Design a functional, attractive, and sustainable chicken coop.

Project Title: Chicken Coop
Designer: Emily Pilloton   
Title: Founder/Executive Director
Company: Project H Design
www.projecthdesign.org www.studio-h.org Design. Build. Transform.

Imagine a space-age, solar-powered chicken coop resting on the roof of a twenty-five story building in the middle of a booming metropolis. Or think of a more rustic chicken coop with a rooftop flower garden that fits harmoniously into the backyard of a craftsman-style home in the suburbs. In both cases, if the structure is well designed, the eggs produced by the happy chickens in these coops will provide their owners with fluffy omelets year round.

The chicken coop design project encourages you to use your imagination to design a useful, attractive structure that actually improves the way chickens live and the way they are integrated into your own environment. Keeping in mind the needs and well-being of both of your clients, the chickens and the humans who will care for them, you are challenged to solve such design problems as overall space required; protection from weather and predators; accommodations for food, water, exercise, and roosting; the best materials to use; economics and budget constraints; and aesthetics.

Drawing on the principles of sustainable design, you are entreated to use environmentally appropriate and recycled materials whenever possible. You are tasked with creating a structure that will suit and sustain the natural environment while serving a useful and socially rewarding purpose.

Chicken Coop Project H is presented by creator Emily Pilloton in a series of short videos that detail the evolution of a design: Understand, Explore, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Refine, and Solution. Emily takes you step by step through the design process, beginning with understanding project requirements, to sketching and digital imaging, to building a material prototype and refining the design, to the final project solution and presentation.

The chicken coop project includes the same elements required to build a house (only on a much smaller scale), giving you plenty to crow about when you present your inspired design, using the visual aids you created, to a group of local business people and neighbors.