Task 10 - Planning

Planning is a process of forecasting what task will or need to be done at a certain period in time, to assist in guiding the direction of a project towards success.
Planning could come in many levels when talking about an Architectural design; it involves the planning of site, the planning of spaces and the planning of levels. It is these planning that allow a building to be built. Just as Le Corbusier has mentioned “the plan is the generator”, without the plan building cannot be generated.

In looking at planning for our group fabrication project, we have to first determine our group’s goal which is to match the falling water model, or surpass the falling water model if time permits.

To accomplish this goal, our strategy was to do a SWOT Analysis to determine our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strength – knowledge in 3dmax. Build on our strength we decided to do the all the modelling and mapping of the house in 3dmax.

Weakness – limited knowledge in UT3. Technical problems such as importing the model into UT3. In resolving our weakness we have allocated the 4 initial weeks to learn UT3 for all the group members. And about 3 weeks for testing and trial any technical problems e.g. importing issues and will also allocated to learn more advance knowledge in UT3, to create a highly interactive environment.

Opportunities – Tutors and other group members. Exploit our opportunities; ask for technical help from tutors and other groups.

Threat – Assignments in other courses. To avoid our threats we have to manage our time, allocate time correctly to do other assignments.[1]

After analysing SWOT an action plan is developed, it outline what needs to be done, by whom and when.[2] This action plan is scope to a 14 weeks period. The action plan will help to clarify the group plans and ensure every members are directed to know what to do and by when. It’s a good strategy to allocate the group resources (people and time). Below is an action plan I’ve developed to assist us in accomplishing our group’s goals.

Fabrication Task Action Plan:

What	Who	When
Learning UT3, Modelling and Mapping in 3dmax
Learning UT3	Cettina Mangano, Jeffrey Aguas, Azize Ceylan, Rachel MacKenzie & Chivonda Lam	Week 2-5
Modelling the house in 3dmax	Azize Ceylan	Week 6
Importing trial	Azize Ceylan	Week 7-8
Modelling of components e.g. railings, doors and windows 3dmax	Rachel MacKenzie, Azize Ceylan & Chivonda Lam	Week 9
Textures and mappings on the house in 3dmax	Rachel MacKenzie & Chivonda Lam	Week 10-11
Furnitures and fittings in 3dmax	Cettina Mangano	Week 10-11
Textures and mappings on Furnitures and fittings in 3dmax	Cettina Mangano	Week 12
Start UT3 work
Terrain in UT3	Jeffrey Aguas	Week 9-11
Components in Terrain Vehicles Street signs	Jeffrey Aguas	Week 12
Import model, textures, furniture and fitting on to the terrain	Azize Ceylan	Week 12
Interactive environment trial– using UT3 CD tutorials	Rachel MacKenzie, Chivonda Lam, Azize Ceylan, Jeffrey Aguas & Cettina Mangano	Week 12
Add interactive environment, might require programming Water Sky Opening of doors Adding beach sound and bush sound to different parts of the house	Jeffrey Aguas, Rachel MacKenzie & Chivonda Lam	Week 13
GOAL 1 REACHED - Match Falling Water Model
Make the environment highly interactive Television playing in living room Turning on and off the light	Rachel MacKenzie, Chivonda Lam, Azize Ceylan, Jeffrey Aguas & Cettina Mangano	Week 14
GOAL 2 REACHED - Surpass Falling Water Model

The above plan will be revised weekly to alter any task reallocation.
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[Figure 1] Robin Good, “Design Planning: Guidelines for The Effective Development Of A Collaborative Communication Project - RItalia”, Robin Good, (31 March 2007), http://www.masternewmedia.org/design_planning/communication-strategy/guidelines-for-strategic-collaborative-communication-project-development-RItalia-20070331.htm, (viewed 25 May 2008).
[1] Invest-Tech Ltd, “Developing a strategic Plan”, PlanWare, (2008), http://www.planware.org/strategicplan.htm#5, (viewed 24 May 2008).
[2] Ibid.