Their story, in their words…
My inspiration for my project arose from the practical challenges that I face as a Great Britain Taekwondo Athlete, whereby I have to attend various training sessions including physiotherapy, gym conditioning and cryotherapy treatments, which creates the need for extensive travel across London and the UK. I decided to build a model of a Korean Inspired Dojang, where all facilities could be under one roof in an aesthetically pleasing environment.
I created my Dojang using MDF, balsa wood and mount card, I sourced paint and wallpaper samples to decorate the external and internal walls. I enjoyed planning the project, and sourcing ideas for the finished decorations. Because this was the first time, I had created a model building, I found working with the various materials challenging, for example I did not realise that balsa wood would warp when it was painted, cutting windows and doors against the wood grain was harder than I had anticipated, and I did not realise how quickly you had to work when using a glue gun. When I assembled the building, I needed to do this in a coordinated manner, for example laying the flooring before the internal walls, leaving the back external wall until the last fixing to enable me to construct the smaller rooms with enough working space. The most challenging part of the build was the roof because I had to calculate the correct angles for the 2 roof sections to be cut and fixed together seamlessly.
During this project I learnt the importance of planning before commencing work on the main build. I created a lot of templates on card, trialling ideas and mapping out where rooms should be built, I created mini roof templates prior to cutting the main materials. I believe this was the key to the success of my project and enabled me to eliminate wastage.
I completed my project within my allocated time frames, I did overspend on budget by £1.64, because I did not budget for the delivery charges for my materials. I did keep within my budget for all other material expenditure.
I thoroughly enjoyed completing this project, it really challenged me from the onset of planning and costing the project through to building and familiarising myself with materials that I had not worked with before. Since commencing this project, I have decided to pursue further studies in Architecture at University. I would like to thank the Mark Evison Foundation for this fantastic opportunity
