Planning

Planning is an important part of everyday life as well as in the professional world. Things such as planning your day to allow time to get to the shops or pick up the kids and any other tasks require you to plan your time, although for regular life it is commonly done in your head, however a common example of everyday life planning in a written form is the shopping list.

In uni life, student diaries allow students to plan ahead and mark when assignments are due or when an exam takes place and thus how to allocate enough time to prepare for it.

In our collaborative effort, planning becomes an essential part of working in a team as we need to plan when we will have certain tasks completed, time and places to meet as well as the allocation of our tasks discussed earlier which is a form of planning our work.

In the professional world, in my personal experience, each week a list of all current jobs is prepared and ranked in order of preference and due date. I am then required to follow this plan to complete the work. Without this planning, dates would be missed, jobs overlooked and in general a far more disorganised practice would be run.

So what does it mean exactly to plan? Simply to organize what you need to do ahead of time and allocate the time in between to achieve your desired outcomes.

Some examples of well known planning:

· The season draw of the football codes, released before the season starts plans every match, venue, date and time with which a game will be played.

· WW2 D-Day invasion – this major military offensive was planned as the allies big attack against the enemy and is one of the larger logistical planning tasks undertaken.

· The tube railway system in London – a plan copied by many as its well organised structure is the yard stick for railway planning.

So essentially good planning allows the smooth running (or at least attempted smooth running) of a task and gives a structured organisation for all to adhere to.

References:
http://articles.bplans.com/index.php/business-articles/writing-a-business-plan/What-Makes-a-Good-Plan?/
viewedMon May 26, 2008

Remuneration

Remuneration is typically in the form of money paid for work completed. It is how the world works, I do some work for you and you pay me for it.

'Some examples of remuneration are:

• salaries and wages
• gratuities paid through an employer
• bonuses, commission and other similar payments
• vacation pay, taxable allowances and benefits
• directors' fees
• payments for casual labour
• amounts paid by an employer to 'top up' benefits, and
• advances of salaries and wages.'

However it is not always as simple as that and there are many variations along the way that can effect whether or not you are paid and how much you are paid.

Firstly, there should be an agreement or contract between the two parties for exactly what needs to be done and how much it is worth. You should then document what has been completed and alert the client of any variations that happen along the way that may alter the original arrangement.

These could be, in the architectural world for example, drastic changes imposed by council or the client that require the amending of plans and as such extra work which can lead to a variation in payment. If these things are not discussed and left until the end, disputes can and do arise.

Remuneration though is not always in the form of money, it may be a contra deal or in the context of university work a grade or result that allows you to proceed to the next level of study.

In our collaboration work where the remuneration is not payment but grading, it is important that all members feel there input is rewarded accordingly and is not dragged down by others.
The allocation of work done earlier in the semester would qualify as a variation as mentioned earlier, as certain unknown elements now require more work than thought and as such we all need to chip in to other areas to complete the task to ultimately get our remuneration.


References:
http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/english/taxes/eht/faq_remuneration.html viewed tue may 20th 2008

Context

Context

“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

The above quote relates well to our project as each part of what we do has a relationship to other (sometimes larger) parts of our building and environment.

For example our building (as discussed in hierarchy) begins on the lower floor for ordinary people, but that is to house more prestigious upper levels which then leads the focus toward the central dome. This in turn is set in our nations capital. So our building is designed to meet the context of our highest federal court.

This context is important as it effects the design of the building, as many lower courts built all around the nation are not as symbolic in the nature of there designs and are more designed to fit the context of there own local environments.

The actual materials used to contruct the building however do not appear to be specific for the context of the surrounding site or the building itself as Harry Seidler has used almost identical designs in buildings including the MLC building in Martin Place, Sydney which shares no contextual meaning with the high court of Australia in Canberra but remarkable resemblance in materials.

THE MLC BUILDING SYDNEY

The proposed High Court Of Australia Canberra

Many buildings, in particular energy efficient buildings, are designed with the environmental context in mind and materials chosen represent that. For example many buildings in Tropical Darwin are built on stilts to create airflow underneath with louvers to increase cross ventilation and also provide some shade to be outdoors to combat the tropical environment.

This is in keeping with the context of the building environment and would be out of place in Siberia……

So building context is usually related to the surrounding area and the use of the building, however it is not always totally encompassed and general non specific parts of the design can be used without affecting the overall context of the design.

References:
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/context/ viewed may 13 2008
http://www.futuredarwin.nt.gov.au/recreation/building.html viewed may 13 2008
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=108161 viewed may 13 2008