for Congested Urban Areas

For the green innovative house, architects Achawin Laohavichairat, Montakan Manosong, and Peerapon karunwiwat designed a building that provided infrastructure, urban facilities, green area, and living space. They designed the house for congested urban areas in this case they choose “Metropolitan Bangkok”. Ecological living uses of clean, non-pollution energies, gathering of organic and inorganic waste, creation of green spaces. The green innovative house is designed with self-sufficient considerations planed to take care of the management of energy.

Bangkok area is a congested urban area; there are many types of building such as low-rise building, mid-rise building, and high-rise. The design proposed to use existing building as high rise building that produced the waste pollutions as waste water, rubbish and also use more energy in the day. From the research, the high-rise building produces the waste water 30,000 liter/day. So, according the result, we proposed to design a self-sufficient house that use the waste products to support itself, it becomes a “Zero Energy Living”. It becomes a self-sufficient as “Zero Energy Living” by using the waste products those come from the existing building to support itself in term of energy. In essence a mechanism for living, breathing, producing energy, reusing the waste products, and recycling the waste products those are come from the existing building.

an Apple option

Launched in 2009, Uncommon‘s mission is to offer its clients the option to individualize Apple product accessories with unique designs. Currently, customers have the option to print their own digital photos or featured designs by a selection of artists onto their accessories. Uncommon is the first manufacturer to offer mass customization with proprietary 3D TATT® printing on plastic to customers. Clients may also buy ready-made cases.

Recently featured illustrator Izak Zenou, known for his chic and fun illustrations featuring Paris street life, has a collection of pre-made iPhone cases ready to buy on Uncommon’s website. The cases are examples of Zenou’s iconic illustrations that convey a breezy, fashionable lifestyle–a fresh print to have on beloved Apple products. Uncommon helps promote the work of the best designers in the market, revolutionizing individual expression in everyday accessories through art.

qualitative Values

The studio’s ( Varouzhan Torosdamy, Evan Emery) journey started from investigating some certain aesthetical and architectural qualitative values within a series of 2d drawings derived from a digital scripting software . After some manual modification in the script,  certain qualities were achieved,  that were based on the initial drawing, next step was to  transit those drawings into a  2 ½  D surface and from there forth, into a project scale proposal on a corner site located in west Hollywood California.

We tried many different approaches including warping the 2 ½ D surface around the programmatic generic volumes, but eventually decided it best to  start applying some certain features [some of which are as follows: Specific Edge network system, Deep pleats, de-lamination, face transition, and etc…] from the 2 ½ D surface to a Primitive such as a cube. After some versions we agreed upon mutilating only a corner or one side of the cube rather than the whole object. In order to create an open public plaza, we decided to lift the cube off the raised ground condition in order to open space on the ground level . As a  direct result of this move object  would barely touch the ground; only through some edges and points, which along the cloth like surrounding  edge network and the deep caverns , razor sharp  meandering edges , nested hierarchies within the dome like negative inflations in the bottom surface would create a mesmerizing effect as one would experience in major middle eastern mosques under their domes. In order to maximize the desired effect we decided to reflect our initial drawing from bottom to top of the building contrasting the very formation of the object itself.

Landscape Roofs

Located in the heart of the Frankfurt city center, the MyZeil Shopping Mall’s by Fuksas Studio has been the newest hub for restaurants, fitness gyms, and retail shopping since its opening in 2009 next to the famous Zeil shopping street and the PalaisQuartier. A funneled roof landscape  takes urban shoppers into a vertical realm through six floors beneath 3,200 triangular glass pieces and one of the longest escalators in Germany (46 m). A void strategically travels through the building at multiple elevations and roots itself at the ground floor, much like a river, providing an openly lit tunnel from above and an atrium structure.

In response to historical context, a glass facade on Zeil, a famous shopping street, is sucked into a void that opens up to Thurn and Taxis palace with a much more formal facade. The uniform glass structure of the roof landscape acts as a “shell” to filter light at all levels of the building, designed by Knippers Helbig of Stuttgart. The blend of modern and the historical influences of Frankfurt can be found in the play on contrasting street facades, but also in an alternating choice of steel and glass panels on the shell facade.

similar to TOMBS

Atreo Skyscraper: Reinterpretation of the Ancient Greek Myth of Atreus

Atreus is a concept building designed by Crilo Architecture, with sharp shapes, it is lacerated in the armor of black metal and dark glass with cracks that reveal its interior. The prosthesis,projecting at different heights, are heliports. Below the complex, an underground space, infrastructural node and the heart of the ascent to the tower. The spatial nature is similar to the Etruscan funerary chambers and recalls the tomb of Atreus, whose treasure is part of the myth.

The reinterpretation of the myth is based on mutability of the past, through a continuous equilibrium between history and contemporaneity. A reinterpretation of the human tensions, which belong to every period of history. The mutability of the past is the central dogma George Orwell from “1984″

the Poetry of a Sea...a Deep Blue Sea

The Sea Around Us is a prize-winning 1951 bestseller by Rachel Carson. It reveals the science and poetry of the sea from its primeval beginnings to the latest scientific probings of its tantalizing mysteries. It is the second book Carson wrote, following the well-reviewed but poor-selling Under the Sea Wind (1941), and is the book that launched Carson into the public eye. Often described as "poetic", the book won both the 1952 National Book Award in nonfiction and a Burroughs Medal in nature writing.The book has been translated into twenty eight languages. The book remained on the bestseller list for 86 weeks.

Carson began writing the book—which she initially planned to call Return to the Sea—in 1948, just after hiring Marie Rodell as her literary agent.Carson began by writing a single chapter (what would be "The Birth of an Island") along with a detailed outline, which Rodell used to pitch the book to publishers. In researching for the book, Carson met with a number of oceanographers to discuss current research. Carson and Rodell had little initial success with magazines as venues for the islands chapter along with a second chapter titled "Another Beachhead". In April, 1949, with about a third of the chapters complete, Rodell began trying to find a publisher for the full book. By June, Carson had a contract with Oxford University Press that promised completion of the manuscript by March 1, 1950. Carson continued to write and research through 1949 and into 1950, despite unexpected health and financial difficulties. Part of the research involved a trip aboard a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ship, Albatross III. After pushing back the completion deadline, Carson completed the manuscript in June 1950. By that time, several periodicals (The New Yorker, Science Digest, and The Yale Review) wanted to publish some of the chapters, as well.

Much of the book (nine of fourteen chapters) was serialized in The New Yorker, beginning on June 2, 1951, and the book was published on July 2 by Oxford University Press. The serialization created a very large popular response, and the book was the subject of the feature review in The New York Times Book Review the day before publication. One chapter ("The Birth of an Island") was published in The Yale Review; it won the George Westinghouse Science Writing prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Tamil Tradition

The only Indian writings that incontestably predate the influence of classical Sanskrit are those in the Tamil language. Anthologies of secular lyrics on the themes of love and war, together with the grammatical-stylistic work Tolkappiyam (Old Composition), are thought to be very ancient. Later, between the 6th and 9th centuries, Tamil sectarian devotional poems were composed, often claimed as the first examples of the Indian bhakti tradition.

At some indeterminate date between the 2nd and 5th centuries, two long Tamil verse romances (sometimes called epics) were written: Cilappatikaram (The Jeweled Anklet) by Ilanko Atikal, which has been translated into English (1939 and 1965); and its sequel Manimekalai (The Girdle of Gems), a Buddhist work by Cattanar.

Το Ψάρι που ζήλεψε τον Κροκόδειλο

Πρόκειται για το πιο δημοφιλές ναυάγιο στον κόσμο και υπάρχει λόγος γι’ αυτό. Το SS Thistlegorm, ήταν ένα 128 μέτρων βρετανικό πλοίο μεταφοράς, το οποίο δέχθηκε επίθεση και βυθίστηκε το 1941, στο ταξίδι από τη Γλασκώβη στην Αλεξάνδρεια. Το πλοίο μετέφερε όπλα, μηχανές, πολεμικά οχήματα, ραδιόφωνα και λαστιχένιες μπότες. Όλα αυτά, βρίσκονται στο βυθό του ωκεανού, όπως και το ίδιο το πλοίο, με την μεγάλη τρύπα στο σημείο όπου το χτύπησε η γερμανική βόμβα.

Πολλοί δύτες, βουτούν γύρω και μέσα στο λασπώδες ναυάγιο με φακούς και κοιτούν τα σκουριασμένα πολυβόλα, ένα βαγόνι σιδηροδρομικής μεταφοράς εμπορευμάτων, τορπίλες και πολλά άλλα. Μπορεί επίσης να δείτε και μερικά ψάρια- κροκόδειλους, να κρύβονται στην άμμο γύρω από το ναυάγιο.


 

a Linkage Space

Performance Center Alexanderhoehe is to be located in Iserlohn, in Germany. The authors, B+U architectural firm placed the building north of the existing Parktheater and oriented it towards the inner city in order to emphasize and redefine its relationship to Alexander Heights. By orienting the building in such manner, it became possible to create a single access point for visitors to both Parktheater and the new Multifunctional Hall. In order to achieve that and avoid blocking the views from the existing Theater, a “linkage space“ was created: a generous multilevel foyer space that that allows for the actual hall to float above the ground and opens up views from the old Parktheater to the city towards the Northeast.

This linkage space between the existing Parktheater and the new multifunctional hall continues underneath the new Hall onto the plaza level. This linkage space is a combined lobby and main entrance to both the old and the new theater. There is a centrally located drop off zone for all visitors of the new Theatercenter from which the guest can proceed directly into the main lobby where they can purchase their tickets. From this point they can proceed over the Grand staircase to the different performance areas. An elevator connects the lobby space with all levels for barrier free access.

Incredible Beauty

The harsh sun, waterless dunes and spectacular, stark forms created by mountains of sand swirling in the wind are seen as inspirations of incredible beauty by architects Francisco J. del Corral del Campos and Carmen M. Barrós Velásquez, both of Granada, Spain. The two celebrate this landscape and respond to its demands in their new skyscraper design for a greenhouse tower in the Oman desert.

The architects literally cast their idea for the “Oasis” tower into the wind to help define its shape. By examining the effect of the site’s southeast wind on a tower, they designed the building to respond to the wind’s movement, its sweeping flow, by softly curving its form as it arches into the sky.

Solar energy and biogas generation from organic waste material will power the tower’s energy needs, and water from the ocean will be transported and desalinated to provide the drinking water and irrigation supply. Additionally, gray water is reused to cool the building and the surrounding environment through a spray process that creates a cooling vapor around the building.

The tower, which is easily replicated as a model that can be placed all over desert areas, will house about 500 people, who will mainly work to raise the agricultural products grown inside. In addition to housing and greenhouse space for growing, the complex will have a market and packaging, processing and storage facilities for the crops, a manmade lake for recreation and a fish farm, additional leisure space, and offices.

Whether it’s midnight at the Oasis or noon in the blistering sun, this tower’s residents will stay cool, productive and secure in this innovative commercial and residential endeavor.

to Contribute to Science

Science only knows one commandment: contribute to science. This line, spoken by the title character in Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo, inspired the title of this collection of science writing by 59 diverse authors. Most of the pieces collected by editor Edmund Blair Bolles are excerpted from texts by working scientists or natural philosophers, including George Smoot of NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer to Lucretius. Marie Curie's joy on seeing the lovely, glowing bottles of impure radium in her workroom at night is just one of the vivid images to be extracted from this volume, though with far less effort than the radium cost the Curies...

Marie Curie reminisces about her and her husband's efforts to isolate the element radium. Herodotus observes the Nile Valley and concludes that it was once under water. Carl Sagan argues against assertions that aliens regularly visit Earth. These are among the literary gems...

Edmund Blair Bolles includes in GALILEO'S COMMANDMENT. Bolles has scoured the literature of science to build a treasury that is accessible and riveting, appealing to readers unfamiliar with science yet erudite enough for the scientifically initiated reader to enjoy. The authors include scientists well-known for their writing - including Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Feynman and Charles Darwin - and scientists such as Kepler, James Clerk Maxwell, Alfred Wallace, and of course Galileo himself. The writings here span time and the scientific disciplines (the earliest pieces dates to c.444 BC) and the result is a fascinating collection , ideal for browsing or for reading cover to cover...

Violin and Palette

Violin and Palette (Violon et palette), September 1, 1909. Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 16 7/8 inches (91.7 x 42.8 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York  54.1412. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Other Cubist Works

When Georges Braque abandoned a bright Fauve palette and traditional perspective in 1908, it was the inspiration of Paul Cézanne's geometrized compositions that led him to simplified faceted forms, flattened spatial planes, and muted colors. By the end of that year, Braque and Pablo Picasso, who first met in 1907, began to compare the results of their techniques and it became obvious to both artists that they had simultaneously and independently invented a revolutionary style of painting, later dubbed "Cubism" by Guillaume Apollinaire. During the next few years the new style blossomed with stunning rapidity from its initial formative stage to high Analytic Cubism. The hallmarks of this advanced phase, so-called for the "breaking down" or "analysis" of form and space, are seen in an extraordinary pair of pendant works, Violin and Palette (Violon et palette, 1909–10) and Piano and Mandola (Piano et mandore, 1909–10).

Objects are still recognizable in the paintings, but are fractured into multiple facets, as is the surrounding space with which they merge. The compositions are set into motion as the eye moves from one faceted plane to the next, seeking to differentiate forms and to accommodate shifting sources of light and orientation. In Violin and Palette, the segmented parts of the violin, the sheets of music, and the artist's palette are vertically arranged, heightening their correspondence to the two-dimensional surface. Ironically, Braque depicted the nail at the top of the canvas in an illusionistic manner, down to the very shadow it cast, thus emphasizing the contrast between traditional and Cubist modes of representation. The same applies to the naturalistic candle in Piano and Mandola, which serves as a beacon of stability in an otherwise energized composition of exploding crystalline forms: the black-and-white piano keys all but disembodied; the sheets of music virtually disintegrated; the mandola essentially decomposed.

"When fragmented objects appeared in my painting around 1909," Braque later explained, "it was a way for me to get as close as possible to the object as painting allowed."1 If the appeal of still life was its implied tactile qualities, as Braque noted, then musical instruments held even more significance in that they are animated by one's touch. Like the rhythms and harmonies that are the life of musical instruments, dynamic spatial movement is the essence of Braque's lyrical Cubist paintings.