Can Uni student’s design projects be brought to life?_ Beslow coffee (Caravan conversion project by a first-year architecture student)

If you are an architecture student, have you ever thought about how you can draw inspiration from your Uni projects and make them see the light of day? Or have you thought about how your Uni projects can be brought to life?

During the first semester of my Bachelor of Architecture at Queensland University of Technology, I often asked myself ‘could Uni assignment projects be brought to life?’ or ‘should these projects never see the light of day?’

The answer was simple: you can give life to your projects, or in short, you can be your client!.

One of my Uni projects for the semester was to renovate and extend a virtual Kiosk cafe near Sunshine Beach on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, to accommodate more people.

I have always been interested in opening a cafe since my first part-time job as a barista in South Korea. I really enjoyed this renovation project, improving my knowledge of design as well as basic architectural structures.

At the end of the semester, I asked myself the question again: how could I utilise what I had gained and learned through the project?

In other words, I decided to hire myself as a client! However, the main problem was the budget.

As an international student in Australia, I couldn’t afford a lease for opening a cafe. Instead of renting a place, what caught my attention was a coffee trailer or coffee van because some of my friends bought a van and converted it into a motor home by themselves. I decided to give it a go with the caravan!

Spending quite a lot of time to find the right caravan on Facebook market and Gumtree, I made many trips to inspect several caravans. In the meantime, I drew a number of drawings of my dream coffee trailer, looking at some of the photos of the nice coffee trailers on Google.

After a few weeks, I finally found an old timber caravan manufactured in the 1950s. I had a crush on the old caravan at first sight. It seemed like it wasn’t one-sided love. It seemed reciprocal because I am skilled in timber with the certification of marine craft construction (Boatbuilding) and two years of work experience as a boat builder.

I decided to buy it and bring it home. However, the problem was that it was 60 years old. There are many wears and tears, and even the base trailer needs to be ground and repainted.

On top of that, the floor structure was too weak, and it also needed to be replaced, or be covered with a new plywood sheet. I also had to design customised windows and doors for the caravan.

It seemed the best to gut it.

As soon as I finished my first semester, I kicked off the conversion project, named “Beslow coffee conversion project”. Since I had fresh knowledge of how to create detailed drawings for the Kiosk project, I used all the knowledge I had accumulated to design all the tailored windows.

To be honest, it was not as easy as I expected! I had to research all the hardware, timber, design of windows and so on. It took me over three weeks to design and make a customised door and windows, and to fit them into the caravan.

I sanded back the trailer to remove the paint and rust and repainted it. Then, I applied fibreglass with polyester resin at every corner to reinforce the structure. I also laid a 7mm plywood to reinforce the floor, and I filled up the gaps with Q-cell mixed with resin. After sanding the floor several times, I brushed resin on the floor to make it watertight. I could have used different materials but I wanted to use the materials that I am confident in using and familiar with.

After two months of the conversion, I am now researching and ordering a water tank and other necessary parts for plumbing, designing the benches and shelves for the caravan in Rhino, and by hand drawing. On top of that, I have contacted several electricians to install all the electrical works for the 15amp single-phase power.

In less than two months, I plan to finish this conversion project, and let the project which drew inspiration from my Uni project in the first semester, see the light of the day.

Through this project, I have had the chance to become a client, builder, and designer, even though I am a first-year student.

By sharing this blog post, I would like to encourage you as an architecture student to try and develop your hands-on skills and experiences by kicking off your own projects.

(These could be to redesign and renovate your old furniture, or to design and make new pieces of furniture.)