What drove me to choose this particular title was growing up in a town were the design of the main square was changed drastically throughout the years yet the lighting has still remained the very same which in my opinion ruins the overall design. The design itself was criticised by many and I agree with most yet I question why an architect would re design a square without taking into consideration how the square and the church are going to be lit up. This resulted in a sense of dullness and despite there being lighting incorporated into the new tiles in the middle of the square itself, it is simple not enough and not the right fitting.
One must take in consideration various factors when designing a space whilst incorporating artificial light. First the designer has to identify what the space is going to be used for, then the amount of lighting required is determined as well as what type, temperature, distribution and effects are considered. In order to obtain important information to help with redesigning the lighting for this square, I intend to conduct interviews with the local council regarding this issue and their opinions on the matter including a list of activities that are held during the year. Professionals such as architects, engineers and lighting designers to better understand this vast topic and learn more about illuminating historical facades and large areas outdoors. I also intend to hand out questioners to locals and maybe tourists on their opinions of the current design/ lighting systems in the square and other questions which I can get vital information out of to get a better under understanding of how a passerby finds this experience. Visiting different light fitting suppliers and looking through catalogs is also a must to discover what is new and all the different options fit to work in this environment. Recently Malta has seen an increase in the interest to restore historical buildings and highlight them with the use of proper artificial lighting. One distinct example is the Citadel in Gozo which was beautifully illuminated and parts redesigned very recently by local architects and engineers. When working with historical buildings, one must take precaution in order not to harm the structure therefore makes it more difficult to choose what kind of lighting rather than a simple interior. The hypogeum.
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A design brief is an important step for a designer to take when starting to work on a project. It provides the appropriate steps that should be followed to achieve a successful design project and most importantly to please the client. Design briefs are not necessarily related to how the design would look like but rather take into consideration different elements and perspectives before the actual designing begins. Taking a number of steps during a set timeline helps with setting goals and achieving them, the client can at the same time understand what is going on during the entire process.
For the unit named Design Principles and Methods, learning how to design our own brief was the main aim for this semester, while during the next semester the actual designing is going to be taking place. At first the idea sounded rather simple, however when starting to working on it as a group we found it to be challenging and very time consuming. When coming up with our own design stratagy it included: identifying the uses of the space, activities that are carried out, who uses the space, how is it used, when is it used, limitations, challenges and possibilities through different kinds of research methods. We gathered information trough the use of interviews, surveys, site observations, focus groups and secondary research. Setting a timeline was very helpful with keeping up with our own deadlines not only for this unit but at the same time with the rest. During this week's lesson we were divided into groups and each given a topic to research about. It was an intresting exersise as most of us had no or little knowledge on the topic that was given to us which was 'High Rise Buildings in Malta'. We conducted research in the time given and later presented our findings. After finding various articles related to this topic we came across what we tought was the most reliable. The definition of high rise buildings according to a document by mepa: A Planning Policy Guide on the Use and Applicability Of the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) - published in 2014. Through time the population in Malta has been increasing, with it there was also an increase in demand for housing especially high rise buildings in the most recent years. Definition of high rise buildings in Malta:
ReferecnesMepa. (2014). A Planning Policy Guide on the Use and Applicability Of the Floor Area Ratio (FAR). 8th ed. [ebook] Marsa,Malta:Mepa. Available at: http://www.mepa.org.mt/Documents/FAR_Policy-ApprovedMay2014.pdf [Accessed 4 Jan 2017].
During the last lesson for the unit of critical thinking, the topics that could possibly be used in the debates were being discussed. One title that caught my eye was the one which involved the ferry between Malta and Gozo. Having to cross the channel multiple times each week I was interested to hear what views this person had about this issue. Unfortunately they weren't present for that lesson, but luckily enough on the way home I met other Gozitans on the ferry which coincidentally brought the topic up mid-conversation. The link between Malta and Gozo has been one of the most controversial topics throughout the years. The only transport service (Gozo Channel company limited) available has been working for years since 1975. In the more recent years there have been countless debates, arguments and articles on wether or not there should be an alternative to this service mainly a bridge or a tunnel. It is a topic I often find myself talking about with others especially when they find out I am Gozitan. The issue we discussed on the ferry was about how ever since the ferry service started there was never a reduced price for full time students. Of course we are thankful that Gozitans pay less than Maltese residents, despite some still think that this is unfair. However why should a student receiving a very small amount of stipend being the only income per month (not to mention students not eligible for stipend) pay as much as a person with a full time job and stable income? In most countries I have visited almost every means of transport has regular priced tickets and also student tickets, which would be a bit cheaper than the regular ones. When boarding the ferry as a passenger it only costs a Gozitan resident 1.15 euros, however with a car that ammount goes up to almost 10euros which would ammount up to 50 euros to go to school every day for a week. Someone who does not travel frequently would simply suggest for you to get a bus and board the ferry as a passenger although not alot of students do so, for the fact that the bus service from Cirkewwa is never there on time or sometimes never even show up. This results in students having to buy a car and spend 1/3rd of their monthly stipend in a week unless they afford to rent an appartment which would cost way more. I belive that till the day were another alternative to the ferry is offered there should definately be reduced student prices. References
When first learning about this particular unit and the fact that part of the assignment included live debates I was intrigued, however I was not that excited about the blog posts which we had to keep up with weekly. It could of been due to last year's experience of finding another unit's blog posts boring and a waste of time. Despite the fact that this unit was completely different, it did not change the fact that some students found this as a burden left till the very last day of the week.
In my opinion I did improve in learning how to think critically since writing down my thoughts and beliefs on subjects allowed me to reflect on myself and eventually look back on these writings. After finding it quite hard to decide on what I should write about week after week, at times I found myself looking at some of the posts by my classmates just to get an idea of what everyone else was writing about. This helped in a way since when reading some posts I realised how most students found themselves in the same situation. I found the posts to be the mosts challenging when a fixed title was given by our lecturer, especially when the topic given was of no interest to me therefore making it even harder to critically think and reflect. In return it resulted in a couple of weak posts and I found it close to impossible to relate these topics to the line of work that interests me which is Spatial Design. Being a representative of the Gozitan University Group also known as GUG for the Mosta MCAST Institute, I decided to voice my opinions regarding certain issues that have been bugging me and fellow classmates for a while now. As mentioned in one of the previous posts, there are a number of issues with the current layout and system of the school. I was urged to write about the lack of space and organization since last week we were heading to one of our lectures in Art Studio 1 , were this particular unit is held every week. To the student's and the lecturer's surprise we find another lecture being held in the same class. We were surprised as when our lecturer informed the other lecturer that the room is were our lesson is held every Monday he denied it and said that their lecture was also held there every Monday. So not to cause any problems we headed outside and our lecturer was frustrated so he went straight to the secretary’s office to voice his concern yet as always got no where, which made us feel kind of on the same level as this is what usually happens to us when we voice our opinions. Later we were told that two lectures were assigned to the same room by mistake yet this did not only happen once. Week after week we have to waste time looking around the school for an empty classroom since we are still not assigned to one particular class.
I decided to voice my opinions and luckily enough points from what I wrote got published on a local article online. Besides the current issue I also mentioned the ongoing issue of general lack of space, which leads for the only option to leave the school during, break hours or group work sessions. It was shared by many and was surprised by how many people took interest in this issue, which in return made the class feel as if there was hope and something would be done about this. Unfortunately an anonymous speaker from the school's staff denied the facts and stated that the only time lectures are assigned to the same class is when it is intended for both classes to do so to gain different perspectives. Straight up lies to cover up the truth and unfortunately Power from below failed us this time since people with the power to do something about it tend to believe the ones with higher superior. Article: B.Matthew, (2016).'M'għandhomx biex jaħdmu'. Newsbook [Online]. Avaiable from: http://www.newsbook.com.mt/artikli/2016/12/6/m-ghandhomx-biex-jahdmu.54088/ [Accessed 6th Dcember 2016]. From when I started writing posts for this blog I struggled a lot with understanding how I should think critically when writing about a certain topic until I came across a very clear example of Shon's Model. I had never before looked up this model to see what it was about and now regret I not doing it sooner.
As mentioned in previous posts I struggle a lot with making decisions so when I learnt about this idea I thought including it into one of my blog posts would be a good idea. I was also surprised to discover a number of thinking models and frameworks that I had never heard about before. Shon’s model can be applied to everyday life and tasks, however the model is still criticized heavily by some since it does not take into consideration things that we are not in control of. Shon divides reflection into two; either reflection-in-action or reflection-on-action. Reflection-in-action refers to what is occurring at that specific moment and how we are looking and reacting to things at that particular point in time. Meanwhile Reflection-on-action refers to reflecting and thinking about something that has happened in the past. Naturally I apply this model almost everyday but unfortunately I often find myself stuck reflecting-on-action since I find it hard to move forward and learn from past experiences. I will definitely try to follow Shon’s idea of how to reflect and learn from things during both stages. References: Smith, K.M., 2001. Donald Shon: learning, reflection and change. infed. Available from: http://infed.org/mobi/donald-schon-learning-reflection-change/ [Accessed 4th December 2016] For this weeks blog , I've decided to talk about a major milestone in everyone's life. The purchasing of a first car. This Seen as a tradition in media be it movies or tv series as well as a major stepping stone into adulthood and ownership, I personally looked forward to this moment as to own something that belongs to me, something I bought for myself through hard work and grit. Unfortunately this step came abit sooner than expected for me due circumstances that I could not avoid. I found myself living in msida whilst attending mcast in mosta this proved to be a major disadvantage due to the hard ever changing timetable and to put it in appropriate language the crap bus system. I had a certain amount of money in my bank account and set out on looking for a car for me.
This was the second time I had to comedown to a decision that would affect my future. Should I purchase a reliable second hand car or purchase a car I would like and end up paying via a payment scheme or a loan. From the first time I saw the Volkswagen Beetle on the tv series charmed I've wanted to have it as my first car it was and still is a dream of mine, to have my beetle outside my house however when looking into it I found myself with gel options go for something I can't afford right now of buy a car that I could afford now and think about the future. After speaking to various people, including friends, family and researching online I weighed up my options and came to the decision that a first car, especially for a gozitan in Malta should not be a brand new car because apart from it being beyond my financial grasp it would be a risky move from my end knowing I had hardly any driving experience in Malta. Therefore I had to ignore what my heart wanted and went with my brain and bought a reliable second hand car that was within my price range. Last Thursday Ali Farzat, the political cartoonist mentioned in the previous post was invited to visit the Institute for the Creative Arts to have an open discussion with the students. As degree students it was compulsory for us to attend and to be honest I was not that keen on staying at first. Surprised by the turnout of the number of students in the hall I started thinking that I might have underestimated what an influence this cartoonist is to some. The only issue during the talk was the language barrier between us as the translator could not fully translate what he was saying and fully show the emotions behind the words.
Farzat stated that "An artist must practice what he preaches". I agree with this statement since there is no point in drawing something for the whole world to see if you don't believe in it yourself. If Farzat agreed with the political system and all the other misfortunes the country has gone through he wouldn't be illustrating it. Through his drawing he is able to portray images understood by any language. He focused a lot on the current issues in Syria and how the Mafia benefits from such events, another act of greed by people who have power. Almost all the tragedies happening at the moment seem to be revolving around politics and this is what Ali Farzat tells us in his cartoons. Instead of carrying guns to defend his country he carries the most powerful weapon of all, a pencil, which allows him to express himself and show the world the truth in a single image. After he was assaulted by the Syrian forces for drawing a cartoon ridiculing president Bashar al-Assad, he remained in Syria for another month living in fear. Farzat mentioned that if he wasn't know for his cartoons and illustrations and if people didn't like his art, he would of been killed without anyone noticing. Although its hard for us to truly understand what he and his country have been through, we can definitely agree on the fact that we all want peace, not only for this country but the entire world. He couldn't of ended the talk any better by saying " Syria will forever remain for the Syrians" and no one is going to take it from them no matter who and how powerful they are. When first looking at the term 'power from below ' my mind immediately thinks about politics, more specifically corruption although it is also commonly associated with situations where the little guy stands up against the big guy. A David versus Goliath battle. When we talk about power from below we often think of it as a lower 'level' person tries to voice and act on their feelings and beliefs while attempting to make a difference for the better.
When writing this blog , I found myself thinking of a recent situation I faced. The idea that power from below can change structures is true yet sometimes difficult to achieve. During my first year of the course myself and a couple of other students failed a subject which was one of the most difficult subjects Being used to a systems for as long as I can remember where resits are held around two months later I was now faced with the impossible. For some reason the Institute wanted the student who failed to re do their work from scratch and resubmit the new work within 10 days. Now this is difficult to do with just one subject let alone having two or more within the same period. Even if it was just an exam and we had to study for it the deadline was impossible to reach whilst presenting work of good quality. Not knowing why other students never said anything about it I decided to take a stand. It was also the perfect opportunity to do so since when the resit brief was issued, the particular lecture took a mistake in the deadline date and wrote September so students started asking questions. As mentioned in the previous blog post, students at Mcast most of the time have no say in things so this was a win or loose situation. We were either going to make them listen and ask for the deadline to be extended hoping it will or else fail the subject again. After numerous emails and meetings with some members of the administration we managed to extend the deadline till September. Today, all students at the institute who fail a unit can submit their resit work in September, same as almost all the schools in Malta and Gozo. This shows how even though students are treated as the lowest level in the system's triangle, if they have enough courage and good intentions they can manage. References Piven, F. (2008). Can Power from Below Change the World?. [online] Asr.sagepub.com. Available at: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/73/1/1.abstract [Accessed 4 Nov. 2016]. |
Rita Curmi2nd year Student Archives
May 2017
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