ONGOING EVALUATIONS

Fri W3… This week I have started researching different ideas for my major project. Some ideas I have come up with are an architecturally featured house, a 3 bedroom mountain cabin, a modern villa, a lighthouse, shopping village. I have also set up my OneNote into the different sections of the portfolio so I can be more organized and so my teacher can see my progress and give feedback. The only section I have started so far in OneNote is the Idea Generation page, which I have added some of the pictures of my ideas. I have decided that a mountain log cabin would be a good idea as you could make it look really cool and add interesting features to it to make it a bit different.

Fri W4… This week I started creating my log cabin on ARCHICAD but after only a couple of days, I had almost finished it which made me realized that It was too simple and I probably wouldn't get the marks I wanted for level of difficulty and display of skills. So, I decided to upgrade my mountain log cabin to a mountain ski lodge/chalet. I started sketching up different ideas and floorplans , with a little bit of inspiration from my mum and sister, and finally came up with a floorplan that I was happy with. To find the location of my ski lodge, I went onto Google Earth so I could see the world in a 3D Satellite view. I wanted my ski lodge to be on Mt Kosciusko as it is in NSW and is also the highest point in Australia, rising at 2,228m above sea level. I found the perfect spot for my lodge on google earth. It is a flat bit on the mountain around the other side of the mountain to Thredbo and Perisher. It has an amazing view for the back of my Lodge and a mountain rising from the front, for the ski runs. My plan is to recreate the mountain on ARCHICAD. I know it will be very hard to do but I want to show my skills with a high level of difficulty. Google Earth has a lot to help me do this, it has stats like longitude, latitude, height above sea level and a function where you can create your own projects and pin-point the places you want. So far, I have created a project on there pin-pointing Thredbo, Perisher, the location of my ski lodge and the location of my ski runs. I have also created my time plan and finance plan and have been meaning to do my Statement of Intent this week and I have written a few things but I keep procrastinating it and I know I just need to focus and get it done.

Fri W5… This week I have made a start on my Portfolio. I had already started my time plan but I had only been doing it in OneNote so I decided to draw it up in Excel instead as it is more professional and excel offers a lot more of a range of functions. I also started my Finance Plan by using the template as a guide. I have also finished my statement of Intent completely and have done a bit more on my Finance plan. I didn't realize until this week that we have to show evidence of our research for the finance plan so I have been researching my materials and taking screenshots. I realized half way through the week when showing Mr Scruby my progress, that my sketches are not up to the level they should be at. At that point, they were just rough sketches of my designs, there were no dimensions, labels or notes on them and I hadn't even used a ruler. So for the last couple of days, I have been re-drawing my sketches with a ruler and to scale, adding dimensions, room names and notes on the decisions made and how they fit the customers requirements.

Fri W6… The first part of the Portfolio was due this week on Wednesday so on Monday and Tuesday, I was flat out finishing off my sketches and evaluations. My biggest issues in the first section of the portfolio were Lack of planning and procrastination. I left too much until the last minute and that needs to change. In the next section, I want to plan my time better and spread the workload evenly over the next three weeks. After the first section was submitted, I started creating my slabs on ARCHICAD.

Fri W7… This week I have been mainly focusing on drawing up my house on ARCHICAD. My peers in the Architecture Breakout room have been very helpful as I have asked them questions and shared my screen so they can help me. I feel like I have a lot to do on my portfolio. I have barely started my Research section, apart from copying some things across from my preliminary portfolio so I can change and add to what I have already done. The rooftop of my lodge is going to have an infinity pool on it and I didn't realize until I started making it that the rooftop slab is going to have to be much thicker than the rest of the slabs in order to fit a pool inside it and at first I couldn't figure out how to change the thickness of the slab as it was set in a particular thickness in the settings and I couldn't change it. I decided to make a thick mesh in between the second story and the rooftop and I made it it's own story. So now my lodge had four story's, one of them called 'slab for pool'. This was annoying as it would make the plans go weird at the end and it was not the best way to deal with the situation. I finally decided to ask my classmates on the breakout room and one of them showed me how to change the thickness of the slab which was much better and I could have just asked in the first place. I also couldn't find a way to create the shape of the pool I had in my plans, where it went all the way around the edge of my rooftop, I could only make rectangle shaped pools. I decided to change my plan to just having two pools either side of the rooftop.

Fri W8… This week I have been getting into my Research section. In my last portfolio, I only had one option for each of the hardware materials so I have been adding to that research by screenshotting all of my options for each material and deciding which one is the best in my selection and justification. I have created a table for my presentation media research and have added screenshots of my work in all different softwares including Microsoft and adobe apps. I have been working a lot on the hour bus trips to save time and OneNote has been very useful as It doesn’t need internet to run and there is no internet on the bus. This week, I also decided to start drawing my mountain mesh for the ski lodge. I found a mesh tutorial on YouTube that guided me on how to create a terrain using the mesh and spline tools. Using this video, I started to create my mountain. Creating the mountain wasn't as hard as I thought it would be but I did have a bit of trouble with the elevations and the edges and had to create the mountain three times before I got it right with a good slope. I also fitted out my ski lodge with some furniture, including lounges, fireplaces, a grand piano, beds and bedside tables and showers, toilets and basins in the bathrooms.

Fri W9… This week I have been trying to finish my ski lodge on ARCHICAD but I had trouble with the stairs. The main staircase is a very big, grand and luxurious feature which meant that it was very difficult to create and took me all week to play around with the stair tool and try to figure it out. I eventually used the slab tool to create the landing instead of the landing tool. This made it a lot easier and it didn’t take long after that. As I have been working through the important parts of my ski lodge, I have been using the screen recording function from PowerPoint to record my progress and challenges. This means that when I create the video, I will have all of the footage I need to show my challenges. It also means I can go back and screenshot parts from the video that I need for my graphics processes. When showing my ski lodge to my family, my sister pointed out that It had no 'back of house' section. It had nowhere for the staff to go, no offices or loading zones or anything like that. My ARCHICAD needs to be finished by next week so I can submit a plan of it, so I decided it is too late to change my lodge and it would be a pain to have to add another whole area so I asked Mr Scruby and he said as long as I mention in my portfolio that I thought of it, I don’t really need to worry about it. There are also some other things that make the lodge a little bit unrealistic that I need to think of, for example, the slope of the roof and the fact that If I don't have a sort of cover of the pools, they might fill up with snow.

Fri W10… The second submission was on Wednesday this week. I had already finished the research and industrial analysis last week, so it was just finishing off the ski lodge on ARCHICAD and creating either the site plan or floor plan. I had trouble with creating the site plan as the plans are the part that I have the most trouble with in the whole assessment and I left it all until Tuesday night. One of my classmates shared a video with me from Mr Brigham's OneDrive folders that went through exactly how to create a site plan so I watched the video and followed along with it. I'm still not sure if I did it right or what marks I will get for it. I have learnt not to leave the ARCHICAD plans until last minute because they need time and I need to be able to talk to someone about them to make sure I'm on the right track.

Holidays… I have decided that instead of just showing screenshots for my Graphics Processes section, I am going to make little clips from my screen recordings of me creating each processes and edit these clips in a faster speed. I can then use these clips in my final walk through video. During these holidays, I have completed my Graphics Processes section and I was planning on finishing my Technology Research but I didn't know what else I needed to include in it so I decided to wait until school so I can ask my teacher. The part I am dreading is the Plans and I really want to complete them all in W1 of next term to get them over and done with. The ARCHICAD plans are the bit that I have the most trouble.

Fri W1… The task is due in a bit over 3 weeks and I feel like I still have a lot to do. I have started the shadow diagram and the elevation plans but I can't seem to add dimensions to them or any of the other things we need to include and I have been procrastinating doing the plans. I am going to ask for some help from Mr Brigham next week. Other than trying to start the plans, this week I finished the Technology section of my research which didn't include very much as I had already included most of it in my Materials research. I decided I would just add all of my Research into one big section as a lot of it overlaps between the two sections.

Fri W2… This week we got back our marks from the second checkpoint submission. I didn't go too well this time and I didn't get very good marks for the Site Plan which I will have to work on to get it up to a high standard. On Thursday this week, Mr Brigham was at our school, so we had a face-to-face lesson with him and he explained all of the ARCHICAD files, the different sections and how the plans are generated, which was very helpful as I now understand better how to create the plans and how they work. So far, I have completed the elevations, the shadow Diagrams and started the floorplans and I plan to have all of my plans done by next week. I also completed my Appropriateness of Design by annotating a back and front render of my lodge with how it complies with the customers needs and wants. After looking at a past band 6 student's portfolio, I realized I needed to add a little bit more so I created a table with a checklist of the customers wishes and how I have completed them.

Fri W3… I have finished the plans this weeks but I was very annoyed at myself for not downloading each of them into a PDF as I created them. Because I didn't do this, I had to redo the elevations, because the font went weird, and the floorplans, because the electrical plan overlapped with my floorplan and the lines showing my electrical circuits appeared on my floorplans. This was very time consuming to redo but the good thing about it was that in the second time creating the plans, I knew exactly how to create them and where to find each function, so it didn’t take as long as the first time. This week I also decided to create another section of the graphics processes for the plans and document how I created each plan and the troubles I had with each. As the task is due next week, I spent a bit of time this week fixing up sections that needed improving such as the WHS section in which I took a photo of my work environment and annotated it to show the different considerations of WHS in my workspace. I also finished my Final Evaluation this week, so my whole portfolio is done, uploaded onto my Wix website and all my plans are completed. This is where I hoped I would be up to this week and it is good as all I need to do next week, before the submission date, Is create my walk-through video.