Task 3 - Disciplines

There are several meaning to discipline, we will be looking at academic disciplines which termed by Wikipedia as “field of study, is a branch of knowledge which is taught or researched at the college or university level…Fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches.” [1]

Figure 1. Disciplines
There are various disciplines involved in an Architectural Collaboration such as architects, interior architects, landscape architects, project managers, planners, graphic designers, CAD personnel, photographers and a range of engineers: civil, structure, etc. All these disciplines contribute to the success of the project. Through effective collaboration time, budget and other constraints are met.

It is the involvement of a wide of disciplines that pushes the design process to its peak. Today many significant design works are an outcome of collaboration among many professional disciplines as they combine their talents and ideas.[2] A research done by Joanne Cys a senior lecturer of University of South Australia found that a project done by multi-disciplinary team members created positive result to the design processes, as it “added richness”, “inspired you to be more creative and push boundaries”, and that the “different disciplines brought something different to the table”.[3] Problems can be solve effectively with varies knowledge from different disciplines.

The project that we are working on is a good example of discipline in architectural collaboration. Our different skills and expertise we brought into the course is what branches us to different sub-disciplines of computing architecture. Clearly in the group work there are different roles played by each of us, example there are group leaders who check and organize meeting to see the progress of the work, project manager, modeling personnel, textural personnel, programming personnel for unreal, etc. One team member might take on more than one of these sub-disciplines. However it is beneficial for each of the team member to have a clear understanding of their strength or their discipline and how they can contribute those to the design work, this is what makes the project enriching. As point out by Joanne Cys “Those secure in the knowledge of their own field make the best collaborators”[4], as they are able to communicate their ideas effectively. In understanding each team member discipline tasks allocation are made easy, as the right task is given to the right person to complete, this way time and resources are not wasted.
_________________________________
[Figure1] Usability Professionals' Association (UPA), “Related Fields”, Usability Professionals' Association (2005), http://www.usabilitybok.org/related, (viewed on 8 April 2008).

[1] Wikipedia, “List of academic disciplines”, Wikipedia, (5 April 2008), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_discipline, (viewed on 7 April 2008).
[2] Davis, C., “The Significance of Culture and Collaboration”, Design Intelligence, (1 July 2007), http://www.di.net/articles/archive/the_significance_culture_collaboration/, (viewed on 8 April 2008).
[3] J. Cys, “Collaboration: experiment, mess and risk” (Snr. Lecturer diss., University of South Australia, 2006), p.11.
[4] Ibid, p.2.