Hierarchy

Hierarchy

A hierarchy can be established in so many different ways, and can take so many different forms. Hierarchy is simply any system of persons or things ranked one above another. An example of this would be the Roman Catholic Church. At the top of this hierarchy is the Pope, and below him the cardinals, then the arch-bishops, bishops and priests. In general hierarchy in this form has a tier system where the highest rung of the ladder is the leader and working down the tiers, there are more and more members, forming a triangular shape.

Government is another example of a solid hierarchy. There is the Prime Minister of Australia, then his cabinet, then his back-benchers. One of the inherent traits of hierarchy is a feeling of authority by being “above” someone else. This authority does not necessarily need to be practiced, sometimes it just needs to be respect but sometimes it does.

As a collaborative group, there can be conflict that arises as a result of differing views or methods. Having a leader can quell such conflict because there is a recognized order that is commonly respected by the group.

Human hierarchy is just one of the applications of hierarchy within our collaborative project. Prioritization goes hand in hand with hierarchy, and within our project one of our first actions was to prioritize tasks. This took on an image of the human hierarchy in that the overall goal was to produce a model together. Sub goals that fell lower in the hierarchy included building the model, fabricating a site, developing textures. Further still were buying necessary programs, keeping process blogs and researching.

Hierarchy has yet another application in our project in that our building, Harry Seidler’s courthouse, has a strong dependence on hierarchy which we need to convey in our model. A courthouse implies authority and order, two things which I have alluded to in previously discussing hierarchy.

When looking at the overall nature of this task, hierarchy not presents itself in various forms, it is also established by us as without it, it is much harder to be organized and ordered.