OnebyOne: Fire Proof Housing

Hi! I am Sanwarya Ramani, and I am a rising senior at Mountain House High School in the Bay Area. After taking engineering as an elective in high school, I have been interested in architecture and engineering. With the help of Autodesk software, I was able to construct a prototype of fire-resistant housing. After the LA fires, which impacted over 200,000 people and destroyed 18,000 homes, I made it my goal to create housing that would help with this situation. The model I created on Fusion 360 portrays a house that is both fire-resistant and made to withstand the conditions of California. OnebyOne we can help prevent houses from spreading fire and save many around the world.

Software:

1. Autodesk Fusion

Materials:

1. Paper
2. Pencil, Pen
3. Computer

Due to dry conditions and winds in Los Angeles, fires were caused and spread throughout Los Angeles and San Diego. After hearing this news, I was devastated to realize how many people lost their homes due to the fires. Many stores and schools shut down, causing financial losses and trauma to many. The fires impacted people one by one.

To prevent something like this from happening in the future, I did my research on what materials can be used for housing in order to repel fires. By building fire repellent housing, people can be safe from fires in the future.

I decided to sketch out designs for my houses and what they would contain in order to help repel fires. I decided to keep the design of my house more modern and focus more on the interior and materials instead. To begin with, the houses need to contain gypsum/fiber cement boards/ICF walls, and wood. Since I was planning on basing these houses in California, I did not incorporate bricks into my design, as it is not used due to the frequent earthquakes that happen here. For my roofing, I decided to use asphalt roof shingles, as it is considered to be Class A for being fire resistant. For windows and doors, I decided to use double-panel windows and tempered glass. I decided to incorporate a minimum amount of vents for air circulation since vents can be a reason for ember to come through and cause a fire. For the vent, I decided to use a wire mesh to prevent anything like this from happening. Finally, for the exterior, it is best to reduce the number of plants kept, as dead plants can cause fires to spread rapidly. If plants are kept in housing, I decided to keep it about 30 feet away. Generally, I decided to avoid having too many plants near the house.

I decided to base my design on this house.

To create my 3d design on Fusion, I watched many tutorials and looked at many videos before building my house.

I decided to incorporate an interior design as well to display how the house will look on the inside. There will be a fire evacuation route in each house for people to escape quickly and easily. There will also be fire extinguishers in the house to help prevent fire from spreading. The houses that are designed will also be one-story houses, as it can be quicker to escape compared to a two-story house. There will also be smoke detectors that will alert the fire department after 5 minutes of not being stopped.

I was able to learn so much from this project, and it was so much fun to CAD on Fusion 360 as well. I hope that OnebyOne, these fire-resistant houses can be used to help prevent fires in the future. To end, thank you so much for taking the time to view my project!