Class Reflection October 30

During the first half of this class, Carmine Militano revealed his secrets for success. He shared that getting ahead and staying on top in the business world requires sound decision making, a knowledge of first principles, and an acceptance of the new era of sustainability. In my view, his outline of a structured decision making processes, as a way of making defensible decisions, was especially useful. However, while I appreciate Miltano's expertise and success in his field, I found his delivery to be overly aggressive. His dog eat dog attitude, and in particular his implication that academia and many of the concepts it studies are often irrelevant in the real world of business, was shortsighted. In order for us to become truly sustainable, we require a multi-disciplinary approach. This approach should involve knowledge and action sharing between Universities, the business community, government, and beyond. If this mutually shared approach is to be successful, each discipline must demonstrate a high level of respect for the value of the others.

While Mr. Militano was no doubt knowledgeable and confident in his delivery, I found the discussion of the second speaker, Dr. van Vliet to be more engaging. His presentation of case studies throughout Europe demonstrated projects which were multifaceted, and which looked to the future of sustainable design. I feel that these projects were largely successful because they were grassroots in nature, from the early planning stages of development. I was impressed to learn the projects had gone beyond sustainability, instead they continue to improve over time. Dockside Green was presented as a North American adaption of these multi-use, grassroots, environmentally conscious projects. The success of Dockside Green has yet to be determined, and while Dr. van Vliet questions the financial motivations of the project, only time will tell whether Victoria will be able to adapt these European models to Canada.

Class Reflection October 30, 2008

As Judith mentioned, today’s classes were definitely a lesson in the dichotomy of design, if nothing else. Thanks in part to my business background I enjoyed Mr. Milatano’s presentation very much. I often voice my regret concern for having spent so many years in business school, as opposed to sketching and beefing up my photosopping capabilities and am consistently re-assured by people more experienced than myself that it will all be worth something in the end, and today’s presentation definitely re-enforced that notion. Designing is all fun and games (and sometimes tears) when we are doing it in a theoretical hypothetical sense in studio but when we are out in the field real world obstacles are going to present us with an entirely new set of hurdles to tackle. Being able assess the risks associated with our designs will undoubtedly help us immensely in the long run.

For what Dr. Van Vliet’s presentation lacked in energy it made up for with information. We were introduced to many sustainable design practices that are occurring in other countries. Dr. Van Vilet’s presence (or lack thereof) in many ways was a lesson in and of itself especially in comparison to the dichotomy of his presence with that of Mr. Miliatano’s. I think that most students are much more interested in the sustainability of designs over the business side but thanks to Mr. Milatano’s ability to engage the crowd, today, his proposal stole the show. Going forward when our presentations will be more highly scrutinized I think we will be able to take this knowledge and run with it, creating presentations that are captivating.

Class Reflection, October 30th, 2008

We’ve had our share of presenter personalities in class, but I think the polarity of the two in today’s lecture made for an especially dynamic experience. Carmine Milatano shared with us a very logical and business oriented side of design, one that I’ve been hesitant to think about, but felt surprisingly comfortable with after listening. I found his approach forward and concise, although quite aggressive,

The second lecturer, Dr. David van Vilet, from the dept. of city planning, guided us through a presentation on the typology of land-use planning and sustainable settlement practices. Although his disposition was more of one that I myself would naturally gravitate to, his method of presenting information was a little bit difficult to follow. His own knowledge on the issue was well versed, however and thoughtfully considered. His mentioning of innovative European green cities was quite fascinating not only in their ecological initiatives, but on everything that makes for a strong urban fabric. These cities intrigue me in that they are conceived as one single unit and do not undergo any sort of major growth. They account for expansion, but that too is calculated to an extent. City planners have always designed cities based on a certain typology or pattern, but the cities that we perceive for the future seem to come ready-made and decided. I am not suggesting this is a bad way to progress, I am simply noting how much we learn from the past and apply to the future and how much we abandon for what ever reason it may be.

Reflections for October 30 Class

The two guest speakers that came to speak in this week's class brought to the table a wide spectrum of knowledge about the design world. Our first speaker was a hard hitting, to-the-point engineering consultant from Stantec Architects. Through a riveting 100+ slides he walked us through various skills like excel and public engagement that is crucial to our future professions, many of these skills not taught in our current schooling. There was also mention about the triple bottom line, and how to mitigate risks when dealing with the uncertainties of the real world. A six step sure fire procedure to maximize success and minimize risk was shown to us, a procedure that can translate into anything you work at in life. 

The second speaker came to our class with a entire different set of information. Dr. David van Vliet provided several case studies of successful planning projects in different Scandinavian countries. These countries seemed to be far ahead of North America in terms of the amount of thought put into the layout of their cities. There are also exhibitions held throughout different cities to promote good design practices in dealing with city growth, something Winnipeg could definitely learn from.

Both speakers had presented very interesting information to the class, but what really stands out in my mind of this week's class is the delivery of information. The contrast between Mr. Carmine Militano's presentation and Dr. David van Vliet was like day and night. Mr. Militano was much more engaging as a speaker and even though I'm not as interested in the business side of architecture (yet), I felt more interested in what he had to say versus Dr. Vliet. Now I'm not sure if Jae co-ordinated that deliberately, but asides from learning about the business side of design and planning, I learned what a difference the delivery of information can make. If we are to really implement our innovative ideas into the real world, we'll have to acquire the ability to convince businesses, developers, government and the public.