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Stray animal shelter

The theme of this project is stray animals, and the problem to be solved is how to take better care of stray animals in the current environment. With the continuous development of society, the relationship between animals and humans is getting closer and closer. In particular, people living in cities have a lack of spiritual life due to their busy work. Companion pets are thus born. According to the relevant institutions research shows that the pet dogs and cats have certain feelings, also has a pet to accompany children to more social sense of responsibility and love (Bergler, 1995.). However, in China, with the increasing number of companion pets, the problem of stray animals has gradually emerged.

Some pets become stray animals due to the abandonment of the original breeding family. These families may choose to abandon their pets because they have a new pet or because the pet is sick and cannot afford expensive treatment. Some people lose their pets because of their owners' negligence. However, China lacks a complete stray animal adoption agency, which makes it difficult to find pets once they are lost. These lost pets have no choice but to stray in the city. There is no fixed place to live, and the vagrant life makes these vagrant animals always be alert to their environment. The insecurity of being abandoned makes these stray animals sensitive and aggressive. Stray animals are often frightened by small things and attack nearby targets, such as passers-by. This can be harmful to both pedestrians and stray animals themselves. Because of the unsanitary living environment, stray animals often carry a large number of bacteria and parasites. These bacteria and parasites will continue to destroy the body of stray animals, but also bring health problems to human society (Kumar, 2002.). The most important is rabies, the death rate of dogs and people with rabies is 100%(Chuanlin, Wenwu, 2018.). Because of the difference in size and strength between animals and humans, animals often become victims. However, because there is no one to take care of and manage stray animals, they often become the "first choice" for some people to commit abuse.

These situations occur because there is no perfect stray animal management and adoption institutions in the city, which leads to stray animals not being protected and cared for. So based on this phenomenon, I designed a mobile homeless shelter and some posters. The ultimate goal of this design is to arouse people's attention to the living environment and state of stray animals, and solve the problems of stray animals in food and living environment. The whole design consists of two parts, poster and model design.

As for poster design, I choose to design posters related to stray cats/dogs. First of all, I envisioned a plot: a stray dog squat sat in front of a billboard, and then are so many people on the road, billboard is a sale on dog food and the content is a hand holding a bowl of dog food was prepared in the floor, next to have a pet dog and grinning, waiting, sitting and billboard outside a dirty stray dogs, it is waiting for the filled with dog food bowl on the floor.

As for poster 2, I made the design of the poster by referring to the famous recruitment poster in the United States during world war ii. The theme is about stray animals, so I changed the poster theme to dog. The whole meaning of the poster is to encourage people to adopt stray animals, so I changed the directional hand movement to a downward handed dog paw. Therefore, the poster has a feeling that the stray dog in the picture extends its paw to people, hoping to be adopted home.

As for the model, I designed a shelter that can provide shelter and simple treatment for stray animals and an automatic feeding machine. The shape of the shelter is a container so that it can be placed anywhere. Before modeling with MAYA, I sketched the design of the refuge.

The space inside the shelter is divided into two parts, one of which is a room for stray dogs. Because shelters are mobile and have limited space, they provide only simple treatments such as dressing and cleaning. So the other part is a clinic. The hygiene room includes a sink, a bathtub (for bathing stray animals), a table (for simple dressing and treatment of injured animals), a cabinet (for storing medicine), and a sofa (for resting places for volunteers). And a sketch of the interior design of the clinic.

Consider that the shelter needs electricity, and the shelter is mobile. So I chose to use solar energy to power the shelter.

I designed the door of the shelter to be the same as the door of the container. This makes the whole shelter look more uniform. I added two dog holes for stray animals to enter and exit the door, so that when volunteers locked the door of the shelter, stray animals could still enter and exit the shelter at will. On the other side of the shelter, I added a drag-and-drop hook to move the shelter to somewhere else.

I encountered difficulties in designing the stairs. First, I designed a ladder, because the portability of the ladder facilitates the movement of the shelter.
However, the design of the ladder would make it difficult for stray animals to enter and leave the shelter, so I changed the ladder into a staircase.
In the end, I used the slope, which was more suitable for the movement of animals, considering the change of items in the sanitation room and the inconvenient movement of animals.

As for the automatic feeding machine, I refer to the design of automatic feeding machine in Turkey

The feeder works by recycling to provide food and water to stray animals. People can pour unfinished water into a round hole or put recyclable waste like plastic bags into a square hole at the top right of the machine. The lower part of the feeding machine will provide water and food for stray animals. People can also donate money to stray animals and put it in a slot next to the round hole. The function of each part is added to the map of the feeder model, which can provide instructions for passers-by.

I changed the appearance of the feeding machine to the shape of the giant dog food package. Because I find that people tend to be interested in things that are magnified. People may be curious to see a larger package of dog food and wonder what it is, and this curiosity will lead them to approach the feeder and study its usefulness. Then people will find it is a machine that can help stray animals to provide food and water.

I started by placing the feeder inside the shelter, dividing the entire shelter into three parts, the health center, the room and the feeder. But then I found out that the shelter was big enough that maybe an entire street or an area needed only one shelter, but maybe two or three feeding machines. So I took the feeder out of the shelter and made it independent so that it could be placed anywhere.

I replaced the front and back walls with glass so that people could see the entire shelter. If someone wants to adopt stray animals, they can choose their favorite animals through the glass wall and tell the volunteers on duty.

In terms of project presentation, I added VR effects to the project, and when people use VR glasses, they will experience the whole project from the perspective of stray animals.

Try it

The whole project aims to draw attention to stray animals and improve their living conditions for those who have already started to stray. Use the content of the poster to draw people's attention to stray animals and learn about their life. And encourage people to adopt instead of buying and selling. The shelter model is designed to essentially help stray animals, who don't have to worry about food and water every day, feed themselves on rotting food from garbage dumps, or drink from stinky gutters. They also have a safe place to sleep and no longer have to worry about whether someone will chase them away with a stick.

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