scholarly journals Predicting Archeology: Static Architecture in Time

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jack Davies

<p>The explosion of computer propelled technology has affected architectural creation in every way. Achitecture as space is now considered corporeal from the moment the computer screen is powered. Time as a design driver’s resonance is being diluted in favour of material performance and manipulating capacity, yet the natural world is being absorbed as an aesthetic driver in much of contemporary architecture. This technological change is asking users to change their perception on what architecture means to them if it is not physically located in-situ. Architecture as a discipline is shifting to one that sits atop site, rather than growing from. This thesis asks whether natural elements are being misinterpreted when tranlated into digital space. It questions the aesthetics of parametric architecture when the notions of movement and speed are applied, and asks if there is a possibility to create architcture that embodies archeological integrity from the moment of conception. The tension between Time and Movement are explored, not as being mutually exclusive, but as hand in hand. It examines ideas postulated by Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and David Leatherbarrow, and hypothesises that manipulation of material, not material form, is the most important lens in which to discuss movement. The conclusions drawn first acknowledge the merits of architectural reproduction as necessary when postulating a position purely existing in printed media, thus requiring a level of interpretation into its repesentation. It identifies a site in need of an architecture to test the ideas, and produces a design solution concluding that architecture’s direction when applying digital creation should acknowledge a building’s place over time, rather than place in time.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jack Davies

<p>The explosion of computer propelled technology has affected architectural creation in every way. Achitecture as space is now considered corporeal from the moment the computer screen is powered. Time as a design driver’s resonance is being diluted in favour of material performance and manipulating capacity, yet the natural world is being absorbed as an aesthetic driver in much of contemporary architecture. This technological change is asking users to change their perception on what architecture means to them if it is not physically located in-situ. Architecture as a discipline is shifting to one that sits atop site, rather than growing from. This thesis asks whether natural elements are being misinterpreted when tranlated into digital space. It questions the aesthetics of parametric architecture when the notions of movement and speed are applied, and asks if there is a possibility to create architcture that embodies archeological integrity from the moment of conception. The tension between Time and Movement are explored, not as being mutually exclusive, but as hand in hand. It examines ideas postulated by Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and David Leatherbarrow, and hypothesises that manipulation of material, not material form, is the most important lens in which to discuss movement. The conclusions drawn first acknowledge the merits of architectural reproduction as necessary when postulating a position purely existing in printed media, thus requiring a level of interpretation into its repesentation. It identifies a site in need of an architecture to test the ideas, and produces a design solution concluding that architecture’s direction when applying digital creation should acknowledge a building’s place over time, rather than place in time.</p>


Author(s):  
Jeanette Landgrebe ◽  
Rainar Rye Marstrand

In this paper, we take an ethnomethodological perspective to analysing members’ competence in a professional practice. We propose an approach which systematises different levels of analysis to identify the underlying management rules, principles and procedures that are significant for the way members in a Lean department meeting organise their in situ activity. Authentic video footage, on-site observations and ethnographic material form the basis of our research focus. Our analysis suggests that the mere presence of an inscribed post-it within an activity does not automatically render it into an object which facilitates discussions, organises activities or records outcomes, but that it is embedded within the members’ taken-for-granted knowledge and routine ways of doing. As such, it is the larger organisational context and the activity at hand which determine the role of the post-it in the moment-to-moment interaction. In conclusion, we suggest going beyond the conventional understanding of context and participation framework in analysing work practices, as an approach to broadening our understanding of what constitutes context from members’ own perspectives in a professional workplace practice.


Romanticism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-201
Author(s):  
Paul Chirico

John Clare observed and described the natural world with an unsurpassed accuracy and intimacy. But his landscapes also bore the memories of life and labour. Like Wordsworth, he sought to create textual objects in transmissible forms, to deliver their reported worlds – expansive, dynamic, somehow inhabitable – to distant readers, drawing them into sympathetic intercommunion with a complex living scene. His intimate descriptive poetry reveals the tangible qualities of light and sound, and the material basis of the apparently abstract concept of time. Memory and imagination are understood to inhabit bodily spaces, provoking ‘real transport’: an observer lost in – and to – the moment. From his place and time, Clare felt solidarity with isolated birds, alienation from labour, estrangement from human communities. Publications such as annuals often showcased formulaic reflections on nature and on memory; Clare exploited textual duplicability, his meditative descriptive poetry spanning the history and futurity of an observed scene.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 738
Author(s):  
Nicola Rossi ◽  
Mario Bačić ◽  
Meho Saša Kovačević ◽  
Lovorka Librić

The design code Eurocode 7 relies on semi-probabilistic calculation procedures, through utilization of the soil parameters obtained by in situ and laboratory tests, or by the means of transformation models. To reach a prescribed safety margin, the inherent soil parameter variability is accounted for through the application of partial factors to either soil parameters directly or to the resistance. However, considering several sources of geotechnical uncertainty, including the inherent soil variability, measurement error and transformation uncertainty, full probabilistic analyses should be implemented to directly consider the site-specific variability. This paper presents the procedure of developing fragility curves for levee slope stability and piping as failure mechanisms that lead to larger breaches, where a direct influence of the flood event intensity on the probability of failure is calculated. A range of fragility curve sets is presented, considering the variability of levee material properties and varying durations of the flood event, thus providing crucial insight into the vulnerability of the levee exposed to rising water levels. The procedure is applied to the River Drava levee, a site which has shown a continuous trend of increased water levels in recent years.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6313
Author(s):  
Ramona Ciolac ◽  
Tiberiu Iancu ◽  
Ioan Brad ◽  
Tabita Adamov ◽  
Nicoleta Mateoc-Sîrb

The agritourism activity can be a characteristic reality of the present, considering rural area’s sustainability, being at the same time a business reality for rural entrepreneurs and a “must have” for rural communities that have tourism potential. It is a form of tourism, through which the tourist can receive a qualitative product at a reasonable price, but also a field that can ensure sustainable development over time, being at the same time environmentally friendly. The purpose of this scientific paper is to identify the aspects that make agritourism “a possible business reality of the moment”, for Romanian rural area’s sustainability. We take into account the following areas: Bran-Moieciu area—considered “the oldest” in terms of agritourism experience, and Apuseni Mountains area, with a great inclination and potential for this activity. The study conducted for these two areas is focused on several aspects: the degree of involvement in agritourism activities, considering the number of years and managerial experience, the analysis of the types of activities/experiences offered by agritourism structures, the identification of the main reasons/motivations for the orientation towards agritourism and the manner in which this field is perceived. Aspects related to the marketing-finance part of the agritourism business are also taken into account: customers, distribution channels, financial sources, shortcomings observed by agritourism business owners and possible action directions so as to improve the activity/agritourism product. Agritourism may be “a possible business reality of the moment” for the studied areas and not only, but in the future, the entrepreneur/farmer must be constantly updated because of the changing situations that appear on the market, be able to make sustainable decisions for his/her own business, which in the future will ensure its viability and obviously its long-term profitability and development, and in the same time rural area’s sustainability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1505
Author(s):  
Ignacio Menéndez Pidal ◽  
Jose Antonio Mancebo Piqueras ◽  
Eugenio Sanz Pérez ◽  
Clemente Sáenz Sanz

Many of the large number of underground works constructed or under construction in recent years are in unfavorable terrains facing unusual situations and construction conditions. This is the case of the subject under study in this paper: a tunnel excavated in evaporitic rocks that experienced significant karstification problems very quickly over time. As a result of this situation, the causes that may underlie this rapid karstification are investigated and a novel methodology is presented in civil engineering where the use of saturation indices for the different mineral specimens present has been crucial. The drainage of the rock massif of El Regajal (Madrid-Toledo, Spain, in the Madrid-Valencia high-speed train line) was studied and permitted the in-situ study of the hydrogeochemical evolution of water flow in the Miocene evaporitic materials of the Tajo Basin as a full-scale testing laboratory, that are conforms as a whole, a single aquifer. The work provides a novel methodology based on the calculation of activities through the hydrogeochemical study of water samples in different piezometers, estimating the saturation index of different saline materials and the dissolution capacity of the brine, which is surprisingly very high despite the high electrical conductivity. The circulating brine appears unsaturated with respect to thenardite, mirabilite, epsomite, glauberite, and halite. The alteration of the underground flow and the consequent renewal of the water of the aquifer by the infiltration water of rain and irrigation is the cause of the hydrogeochemical imbalance and the modification of the characteristics of the massif. These modifications include very important loss of material by dissolution, altering the resistance of the terrain and the increase of the porosity. Simultaneously, different expansive and recrystallization processes that decrease the porosity of the massif were identified in the present work. The hydrogeochemical study allows the evolution of these phenomena to be followed over time, and this, in turn, may facilitate the implementation of preventive works in civil engineering.


Plant Disease ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Ridge ◽  
S. N. Jeffers ◽  
W. C. Bridges ◽  
S. A. White

The goal of this study was to develop a procedure that could be used to evaluate the potential susceptibility of aquatic plants used in constructed wetlands to species of Phytophthora commonly found in nurseries. V8 agar plugs from actively growing cultures of three or four isolates of Phytophthora cinnamomi, P. citrophthora, P. cryptogea, P. nicotianae, and P. palmivora were used to produce inocula. In a laboratory experiment, plugs were placed in plastic cups and covered with 1.5% nonsterile soil extract solution (SES) for 29 days, and zoospore presence and activity in the solution were monitored at 2- or 3-day intervals with a rhododendron leaf disk baiting bioassay. In a greenhouse experiment, plugs of each species of Phytophthora were placed in plastic pots and covered with either SES or Milli-Q water for 13 days during both summer and winter months, and zoospore presence in the solutions were monitored at 3-day intervals with the baiting bioassay and by filtration. Zoospores were present in solutions throughout the 29-day and 13-day experimental periods but consistency of zoospore release varied by species. In the laboratory experiment, colonization of leaf baits decreased over time for some species and often varied among isolates within a species. In the greenhouse experiment, bait colonization decreased over time in both summer and winter, varied among species of Phytophthora in the winter, and was better in Milli-Q water. Zoospore densities in solutions were greater in the summer than in the winter. Decreased zoospore activities for some species of Phytophthora were associated with prolonged temperatures below 13 or above 30°C in the greenhouse. Zoospores from plugs were released consistently in aqueous solutions for at least 13 days. This procedure can be used to provide in situ inocula for the five species of Phytophthora used in this study so that aquatic plant species can be evaluated for potential susceptibility.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1846
Author(s):  
Vivek Kumar ◽  
Isabel M. Morris ◽  
Santiago A. Lopez ◽  
Branko Glisic

Estimating variations in material properties over space and time is essential for the purposes of structural health monitoring (SHM), mandated inspection, and insurance of civil infrastructure. Properties such as compressive strength evolve over time and are reflective of the overall condition of the aging infrastructure. Concrete structures pose an additional challenge due to the inherent spatial variability of material properties over large length scales. In recent years, nondestructive approaches such as rebound hammer and ultrasonic velocity have been used to determine the in situ material properties of concrete with a focus on the compressive strength. However, these methods require personnel expertise, careful data collection, and high investment. This paper presents a novel approach using ground penetrating radar (GPR) to estimate the variability of in situ material properties over time and space for assessment of concrete bridges. The results show that attributes (or features) of the GPR data such as raw average amplitudes can be used to identify differences in compressive strength across the deck of a concrete bridge. Attributes such as instantaneous amplitudes and intensity of reflected waves are useful in predicting the material properties such as compressive strength, porosity, and density. For compressive strength, one alternative approach of the Maturity Index (MI) was used to estimate the present values and compare with GPR estimated values. The results show that GPR attributes could be successfully used for identifying spatial and temporal variation of concrete properties. Finally, discussions are presented regarding their suitability and limitations for field applications.


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