Friday, June 20, 2008
Flight or fight
Conflict in terms of our project and collaboration relates to the way our group has worked and the conflict present in our senario created for our ut3 map. I think we can even say that our conceptual idea to present something more then just what a design would look like in 3D, like traditional architectural visualisation, is a form of conflict.
Initially starting out on this project I thought that conflict would play a big part. Our group consisted of people having no knowledge of each other, no knowledge of ut3 and not much understanding of what the course wanted from us. Surely these things would lead to conlifct between us when we started working towards a goal in our different ways. Not surprisingly we escaped conflict via indecision, resulting in a leader to be made and make the final decisions on initially the unbuilt design we chose to many other decisions later on.
Conflict through the senario we made for our map plays a major role in forming the atmosphere and background context. Towards the end of the project (probably should have been closer to the start) we decided on a narrative for our building. The idea was that when the building was completed a few years ago it was it's proposed "market rate" housing and was happily filled by the local Greenpoint people. Since those days though the changing nature of the area had forced the rent higher and higher.
While some residents moved, alot stayed and claimed their previous residency by squatting, feeling that the new buildings were built and converted for them in the previous years. After time, and the council not realising the severity of what was happening, the area degenerated into slums, the homeless and squatters formed new communities. Finally the council stumbled across the cause of the degeneration of their area and started to "fix" the problem. Buildings were being demolished and monitored to prevent squatters settling in hoping to improve the merit of the area for potential investors.
Something else that I notice in architectural visualisations is the similarity that I see in almost every render of an interior. Visualisation artists seem to always want to present this pristine, new interior that is unsoiled by humans. Although they probably, and most of the time do, show what the space looks like accuratly, they are just boring and most of the time give no feeling, or atmosphere of what the space is like. Things like sticking people "shimmers" and markers in images are becoming a trend but still don't add the feel of a person in a space.
Although our design is the other the extent of trying to be perfect and unsoiled by human interaction with the architecture, hopefully we show that through this human involvment with the architecture (with is the purpose of architecture), that a feeling can be created and an atmosphere can surround the design.
Initially starting out on this project I thought that conflict would play a big part. Our group consisted of people having no knowledge of each other, no knowledge of ut3 and not much understanding of what the course wanted from us. Surely these things would lead to conlifct between us when we started working towards a goal in our different ways. Not surprisingly we escaped conflict via indecision, resulting in a leader to be made and make the final decisions on initially the unbuilt design we chose to many other decisions later on.Conflict through the senario we made for our map plays a major role in forming the atmosphere and background context. Towards the end of the project (probably should have been closer to the start) we decided on a narrative for our building. The idea was that when the building was completed a few years ago it was it's proposed "market rate" housing and was happily filled by the local Greenpoint people. Since those days though the changing nature of the area had forced the rent higher and higher.
While some residents moved, alot stayed and claimed their previous residency by squatting, feeling that the new buildings were built and converted for them in the previous years. After time, and the council not realising the severity of what was happening, the area degenerated into slums, the homeless and squatters formed new communities. Finally the council stumbled across the cause of the degeneration of their area and started to "fix" the problem. Buildings were being demolished and monitored to prevent squatters settling in hoping to improve the merit of the area for potential investors.Something else that I notice in architectural visualisations is the similarity that I see in almost every render of an interior. Visualisation artists seem to always want to present this pristine, new interior that is unsoiled by humans. Although they probably, and most of the time do, show what the space looks like accuratly, they are just boring and most of the time give no feeling, or atmosphere of what the space is like. Things like sticking people "shimmers" and markers in images are becoming a trend but still don't add the feel of a person in a space.
Images taken from http://2dk.org
Although our design is the other the extent of trying to be perfect and unsoiled by human interaction with the architecture, hopefully we show that through this human involvment with the architecture (with is the purpose of architecture), that a feeling can be created and an atmosphere can surround the design.
Remuneration
Remuneration is the paying of work complete by wage or comission, etc. Pay is normally the incentive for people to work on a project, but in our case the pay is in the form of marks and passing the course. Remuneration brings up some issues such as quality of work, deadlines or time allowed and distribution of the reward in the case of collaboration.
In our case the quality of our work directly influences our reward or marks, which is understandable although in a work situation a rough price would be agreed upon before the comensing of the project. If the work in thios situation isn't up to the quality demanded by the agreement, payment could be refused and could result in lawsuits to claim money for the work completed.
A contract for the completion of a project also includes a deadline, and this deadline must be met to receive the payment.
Distribution of the reward or marks for our project could be distributed in many different ways, by time contributed, work completed, substancial material contributed etc by each person but in many ways it could seem unfair to the participants of the group. Assigning equal marks to each person could also be or seem unfair. In a work situation a boss or project manager would have a record of who has done what work and could weigh out the payment appropriately, but in our situation there was no requirement to submit declarations of the work completed by each member, which could resolve unfair marking, so I assume equal marking will be assigned to the group.
In our case the quality of our work directly influences our reward or marks, which is understandable although in a work situation a rough price would be agreed upon before the comensing of the project. If the work in thios situation isn't up to the quality demanded by the agreement, payment could be refused and could result in lawsuits to claim money for the work completed.
A contract for the completion of a project also includes a deadline, and this deadline must be met to receive the payment.
Distribution of the reward or marks for our project could be distributed in many different ways, by time contributed, work completed, substancial material contributed etc by each person but in many ways it could seem unfair to the participants of the group. Assigning equal marks to each person could also be or seem unfair. In a work situation a boss or project manager would have a record of who has done what work and could weigh out the payment appropriately, but in our situation there was no requirement to submit declarations of the work completed by each member, which could resolve unfair marking, so I assume equal marking will be assigned to the group.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Plannning
The term planning explains a process of organising activities which lead towards something in the future. When discussing planning in regards to group collaboration and our project a lot of different factors come into mind such as; length of the project, the feasibility, who is it designed for, why are we doing it. Defining these problems of question will form the basis of the plan for our project, which would traditionally be done before commencing the project.
The length of our project was defined in the brief and is a definite deadline. Along with the length of the project we can thing of segments of the length and can plan in progression targets. Planning and meeting these targets will generally lead to a consist ant flow of work throughout the length, and will mean that you meet your deadline.
Feasibility also relates to time, whether it can be finished in the allotted time, but also things like is our collective knowledge in our group great enough to finish the project. With UT3 introduced as something no one in our group has used before, the feasibility of the project becomes a hard area to define.
The thing about planning is that it can be approached in many different ways. Most of the time a plan will be made before commencing the project although it might not be totally comprehensive because some information is missing (I.e. our knowledge of UT3). When this is the case the plan will keep evolving as the project progresses, when the information needed is found out. In a group environment a plan is important but also communication of when the plan changes.
Edward Everett Hale -
"If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough."
Planning quotes
Wikipedia: Planning
The length of our project was defined in the brief and is a definite deadline. Along with the length of the project we can thing of segments of the length and can plan in progression targets. Planning and meeting these targets will generally lead to a consist ant flow of work throughout the length, and will mean that you meet your deadline.
Feasibility also relates to time, whether it can be finished in the allotted time, but also things like is our collective knowledge in our group great enough to finish the project. With UT3 introduced as something no one in our group has used before, the feasibility of the project becomes a hard area to define.
The thing about planning is that it can be approached in many different ways. Most of the time a plan will be made before commencing the project although it might not be totally comprehensive because some information is missing (I.e. our knowledge of UT3). When this is the case the plan will keep evolving as the project progresses, when the information needed is found out. In a group environment a plan is important but also communication of when the plan changes.
Edward Everett Hale -
"If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough."
Related links
Planning quotes
Wikipedia: Planning
Sunday, May 11, 2008
5) Should you influence the context by using UT3- why?
As architecture is designed for a human context, a map for UT3 should be designed for the player context. Ideas and concepts which surround projects vary alot between the physical world and a world which was created. With a map, all the context (aside from possibly history) has to be created rather than just existing, and having to be found. Because of the extent of the concept of context, it would be impossible to emulate the whole context surrounding the unbuilt architecture.
This is where using different ideas to present and influence the original context come into play. Instead of presenting a history or general background information on the building we can use the features and functions exclusive to UT ie. lighting, modeling, texturing and sounds to emulate a feeling or create an atmosphere to reflect on or influence our experience of the context. By using ut the context can be explored and discovered rather than being presented and read, as in tradition documents.
Should this be done? there is no doubt. We are presented with s state of the art game which has oppertunities to create things that defy physical existance, or any kind of restraints. I feel the Falling Water example didn't utilise the HL2 engine for what it was and just presented what was expected. We hope to go a couple steps further to influence the conext by using UT3.
This is where using different ideas to present and influence the original context come into play. Instead of presenting a history or general background information on the building we can use the features and functions exclusive to UT ie. lighting, modeling, texturing and sounds to emulate a feeling or create an atmosphere to reflect on or influence our experience of the context. By using ut the context can be explored and discovered rather than being presented and read, as in tradition documents.
Should this be done? there is no doubt. We are presented with s state of the art game which has oppertunities to create things that defy physical existance, or any kind of restraints. I feel the Falling Water example didn't utilise the HL2 engine for what it was and just presented what was expected. We hope to go a couple steps further to influence the conext by using UT3.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Context
"We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed and a context which we cannot properly describe."
- Christopher Alexander
I find that this quote relates quite closely to what we are trying to do with our project. Although we have a design to work from, it is still an unbuilt project and from the images we have to work off it is still quite intangible to us. And then we have the context surrounding it, which is a very board area which we could never explain to it's full extent.
Context refers to a part or parts, which precede, surround, or follow something written or physical. They can also be intimately related and all these things shed light on the certain written or physical something.
There are man different types of context, and even more ways to relate and interpret different contexts. There is also the infamous use of 'out of context' information, which uses information that has been removed from it's surrounding and used in a way to make it mean something else. This introduces the idea of bias and could cause a lack of understanding. For myself, when I was viewing the Falling Water hl2 map, I thought most of the work went into working on making the building and then relying on the viewers previous knowledge of the architectural design to fill in the context. In this example I refer to the lack of physical surroundings, mainly bare uneven surfaces with a tree dabbed here and there, also the history or even the era of the project was not presented in anyway, and general information, apart from the name and architect, was withheld. The lack of context here makes the map seem incomplete and uninteresting.
With the choice of unbuilt architecture it could become hard to do justice to the contextual ideas behind a more famous piece of architecture. If our project was to be aimed at architects, most of our audience would have previous knowledge of the context surrounding the project and freedom of ideas related to context would be limited.
So in regards to our unbuilt architecture, we have a fairly general or intangible context compared with the major of groups. I think this will allow us to progress the project in a way that can relate more directly to ourselves and an outcome that is more personalised and involving for the user, rather than becoming an 'out of context' style design more like a monument or statue dedicated to someone elses idea. Which I think is a very important concept behind using a 3d engine to create architectural designs.
On another note, in our last presentation the importance of our choice in unbuilt architecture was questioned. In researching the context surrounding our choice and the history we found that the project is aimed at providing cheap housing for a high capacity area with comparitively high rents. Here is sydney we are facing the same problem with the pricing of housing increasing all the time. This context in sydney, involves most of the class, who will probably be looking for somewhere to rent in the near future. The importance of our choice comes from the ability to relate the building to our local context, in regards to house pricing, and therefore make it more personal. Also we intend to present how an idea such as market rate housing in an area could be interpreted in and by the context surrounding it.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/christophe173202.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/words/co/context147597.html
- Christopher Alexander
I find that this quote relates quite closely to what we are trying to do with our project. Although we have a design to work from, it is still an unbuilt project and from the images we have to work off it is still quite intangible to us. And then we have the context surrounding it, which is a very board area which we could never explain to it's full extent.
Context refers to a part or parts, which precede, surround, or follow something written or physical. They can also be intimately related and all these things shed light on the certain written or physical something.
There are man different types of context, and even more ways to relate and interpret different contexts. There is also the infamous use of 'out of context' information, which uses information that has been removed from it's surrounding and used in a way to make it mean something else. This introduces the idea of bias and could cause a lack of understanding. For myself, when I was viewing the Falling Water hl2 map, I thought most of the work went into working on making the building and then relying on the viewers previous knowledge of the architectural design to fill in the context. In this example I refer to the lack of physical surroundings, mainly bare uneven surfaces with a tree dabbed here and there, also the history or even the era of the project was not presented in anyway, and general information, apart from the name and architect, was withheld. The lack of context here makes the map seem incomplete and uninteresting.
With the choice of unbuilt architecture it could become hard to do justice to the contextual ideas behind a more famous piece of architecture. If our project was to be aimed at architects, most of our audience would have previous knowledge of the context surrounding the project and freedom of ideas related to context would be limited.
So in regards to our unbuilt architecture, we have a fairly general or intangible context compared with the major of groups. I think this will allow us to progress the project in a way that can relate more directly to ourselves and an outcome that is more personalised and involving for the user, rather than becoming an 'out of context' style design more like a monument or statue dedicated to someone elses idea. Which I think is a very important concept behind using a 3d engine to create architectural designs.
On another note, in our last presentation the importance of our choice in unbuilt architecture was questioned. In researching the context surrounding our choice and the history we found that the project is aimed at providing cheap housing for a high capacity area with comparitively high rents. Here is sydney we are facing the same problem with the pricing of housing increasing all the time. This context in sydney, involves most of the class, who will probably be looking for somewhere to rent in the near future. The importance of our choice comes from the ability to relate the building to our local context, in regards to house pricing, and therefore make it more personal. Also we intend to present how an idea such as market rate housing in an area could be interpreted in and by the context surrounding it.
Related Links
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/christophe173202.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/words/co/context147597.html
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Anarchy or Hierarchy?
A hierarchy is a system of ranking and organising things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is a subordinate to a single other element.[1]
There are many types of hierarchies, social being a main one, but things like the setup of folders on a computer or the pitches and tones of music are also hierarchical systems.
In a social/group environment a hierarchy is important to establish order and distribute power. Generally you have a leader or boss at the top of the hierarchy who takes care of a few people with different specialisations whom in turn take care of the people in that area of specialisation and so on. A hierarchy performs well because each area has a focus and a leader to motivate and push to completion.
There are also different types of political hierarchies that relate to our group dynamics, which include:
Although hierarchies can establish order they also have their downfalls due to power division and can lead to problems such as stereotyping, oppression and dominance. Power has been known to corrupt people, after coming into power or a position of influence they can use their status to achieve other goals that maybe weren't available to them previously.
A hierarchy in an architectural sense would follow the pattern of having the architect or project leader at the top level of the hierarchy followed by the consultants for each of the different disciplines (civil, electrical, hydro, acoustic, etc) then the next level would be each disciplines team of workers.
In terms of our project, the hierarchy would be as followed in the image.
Aside from hierarchy in the way we work as a group it could also be applied to the relationships in UT3. IE. a map controls lighting, models and brushes, but in each of those fields are a group of different lights and their properties, or sets of different models and textures relating to them. I think it is important to understand these hierarchical relationships while completing this project.
Hierarchy relating to our design, would relate to social status. Being a Market rate housing design, it is a building aim at a lower class of people in the social hierarchy of the area. From the perspective of the better off people in the hierarchy this lower class and the market rate housing might be looked down on as being an unnecessary or unwanted addition to their area. This lower class, if they were to inhabit the market rate housing, could be interpreted as being derelict and that image could be passed onto the building.
Hierarchy can also relate to the parts of this project, the UT3 map, wiki, presentations, blogs etc. With Hierarchy being created by the weighting of marks between the parts. This Hierarchy introduces the idea of priority which I am finding plays a great part in this course and collaboration.
Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression
Wikipedia: Hierarchy
There are many types of hierarchies, social being a main one, but things like the setup of folders on a computer or the pitches and tones of music are also hierarchical systems.
In a social/group environment a hierarchy is important to establish order and distribute power. Generally you have a leader or boss at the top of the hierarchy who takes care of a few people with different specialisations whom in turn take care of the people in that area of specialisation and so on. A hierarchy performs well because each area has a focus and a leader to motivate and push to completion.
There are also different types of political hierarchies that relate to our group dynamics, which include:
- Autocracy: One individual has complete power and leads over all others.
- Monarchism: A king or Queen has complete power but shares it with other individuals.
- Oligarchy: A group of individuals lead.
- Republic: The "people" vote on a representative who will lead.
- Democracy: The "people" vote on a person to lead.
Although hierarchies can establish order they also have their downfalls due to power division and can lead to problems such as stereotyping, oppression and dominance. Power has been known to corrupt people, after coming into power or a position of influence they can use their status to achieve other goals that maybe weren't available to them previously.A hierarchy in an architectural sense would follow the pattern of having the architect or project leader at the top level of the hierarchy followed by the consultants for each of the different disciplines (civil, electrical, hydro, acoustic, etc) then the next level would be each disciplines team of workers.
In terms of our project, the hierarchy would be as followed in the image.
Aside from hierarchy in the way we work as a group it could also be applied to the relationships in UT3. IE. a map controls lighting, models and brushes, but in each of those fields are a group of different lights and their properties, or sets of different models and textures relating to them. I think it is important to understand these hierarchical relationships while completing this project.
Hierarchy relating to our design, would relate to social status. Being a Market rate housing design, it is a building aim at a lower class of people in the social hierarchy of the area. From the perspective of the better off people in the hierarchy this lower class and the market rate housing might be looked down on as being an unnecessary or unwanted addition to their area. This lower class, if they were to inhabit the market rate housing, could be interpreted as being derelict and that image could be passed onto the building.
Hierarchy can also relate to the parts of this project, the UT3 map, wiki, presentations, blogs etc. With Hierarchy being created by the weighting of marks between the parts. This Hierarchy introduces the idea of priority which I am finding plays a great part in this course and collaboration.
Related Links
Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression
Wikipedia: Hierarchy
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