The Tecogloo

The TecoGloo is my concept for a temporary shelter - It is a compact, collapsible shelter designed for rapid deployment in disaster zones. Built to be durable and easy to assemble, it aims to provide quick relief to communities affected by natural disasters.

Maya Autodesk - A powerful 3D modelling software

From the moment I saw the prompt, I knew I wanted to create a shelter that was temporary, eco friendly and truly adaptable - something that could be easily deployed, reused under any condition and provide safety and comfort in any emergency. That idea became the foundation of the TecoGloo.

After researching several traditional and modern emergency shelters used across different climates and cultures, I came across two main structures that stood out for me: the Tepee, known for its portability and ventilation, and the Igloo, celebrated for its remarkable insulation and structural integrity. These two structures structures represented the perfect balance of deployability and temperature regulation - the two main features I needed for the Tecogloo.

From here my goal was clear, I needed to design a hybrid shelter that took the best features from both structure and adapt them for rapid response scenarios.

My planning consisted of a lot of brainstorming and trying out different structure designs as well as researching the properties of different material as well as different emergency scenarios that I needed my structure to be able to handle.

The Tecogloo will have a radius of about 170 cm and a height of 180 cm.

I landed on the idea of a slightly conical shaped dome called the Tecogloo.

The dome shape deflects wind rather than absorbing it, this reduces the chances of it tipping over in extremely windy environments.

Domes are also incredibly strong relative to their weight and surface area making them more cost effective to produce compare to other shapes.

The curved shape of the dome promotes airflow which helps to regulate the interior temperature. It also reduces heat loss due to it having less surface area to volume ratio.

The segments of the TecoGloo can be made modular and collapsible which makes it ideal for flat-pack delivery and fast deployment.

The TecoGloo is intended to be made from bamboo due to its light weight, high durability which will allow for several of them to be carried and deployed by a single vehicle as well as easy to carry by hand. Bamboo is cheap, easily recyclable and an easily renewable resource which makes it the perfect material for the TecoGloo to be made out of.

It will also have 4 metal telescopic poles attached to each of its 6 wall segments to allow it to be easily erected and collapsable.

This process proved to be more difficult than I expected as what I thought was a simple model proved to be quite difficult to create, however through the use of booleans and some other geometric manipulation I managed to take what was on paper into a digital landscape and effectively show how the Tecogloo would look when deployed in emergency situations.

I started with a cylinder and flattened it into a disk to create the base for all wall segments.

I then scaled the top vertices of the cylinder inward to taper the edges inwards and form angled walls. 📐

I duplicated the sloped cylinder upwards to create stacked layers, then resized and bevelled each one to make the layers visually distinct. 😮

Congratulations, you have successfully completed the outer shape of the TecoGloo 🥳 . Next we'll need to hollow it out to make it functional and usable as a shelter.

Before hollowing, I made a copy of the TecoGloo and moved it aside- it will be our backup incase something goes irreversibly wrong 😉

I separated each wall segment and duplicated them with a slightly smaller, thicker shape inside. These will be used to create the hollowed-out shell for animation and structure. 🐚

Select each wall segment and its centre pillar, then use "Separate A from B" to split them for hollowing.

Once all the segments are hollowed out reassemble the TecoGloo, Its now ready for animation 🎆.

In order to truly showcase the Tecogloo in action, it needs to be placed in a disaster zone. Creating the background proved quite challenging as I wanted to move onto animating however in order to animate I first needed to have a plan as to where the animation would actually go. 🏔️ ☄️ 💥

Before I could make a background I needed to have a detailed plan of what I wanted the setting to look like in order to avoid wasting time with continuously changing ideas while designing it. 🤔

The first step to making the background is to place a plane down and placing large cubes as place holders for mountains that would later be added. 📦

I tried my best but despite my efforts I could not create a detailed, destroyed house so I resulted to importing a broken house. 🏠 💥 [skill issue 😔 ]

I copied and resized the imported house several times to create a village destroyed by a natural disaster. I used different shapes like cylinders and cubes to create debris, crates, logs etc.. in order to fill up the ground and make the setting feel a bit more busy. 🪵

[I completed this step after animation however I suggest doing it before]

The mountains proved extremely challenging to make and thus I again imported a mountain and reshaped a copy of it to form another mountain. The boulders were made by reshaping cubes into various shapes and bevelling them to smooth out the edges, I then embedded them into the cliff-face. 🪨 ⛰️

I added colour to each object by giving it a new surface and adjusting its colour to fit what I wanted each object to look like. To make this step easier rename each object in the object finder as well as rename each new surface you put on an object.

This step required the most time and effort as I had no prior experience with animation before this however through the help of multiple YouTube videos and redoing the Maya tutorial I found an animation I was happy with. I suggest planning out the animation before starting this process as it will save you a lot of time and prevent any confusion if you work on it over multiple days. 🥸

This is a step I regret skipping as it would have saved me a lot of time as planning the animation gives you a clear start and end of what you want your animation to look like and prevents you from constantly changing the animation. 🗺️

I wanted the disks of the Tecogloo to start off by floating down from the air before being assembled on the ground. To do this I moved the Tecogloo high above the surface and separated all the disks. I then moved each on them to the same point on the surface at different points in the animation by keyframing them at 12 frames apart, working fom the outside disks to the inner ones. This allows the separate disks to all be seen before the next step.

For this step I also worked from outside in , moving each wall segment at a different point in the animation to show how the Tecogloo can be assembled by a simply pulling it up.

For this step I used a boolean of the door designed earlier to make an opening in a copy of the Tecogloo. From there I switched the original Tecogloo with its copy by making them switch places within one frame.

I split the door in half by selecting the vertices and moving them until only half the door remained. I then copied the door and rotated it to make door look whole again. I then animated the new door floating down onto the original tecogloo, which then switches with the Tecogloo copy. Once the two Tecogloos switch position the two halves of the door split open to show the interior of the Tecogloo. 🤩 😮

I felt like this step was necessary as I wanted to showcase the Tecogloo in an interesting way and I felt the movement of the camera allowed me to show the different features of the Tecogloo without taking away any of the focus. 🎥 🛖

I used AI to generate a few renders along with my own to showcase the Tecogloo in different emergency situations that it may be used in. 🤖

I quite enjoyed this project, especially the Brainstorming part of it as I felt like I was truly challenged by the prompt and had to not only think of new ideas, but had to nitpick at any issues that might arise from them.

A few things I would improve on this project is to try build a physical model of the tecogloo out the bamboo as I want to truly test how effective the design would be on a physical model as theory can only go so far. I also want to experiment with different materials that cold be placed underneath the walls of the Tecogloo to prevent any water from flowing underneath/between them if it rains.I would also try add an energy source like solar panels to the top of the Tecogloo as well as a compartment in the roof to store emergency supplies like a foil blankets and a first-aid kit. 🩹

The Tecogloo was designed to be an easily deployable, reusable, temporary structure that could be used to offer refuge to victims in emergency situations.

The main inspiration making a temporary emergency structure was the increase in natural disasters around the world due to climate change. I hoped to create a temporary solution for the people that have lost their homes and I feel like I've managed to come up with a solid idea however I am open to receiving any feedback on any problems with the Tecogloo's current design or any possible improvements or factors I may have missed while designing it.

Making the Tecogloo has been an extremely tough but rewarding experience and has truly pushed me to my 3D modelling limits and has given me a new level of respect for professional 3D modellers and animators. 🫡