James NG

S02 – 0128

Self-Introduction_James_Arch7281.mp3

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- 0201 Pink team meeting: Notes reading and Analysis, on the sessions:

Construction documents, Tendering Process, Advantages and Disadvantages of Alternative Types of Tendering, Tendering System for Public works Contracts, Types of Tenders – Government Works, Tendering Process (Government), Tender Recommendations & Procedures, Sub-contractors, Forms of Construction Contract

S03 – 0204

- 0209 Group meeting – Personal Blog Template creation – Ceci helps to create the template

- Insights on Setting up an office – Being registered or not from the view of Earthasia Ringo Lee – RLA qualification is required in Governmental submissions, yet people without HKILA professional membership could still contribute a lot in the design aspect and be promoted in the firm. RLA is more like doing more administration work, making sure things done are following rules and regulations. Whether to pursue RLA depends on personal interest.

S04 – 0211

- Insights on Setting up an office – Files Management – clear file storage and management that all staff observe is crucial to productivity of the office, in case a staff apply for leave and attention is required on the project, other staff could follow up on the progress

- Insights on Setting up an office – Earthasia office arrangement: Try to limit the use of partition to encourage interaction between members of staff. Emphasize interactive spaces for event holding, festive parties and staff bonding development

S05 – 0225

- Insights from Mini quiz 1 – Insurances. Knowing that money is tight in practice quite often, bosses have to be clear about their responsibilities and insurances to buy for the operation of the office. Professional indemnity insurance, Employees Compensation insurance are required for the daily operation of the company. Third Party Insurance and Building Content insurance covers the rented office. For Staff medical insurance, though it is not compulsory, whether taking it out comes to a more ethical decision on how bosses provide fringe benefits to their employees.

- Insights from purple team interview with landscape/ architecture firms bosses: Listen to thoughts from bosses' perspectives, on why they would like to keep their own practices and issues they encounter when running businesses. Much more administration work above design skills are required, plus marketing their companies. Understanding how they are protecting their firms from liabilities and trouble would explain decisions they make, and as employees, putting ourselves in the bosses’ shoe helps us understand the operation of firms much better.

S06 – 0304

- Insights from Mini Quiz 2 – HK Landscape Practice, no matter for Government or Private projects, are guided by statutory laws, technical circulars and practice notes, which the WHITE team gave a great introduction to. It is noted that the governmental circulars and guidelines are updated from time to time, for instance he Lands Administration Office Practice Notes (LAO PN) 7/2007 & 7/2007A are superseded by LAO PN 2/2020. Usually when a new version is published, it will state at the beginning or the end of the notes that the older version has been superseded, so that practitioners will know they do not need to refer to the old versions unless specified

- Insights from Mini Quiz 2 – The requirement of RLA identity in executing landscape practice procedures or workflows should be one of the key focus areas to study as we are reading the governmental guidelines, no matter we are working as a graduate without RLA qualification or a RLA. For instance, from PlanD PN 1/2019, we do not need to be an RLA to prepare the Landscape Proposal (LP) when a submission is required but the RLA qualification is required when a Landscape Master Plan (LMP) is being submitted. RLA’s requirement will be an important element to consider as offices allocate manpower to carry out respective landscape procedures.

S07 – 0318

- 0308 Selecting Terms to display in Glossary session (James)

- 0308 Preparation of Q&A session (James)

- 0310 Group meeting on presentation materials:

- Tendering documents: Specifications – highlight General/ Particular Specification sessions, and Preliminaries in Bill of Quantities

- Types of Tendering process – more analytical approach to Negotiated/ Selective/ Open Tendering (openness to technical capabilities) as layer 1; details go to layer 2

- Tendering Process: think about ways to filter layer 1 information (for efficiently get the messages), and remaining explanation goes to layer 2

- If scenarios or role playing is to be made, focusing on the tendering process (e.g. particular specification – e.g. Hardscape material using GS adopting basic requirements and using PS to indicate quality of the finish; give context and ask what tendering process should we go for, if there are changes in documents go for tender addendum, adverse weather condition extension of time – a few questions to support the scenario?)

- Contract conditions – keep the value, function of contract here; under Standard Forms of Contract, read General Contract conditions and summarize – Keeping timeline of project, Authorization, financial timeline, Adverse weather treatment, unexpected ground condition treatment, injuries treatment; then point out there is “Particular contract conditions”

- Scenario and role playing – no need to be made for Contract session by PINK team

S08 – 0325

- Notes from Quiz 3:

- General Specification and Particular Specification:

- General Specification is quite broad

- Could be strike out the clause and refer to particular specification

- PS will then be an add on at the back

- GS have multiple choice options

- Depends on the work

- But General Specification you do not need to work on it – it is done already

- Project management – is the coordinator for the project, and find respective professionals to do the quality check work required by law (e.g. RLA to do SCC for LMP, RA for building stuff, etc.) – some PM are from marketing background but they coordinate, same for LA they could be PM – key message the question want to deliver

S09 – 0401

- Presentation day – Tendering

- Feedback after presentation:

- Think about laymen terms like you are employing a contractor to renovate your home

- All tendering terms like documentation are just briefs you issue to contractors who work for you, how much you specify and respective cost quotes are the provisional costs

- Use common sense in digesting this process you set up a brief and ask people work for you

- Urbis presentation – SENT introduction – Design and Built Contract

- Some technical findings from the presentation:

- Planting is uneasy and planting plan now is robotic, but since it will be generally low maintenance, some plants die and survive, don’t need complex forms at the moment

- Maintenance strategy is more like species specific instead of form specific – they are managing how aggressive some species are or will be, like Leucaena or Mikania, ask them out for breeding native plantation, not much concern on the forms of the plantation like ornamental planting

- This could be specified in the management specification/ workflow

S10 – 0408

- Barry presentation on Project delivery

- Scenario given: Think about what are the issues of concern for different members of a design team in the first meeting

- Urbis presentation – Site tour – Notes taken:

- MGCs – microclimate tubes for containing plant materials to establish micro-climate

- Provide a method statement plus indicative drawings to specify how the planting is carried out

- Use of native and exotic shrubs to nurture native trees establishment on site

- Wild grass, look a bit messy is an intended result, keep less invasive species on site to lower wind speed and nurture native species

S11 – 0415

- Job interview session

- Blogs reminder – Glossary & Links – do also the Chinese definitions

- Some reminders:

- Human resources department receive your application

- They cannot evaluate your portfolio, could just tick a check box of qualities

- Tie a connection with director, presenter, see who you need to address

S12 – 0422

- Peer assessment form assigned

- Reflection of the assessment task - The comment column is particularly useful, since the ranking cannot always reflect the actual contribution/ commitment/ skill/ reliability of the team member