1 PAPER REF: 2817 INDUSTRIAL DESIGN WORKSHOP: AUTO-SUSTAINABLE GUEST- HOUSE FOR VIA STUDENTS Pedro Joel Costa 1(*) , Mariana Rodrigues 2 , Nina Costa 3 , Pedro Menéres 4 , Rita Rodrigues 5 , Teresa Alaniz 6 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal (*) Email: pedrojoelcosta@gmail.com ABSTRACT This work presents a project developed during a 3-week Product Design Workshop, at VIA University College, Horsens, Denmark, by a group of 6 students from Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, with student Pedro Joel Costa as project manager (ALANIZ et al., 2011). This project titled “Auto-Sustainable Guest-House for VIA students” consists on an auto- sustainable compact housing solution, that presents a point of optimal balance between three major needs: space, economy and sustainability, with regard to the environment. Within this research, the following issues were addressed: Materials that adapt to the climate (auto- sustainability); Possibilities of saving resources; The basic contemporary needs of the users of temporary accommodation; The house’s dimensions that allows a minimal cost; and The territory occupation impact. According to the objective list to achieve, the “Nigel Morph” method was employed in order to collect the different hypotheses available and to select (according to the inputs) the best solutions, leading to a more precise idea about the Danish reality and sustainable concerns for construction systems in this context. Keywords: Architecture, Housing, Industrial Design, Sustainability INTRODUCTION Nowadays, there’s an increasing tendency to travel the world for study purposes, work or even leisure. The means of transport are making a major change decreasing the relative distance between countries. With low-cost trips, the logical thinking is to also find cheap accommodation. Exchanges programs like Erasmus allows students the possibility to visit foreign countries, but they also want to spend as little money as possible. Universities or Colleges don’t want to spend a lot of the existing funds on accommodation for students, so it’s very important to search for an auto-sustainable accommodation that could be a big initial investment but then turns in to benefit for the institution. Auto-sustainable houses are already a very explored subject. However, this is a research field in constant evolution. In past centuries, the lack of resources to construct and preserve buildings meant that the norm to follow would be one of energy conservation and to rely on local means (A green vitruvius, 2001). Nowadays, Sustainable Product Design defines itself as a concern, a principle and a future trend, essential to society’s sustainable development (MESTRE & GIL, 2011). From this assumptions the main purpose of this project would be to answer the following questions: How can the project take advantages of the available energies in Denmark? What type of energies can be use in Denmark? How to make a small house that responds the users needs (students)? How to combine sustainability with economy and space? 15 th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics ICEM15