The site we have been given to construct our design upon is located on the corner of Victoria Park Road and Maidstone Street in Kelvin Grove. It is adjacent to Kulgun Park and sits in a slight trough/valley. It is located within 10 minutes of several high density traffic situations such as QUT Kelvin Grove campus as well as shops nearby.
There is residential housing to the south of the site and also a 10 storey building under construction directly to the west of the site.
As you can see from the above image the problems faced with the sight is that it's surrounded by several possible privacy invasion. Along Victoria Park Road can become high density traffic from both cars, pedestrians, buses and cyclists. It will be important to resolve this issue by via sound proofing.
Also located very closeby to the site is Kulgun Park and another parkland across Victoria Park Road. This could be used by people for a number of reasons such as sports, training, leisure or a passing through point. Privacy of some form would ideal from this part of the site.
Residential housing is located on the southern side of the site. Although this should not be too much of a problem it would still help to have some form of privacy and noise barrier to keep the site protected and sheltered.
Down Maidstone Street sees minor traffic and pedestrian usage, as well as cars parking along the side of the road. Although the traffic is not too much of an issue from this street it would still be recommended to design the cabin to keep as much privacy as possible.
The 10 storey commercial building being built to the west of the site will be a problem when it comes to late afternoon, with the sun setting being the building. This will cast a shadow over the site and evidently over the cabin also. Although this may not be a big deal as it will help cool the building of an afternoon for the hot summers, it will still be ideal to consider how this will affect the design of the cabin.
After viewing wind rose charts, it was seen that the suns travelling path is from east to west, from higher in the sky on the northern side in the summer and shallower on the northern side in the winter. This means that greater shadows will be cast by both my cabin and also the 10 storey commercial building in the winter. Luckily the climate in Brisbane does not experience extremely cold winters, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Wind flow across the site travels southerly to a south-easterly direction. It will be important to utilise the natural breeze that crosses the site in order to get good ventilation and cooling wind flow through the cabin. This is important so that the hot summers that are experienced in Queensland can be coped with without having to use energy on other sources to cool the dwelling.
