Self Assessment

Throughout the whole project, I believe I performed at a level that was effective, but could still be improved.

I am comfortable with my ability on ArchiCAD, and as I have found in previous projects, my skills are improving with each new area I work on. However, my understanding of this project was to learn from each member in the group, teaching each other techniques and learning new skills such as Photoshop or an effective and efficient way to construct a Roof. This area was not capitalized on well enough in my opinion, which came down to the fact we struggled to maintain face-to-face collaboration.

My ability to communicate ideas is once again at a level I am comfortable, but again needs to be worked on in comparison to working in a professional practice. I am more comfortable with communicating my ideas with peers, but the idea of pitching an idea, selling my idea and communicating in a professional manner is an area I believe needs the most improvement personally.

Overall, my ability to undertake responsibilities in a team environment is at a level where I am comfortable to take direction, be asked to complete a task and work hard on my work in order to maintain a steady flow of work within the team. Communication, Time management and completion of work at professional level still needs to be fine tuned, but is improving with each new project and experience. 

Peer Leadership

As always, it’s hard to take direction and instruction from a peer. However, I admire Ryan’s ability to lead a team of peers, how he communicated his ideas and made sure to keep us up to date on our progress. From my perspective, it was sometimes hard to listen to Ryan tell me what work I should be doing. For Example ‘Hey Steve, I want you to finish the deck by this Friday’. Taking instructions from a peer is hard in itself, giving those instructions, I have found in the past, is much more difficult. The attitude and maturity Ryan expressed when giving directions was effective and positive, given in a manner of suggestion and asking instead of ordering and demanding. 

Contribution

I believe that no member played a more important role than anyone else; we valued the concept of a team. Working to each other’s strengths and ensuring a positive team attitude.

For example, the ‘fight’ between Kate and I was resolved quickly, making sure we both reached an understanding as soon as possible to ensure no prolonged mistrust between us was ever reached.

I made sure to communicate as much as possible with Kate and Hayley as I worked closely with them. The communication with Andy and Ryan was not required as much, but we did make sure we updated them on all our progress, so they knew when to start preparing for their roles on the project.

Relative to the CAD model, Hayley focused on the Roof and Window/wall design, Kate focused on the courtyard and pool and any other outside landscaping, while I focused on the deck, arrangement of the ‘pods’ and finishing touches where needed. In the end, we all played an equal part in finishing the model, working to each other’s strengths, making sure enough progress was made to ensure the other two members could work on their sections. 

Difficulty in Physical Communication/Over coming the Issue

The collaboration was a difficult aspect of our project.

Apart from a number of initial meetings, the communication between Kate, Hayley and I during the work on the ArchiCAD was minimal.

This is due to the fact Kate and I live an hour away from the Campus, so we found it hard to work around each others schedules to find time to spend a whole days in the Computer lab. In addition, the majority of Hayley’s classes are in 3^rd year, meaning her timetable clashes on a number of occasions.

With this problem at hand, we made we used other means of communication as much as possible. We focused on using our Blog to communicate any problems, and suggestions for areas when we were unsure. Personally, I made sure to call Ryan, our Team leader, each time I made considerable progress on the progress so he could talk to Kate and Hayley about the project. If either of the girls were unsure of the progress, we would make sure to call each other or post on our Blog.

I believe our communication and collaboration, although minimal face-to-face, was effective given our circumstances. Making sure to communicate as much as possible when any major progress had been made. 

Shadows

I like the way the shadows play on the walls, how they enhance a space and turn a standard looking rendered wall into a complex surface

Water Reflection

The idea of extended a space through reflection

Again introducing the idea of outside/inside.

Text conversation with Kate -

*Refer to Kate's Individual blog for full Text Conversation

We figured out the problem in the end, which turned out to be an issue with misunderstanding.

With the BIM serve not functioning properly, we were losing time working on our project. Ryan asked me to transfer the house file onto my personal laptop and re-arrange all the ‘pods’ at home at to a stage where Kate could begin working on the landscape.

Later on, we found out Ryan had uploaded his original file to the server and not the updated house I had worked on.

Knowing I would not be able to work on the project on a particular day Kate wanted to work on it. I met her at her place and transferred the updated house file to her computer for her to upload when she got to the computer lab.

However, as I understand it, Kate arrived at the computer lab and noticed Ryan had uploaded his file. She could not work out why the file didn’t update when she clicked on ‘Send & Receive’.

Then followed the Text conversation until she realized that she needed to upload the file I had worked on at home to over ride the initial file Ryan uploaded, instead of send and receiving nothing.