Group Building Decision

Our group has decided the building we will model is the high court of Australia proposal by Harry Seidler. We had narrowed it down to that and The Performing Arts Centre in Abu Dhabi by Zaha Hadid.
Whilst the Hadid building was certainly more visually amazing it presented computing challenges we were unsure we could manage at this stage in UT3 (since we have limited time and no knowledge).
The Seidler building still offers us a challenge and an interesting building we feel we can impress with but we are more confident we can pull it off within the software we will be using.
We will now start to gather further information on the building and start to discuss who will tackle which parts of the project.

Week 2

Asynchronous messaging

Asynchronous messaging, or non realtime messaging has become an important part of business and pleasure that takes on many forms ranging from the fax machine to the more modern message boards used over the internet and the commonly known email. It has become an effective means of communication for collaborative work and each system has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to this.

The fax machine (or facsimile) is one of the earlier forms of asynchronous messaging that was invented in 1843 but not widely used until around the 1980's. It involves sending data via the telephone line through a fax machine that is received on the destination via another fax machine. They are now cheap and readily available and can be used on any existing telephone line. Most importantly for a lot of people/business who are somewhat computer illiterate they are very simple to use, involving simply placing the item to be sent in the machine and typing the number as you would a telephone (and are often combined into phone/fax machines which automatically detect if you are receiving a phone call or fax). They are received instantly at the d

estination end and can send and receive multiple pages at a time.

Most modern day faxs come with memory systems which will store your pages in the event of paper outages or cartridge problems.

Which leads us to the negatives of a fax. As with any cartridge or ink based system the ink system needs to be changed periodically which is an added cost and procedure along with varying levels of quality depending on your machine and current ink levels. They can be a times hard to read and unreadable when ink runs out during printing. They also use paper which again is an expense and can jam in the machine, as opposed to the more computer based systems (blogs, email etc) which are entirely digital based and only require printing when necessary and don’t cost per item whereas a fax is charged at a phone call rate per fa

x.

But the biggest setback for a fax is that it cannot carry computer files only a paper copy of something that is printed and as such will likely not be used at all in our collaborative effort as it is of little use compared the far more advanced systems discussed below.

Due to these reasons a fax is not a very effective form of collaboration for multiple messages that go back and fourth or anything of utmost quality.

Following on from the fax, another form of asynchronous messaging widely used around the world is email (or electronic mail) which has many advantages over the fax machine such as the ability to send messages both privately and to multiple people depending on your requirements. This allows you to maintain privacy for sensitive documents and yet send and receive to multiple recipients for a collaborative effort. A large advantage for email is the ability to send any type of file (within size restrictions at both ends) and format the document in anyway required i.e. for quick discussion amongst project team m

embers it can be quick and informal or for a more formal approach can be formatted on a letter head. It is also cheap, with the only expense being your contract with your ISP and your software (many of which are free).

This is very useful system for collaboration and has been used by our team already to coordinate and discuss our choice of building for the major task.

It is very simple to know when you have a new message and emails can be accessed on phones as well as other portable devices.

The disadvantage of the email system is that it cant be viewed on a public space, it is in house. If you were dealing with 100 people then a message (although grouped) would have to be sent to each of them as opposed to the use of a message board which allows you to post an announcement that everyone will see when l

ogging on. They also are not as easily grouped as a message board into topics which can easily be accessed for past reflection. The email system also relies on the welfare of your computer, in that if your internet connection goes down or computer crashes you are unable to access your information unless you also used webmail.

Message boards or forums also rely on your computer welfare but offer some advantages over the email system. You can make public messages that all members of your team or viewing audience can see and restrictions can be set to allow as little or many people as you wish to have access to your messages. This is a very powerful t

ool for collaboration and is a great way for discussion and creative team work to happen from afar. Everyone can see announcements and data can be exchanged or posted for multiple people to use when needed and the format of a forum allows it to be easily organized into topic threads with date and time of posts so work is easy to follow and keep up with the latest discussion or data. The use of the private messaging system also allows private exchanges between select users where needed.

However a message board will generally rely on email notification to let you know when a new message has been posted rather th

an people having to continually go to the site just to check if anything new has been posted. It also creates a 3^rd possible problem as even if your and your recipients computers are functioning fine, the host that stores the forum may go down rendering it unavailable to ALL members of your team.

Similarly the blog (or weblog) is posted to a site and can be very useful for team work. Your team leader can post instructions and thoughts to all on the tasks that need to be done or have been done and also allows for comments to be posted at the end of the entry. Whilst not as effective as a group discussion tool as a forum, it is a great way to follow or organise a project or record the progression of a project as can be seen by this subject.

references:

http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/fax_machine.htm viewed 30th March 2008

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/productImages/8/4/00000110984-MozillaThunderbird10-large.jpeg viewed 30th March 2008

http://www.blahusa.com/whatdefinitions/files/27.jpg viewed 30th March 2008

http://ts.wollzelle.com/assets/2007/9/21/fluxiom-blog.jpg viewed 30th March 2008

Week 1

The building I have chosen is a proposal for the high court of Australia by Harry Seidler.
I chose it for a few reasons including: It was designed by an Australian architect who is internationally recognised and is arguably our most famous architect. The building also would have been in our national capital and is very unique in design. With 'ramps winding around the circular upper void' and the fact it is a courthouse, I believe would make a very interesting example for us to model and create a virtual environment in UT3.....I can imagine it to be a great level in multiplayer type FPS games such as HALO etc.



The design itself has a very futuristic feel to it with large circular elements and a void extending through the center of the building lighting it as can be in the attached images.
Although it may be hard to model and much guestimating done on the detail (as it has been hard to get much detail of the floor plans) I think it would be a very interesting and challenging building to do and would definately be original.
Originality is important to me as many of the works done and studied through the course are a little less 'out there' and to model and study a fresh building will be an interesting challenge.

As you can see the building is not small and I am not 100% certain if the scale is to large for what we will need to do in UT3 as I am not familiar with that software at all but if it is achievable I quite like the feel of this design and the impact it gives when you see it.
I think I can put together good video presentations in adobe premiere of the creation of this and also map materials nicely in 3ds max. I think I would need some assistance using revit from my colleagues to model it who have more experince in a BIM than I do.

So in summary after browsing the net, I hit the library and stumbled across a book in which I have found a building that is of impressive impact and scale, is very unique and was designed by an Australian architect for what would have been the high court of Australia in the ACT, all important factors for me when thinking about the project at hand.



REFERENCES:
'Architecture for the new world. The work of Harry Seidler'
By Peter Blake
Horwitz Australia Ltd., Sydney
Wittenborn and Co.,New York
Karl Kraemer Verlag, Stuttgart