances.