Heyilu XU

22/01/2021

Group meeting on campus. We have discussed the possible direction of employment for landscape design graduates and each group member has picked one or two directions to do further study.

27/01/2021

Second group meeting. After searching materials and information, we have discussed the framework about the presentation and determine what to enrich next.

03/02/2021

Third group meeting. According to the framework, we decided to interview people with working experience in different companies and fields. Together, we worked out who we wanted to interview.

04/02/2021

Today Team Orange shared their findings with the theme "Are you a landscape architect?" . Their team made a detailed introduction to the registered landscape Architect in Hong Kong, which made me understand the essential difference between Landscape Designer and Landscape Architect, and also made me understand that there are many tests and tests to go through from graduation to major.

Then Ringo brought us a Virtual Office Visit from EarthAsia. Ringo introduced the main types of projects and the company structure, as well as some company policies, and also showed us around the Office. This class made me have a certain understanding of landscape companies in Hong Kong, such as working mode, division of labor and cooperation mode, etc.

06/02/2021

I did my interview on this day. My interview object is a person with rich experience in the landscape office. I provided him with the questions he wanted to ask.

The questions generally include why you choose your present job, your opinion on your present job, your future career plan and advice for landscape graduates.

08/02/2021

Fourth group meeting. We have organized the logical order of PPT. Since we have started our presentation with 6 landscape students with different background, we have to write some narratives for them to tell story.

09/02/2021

Finish the content of the presentation and then further modify the mistakes and improve the content.

25/02/2021

Today, the purple group shared a speech on the theme of "You are the boss". Their team interviewed many founders of landscape companies, which gave me a first-hand perspective on the efforts in economy, resources and human resources needed to set up and run a company. I also learned how the boss runs the whole company and how each project is assigned to specific teams to complete. Being the boss also needs to face many risks, such as capital flow, employee turnover, project connection and so on.

Today we finished the first small quiz.

This question made me realize the importance of professionalism. In practical work, we need a standard to measure and restrain our behavior, which not only guarantees the professional quality, but also guarantees the rights and interests of customers and the public, as well as protects ourselves from risk infringement.

04/03/2021

The white group brought a talk on the theme "Develop or Control". I have a clearer understanding of the legal provisions in Hong Kong, such as which department is responsible for enforcing them.

Among them, the white group introduced Tree Preservation and Removal Proposal (TPRP) in detail, which was very rigorous in landscape management. Any action and treatment requires continuous preparation and approval, including feasibility state, planning state, design stage and construction stage.

Today we had the second mini quiz. I always make mistakes in these kinds of complicated regulation questions. I think these questions are a little difficult for me, and I should think more carefully about the knowledge points related to the questions and answers.

18/03/2021

The topic of today's lecture is "Winning a project". The red group introduced the general procedures of tendering in detail. These include preparing a tenderer list, preparing tender documents, developing a scoring system, submissions evaluation and contact agreement.

I have also learned about three main types of project cooperation: 1. Direct appointment, 2. Negotiation, 3. When different companies cooperate on projects, different ways of cooperation may lead to different working modes of employees.

Today, Virtual Office Visit is from Blend, their sharing gave me an insight into the details that need to be taken into account when managing projects from a company perspective. Blend is a small landscape company, which allows me to compare what EarthAsia shared before and understand the differences in management modes of different companies with different scales, which gives me more references when choosing companies in the future.

25/03/2021

Today Green Group shares "Organizing a Project: Getting your designs built the way you want them to be." Their group's report clearly presented complex professional terms on the PPT, which was very organized.

There was a challenging Mini Quiz today, and I only got 41% of the score.

At present, I don't know much about who is responsible for the bidding process.

01/04/2021

Today, the Pink Group shared "Awarding a Project: Construction Tendering", which details the types and processes of the Tendering. The PPT of the Pink Group is very clear in expression, which allows the audience to see the information immediately.

I got to know the types and processes of bidding, as well as the differences between different bidding types, which enabled me to have a cognition in these unfamiliar fields.

Next we visited the office of Urbis. Urbis, one of the largest landscape companies in Hong Kong, presented their views on the landscape restoration project for the South East New Territories Landfill and Extension. I was very interested in this project, because landfills generally have a great impact on the environment and the community. They introduced the work from design to construction and operation, which enabled me to have a richer understanding of government cooperation projects.

08/04/2021

Barry shows the various participants in the meeting at the beginning of the landscape project, including Clerk of Works, Client’sSupervising Officer, Lead Consultant, Client(government), Main Contractor, Contractors Site Manager and Landscape Planting Sub-contractor.

Each participant has to ask questions about his or her own part of the project to make sure it runs smoothly. In the group discussion, our blue group, as the Client's commissioner Officer, has learned about the responsibility and work of the Client's commissioner Officer in the consultant meeting.

Client‘s supervising officer represents the supervision unit with relevant qualifications is entrusted by client, in accordance with the project construction documents approved by the state, relevant engineering construction laws, regulations, and construction supervision contracts and other construction contracts, representing client’s contribution to contractor’s project Construct and implement a professional service activity of monitoring.

1. If the contract documents and arrangement could be signed by client/contractor

2. What are the standards of materials and workmanship?

3. Clarification of contractor’s queries

4. What are the work stages

5. Making recommendations on interim and final payment

6. Visit the site as intervals appropriate to the contractor's programmed activities to inspect the progress and quality of the works in relation to the contract document and programme.

We would attend the monthly meetings; represent the client to attend the meeting, knowing what's happening, if the payment is passing through, any problem with the contract; not much involvement, mainly supervising, just to represent the client.

Through the discussion and feedback of other groups, I understand that the landscape project needs multi-party cooperation and participation from the beginning to the completion, and professionals of each landscape contract need to do their own work to ensure the normal progress of the project. In the event of an emergency, such as the Epidemic outbreak, participants also need to make changes to the contract based on the actual situation.

And next we have the virtual field visit to SENT Landfill. This landfill has temporary water tanks to irrigate the surface vegetation and drainage systems to treat the precipitation. The main thing is the plant cover on the surface of the landfill. Guest details the technical treatment of the plants.

Still some questions for the landfill:

I saw on the website that this landfill only accepted construction waste in 2016. Will it deal with domestic waste before then? How to deal with some peculiar smell from the waste?

15/04/2021

Today in class, I discussed the key points of writing an application letter with my group members. During the discussion, I was very happy to hear the different opinions of my group members on the content and format of an application letter.

Although there are certain similarities in application letters, application letters for different companies must be written according to the culture and details of different companies. Before writing an application letter, you must know a lot about the company and position you want to apply for, so that you can express your intention specifically. It's also important to be sincere in your application letter, which requires us to reconfirm the details over and over.

This reminds me of the emails I sent to many companies when I was looking for an internship. In the emails, I just introduced my background information in a general way, without specifically mentioning why I want to apply for this company. So an application letter is not a personal introduction, it needs to have a clear intention and motivation.

22/04/2021

At the beginning of this class, Barry reviewed the application letters we submitted in detail. First of all, he summarized many irregularities in the format. Although it was only a small mistake, the saying "the devil is in the details" was not unreasonable.

In addition, Barry mentioned that only three people have done some research on his company and written them in their application letters. I think this is very necessary. My cover letter only mentioned my performance, but didn't mention why I was needed, what I could bring to the company, or whether my skills were adequate for the job. So it's been very helpful for me to review this lecture.

28/04/2021

I have made some preparations for the Group Interview tomorrow:

Harvest:

I have participated in many different forms of practice in Landscape practice that exercises comprehensive ability from multiple perspectives. I did my part of the work in the group first. I actively participated in the discussion and completed the work in each group assignment. And for my own part, In class, I would reflect on the questions raised by teachers and classmates, and after class, I would record my own performance.

In this intense course, I not only learned the basic principles of landscape design practice, but also exercised my skills of personal expression, critical thinking, teamwork and so on. In the professional practice, I learned the employment direction and prospect that a landscape design graduate can consider, as well as the professional ability, moral code and professional qualification that a professional landscape practitioner needs to have.

Feedback:

1. I think more lecture from you would be better, before we do the group presentation, we know nothing about the theme we present, and Although we referred to PDF and materials collected from the Internet, we did not have a systematic understanding of the subject of the report, especially when listening to the reports of other groups, I felt a little lost in finding the key points.

2. Many questions in the Quiz had nothing to do with the class, and some knowledge was not acquired from other groups. During the quiz, some of the options were quite ambiguous, and I thought it would be better to add these questions and options after the lecture.

3. When you give an assignment, I hope to be able to clarify the homework requirements, and send a brief so that we can have a clearer understanding of the requirements and content of the assignment.

4. Not everyone is involved in all the parts, time is limited, everyone is only responsible for and understanding their own parts, In some groups, the way of presentation is not enough to ensure that students can understand carefully.

About Peer Assessment:

I think assessment is a process of self-reflection and review of team members. When we give the score, we will recall the team members and their own work and see how they contribute to the group. Some group member's way of thinking and ability to do things are of learning value. However, I think it is a little bit unfair for some team members, because in my opinion, some team members really have almost the same contribution and it is difficult to rank with different scores.

29/04/2021

In today's interview, our team discussed the assessment with Barry for a long time. Barry first asked us how to see the Assessment, and I expressed my idea that i’ve prepared.

But Barry explained that this assessment is not about scores, but about reviewing the work and attitude of each of us.I believe that this assessment is beneficial to our group, because we are the first group to share, and we can compare and fill in the gaps after reading the shares of other groups.

I think it is wrong that we defined this assessment as the rating of group members at the beginning, which is just a good form of reflection.

In the team cooperation of this semester, I enjoyed working with my team members very much. I think we are the best team!