Drawing perspectives

This is my first attempt at a screencast. It is made using the free version of Jing. I have not recorded any audio on this post. The drawings were made using Google SketchUp version 7. Although the main reason for this post is to test the technology, hopefully the video demonstrates the relationship between perspectives, plans and layouts. Any feedback on this would be welcome.

Keeping a watch on building work

There is building work in progress next to the Portland Building. It is next to Lion Street and the car park on the North side. It would be worth looking at this if you are in the area. So far an old cellar has been filled in and piles have be put in the fill. To be fair, I missed the first part, but I do wonder how it is meant to work. Discuss.

The site viewed from the second floor of the Portland Building

Make and break project

The design challenge video on this blog has attracted a lot of viewers. If you liked that you will probably enjoy a YouTube video made by architectural students last year. The models are a lot bigger!

Recycling plastic

My Borough Council has got a problem with its residents putting the ‘wrong type of plastic’ in the household recycling bins. It claims all Local Authorities have this problem.  You can help test this claim by completing my survey at:

https://docs.google.com/a/myport.ac.uk/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFd1YnZNbmIxQl91Zk9YX1AyU2RNdWc6MQ

 

Many thanks.

Success...and failure!

Success!

...and failure.

Today we held an induction exercise which challenged small groups of new students to design (in the loosest sense of the word) and construct (in an even looser sense) a structure out of straws, bits of string, tape, paper and staples. The aim was to build the tallest structure with a maximum footprint of 150 x 150 mm which could support a load of 0.5kg. As there was no wolf in the Portsmouth area at the time, the wicked Richard Wise was on hand to huff, puff, measure and apply the weight. The tallest structure (another loose term) in the Property Development and Quantity Surveying teams measured 608 mm. There were taller assemblies of bits and pieces, but these failed to withstand the load test, despite several steward's enquiries. (I apologise to any academic reading this. I know we do not like to use the F word in education, but in this case there could be no other description. They failed, as well).

Is this the future for building maintenance?

Last Wednesday I attended a seminar on “Achieving Impact from Lean Programmes” which was part of the Hot Topics programme run by the Centre for Enterprise Research & Innovation at the University of Portsmouth Business School. The speakers were from Hewlett Packard and Portsmouth City Council (PCC) Housing department. Both organisations had made achievements with similar techniques, by analysing and changing their business systems. This sounded like familiar work for Hewlett Packard, but for PCC it was ground-breaking. The PCC approach has been so successful it is being adopted by other social housing providers. This could have big implications on anyone working in or studying building maintenance because it is contrary to nearly everything that has been written about the subject to date. Current guidance emphasises a planned approach based on cyclical repairs, usually involving complex reporting and monitoring systems. The PCC approach is to repair and replace when necessary based on the judgement of the person carrying out the work. The new approach has been due mainly to the application of system-thinking principles of the Vanguard Method.

There are lots of lessons to be learned here; one of which is business and property techniques have a lot in common.

University of Portsmouth Business School Centre for Enterprise Research & Innovation Seminars: http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/faculties/portsmouthbusinessschool/newsandevents/

Portsmouth City Council Housing Department http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/directory/housing.html

System-thinking and the Vanguard Method: http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/home.asp

Lies, damn lies and statistics

‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’ is a quote attributed to Mark Twain.  Whether or not Twain said this, it is still a good reminder that statistics can be misused, sometimes deliberately.  Students who are undertaking quantitative research should be particularly cautious in using secondary statistical data.

Examples of the ways statistics can be gathered and analysed incorrectly are provided by the BBC radio programme ‘More or Less’. Past programmes can be accessed on the programme’s website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd, and listened to on the BBC’s iPlayer . Alternatively they can be downloaded as a podcast from http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless.

The programme produced on the 9 September 2011 helpfully and correctly states: ‘correlation is not causation’. Listen to the programme if you want to know why.