Modular Cat Tree for Shelter Cats
In this project, I was tasked with creating a solution for a problem in the Brantford community. What I decided to do was take this task one step further and break down a barrier between User Experience Design and the community. User Experience Design is meant to help anyone, including people, animals, and services.
Synopsis
This project is supposed to help shelters deal with cats who are deemed unadoptable due to socialization issues, which lead to overpopulation in shelters and euthanasia. How this solution works is by adding a cat tree to a room cats can have safe spaces to socialize with each other and their human caregivers. This theory is based on Hannah Shaw's, the Kitten Lady, videos and Jackson Galaxy's books on cat behaviour. The hope is that more cats will be better socialized and appear more adoptable in the eyes of the community, freeing up space for more cats until the population can be lessened.
The other aspect of this solution is that it uses simple resources and stills to make, so the shelter does not have to spend all their money on cat trees. The community could even build them and donate to shelters as a way to give back. Personally, I think this would be great for woodworking or shop students to learn from because it provides practice and the knowledge that it is helping others not just sitting in a closet.
The best part of this project though is that it is modular, so the shelter can modify it to fit different cat’s needs. For kittens, they can make it shorter, for scared cats they could add more hide-aways and for older cats they can make the platforms easier to reach.