scholarly journals Playces: Architecture That Affords Play

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Karla Villareal

<p>This research portfolio examines the nature of play and its relationship with architecture. It researches how play is afforded by, and affords, the design of public space, rendering them places of play: Playces. Although play is an important component of everyone’s lives, this research portfolio focuses on adult play.  Like art, music, dance and literature, play is a way of engaging and expressing our being in the world. It is a pleasurable activity that also serves a biological function. Play nurtures the mind and challenges our physical capabilities. It is a critical component of human development.  Play is largely associated with childhood but maintaining a sense of playfulness is also a critical component of fulfilling adult lives. As we become adults, however, we tend to devalue the significance of play, relegating it to specific times and setting. We usually play in structured settings, solely dedicated to playing, unlike when we were children; we make very little distinction between play and other activities.  A person’s propensity to play depends not only on their physiological and emotional state, but also on their environment. Play, unfortunately, is rarely encouraged in urban spaces and even more seldom is it integrated in the design of architecture. As a result, it has generated a society of disconnection, comfortable in the predictability of their surroundings. Architecture has the potential to design for a ludic environment. It can establish a new and ever-changing relationship with adults and re-engage them to the built environment through design for play. A playful framework can allow spaces to inspire new states of mind and detach adults from their everyday reality. Spaces can invite new relationship with the built environment, one of participation and ambiguity, allowing social interactions to thrive, routine to be interrupted and adults to become spontaneously engaged. These areas are investigated following a research through design methodology to provide an understanding of the qualities that can pave way for the ideas of playful urban design.  Through a design as research methodology, Playces aims to discover how it can design a play-space that is not specifically created to accommodate play but invites players to appropriate that space through play.  Play is explored at four designs phases, which implement a range of playful design techniques. Phase one serves as a preliminary exploration of play through the design of an installation. Phases two and three explore how architecture can possess the same playful interaction in the magnitude of a medium-scale and large-scale public space. The final design is a journey through space where conditions essential for play become evident.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Karla Villareal

<p>This research portfolio examines the nature of play and its relationship with architecture. It researches how play is afforded by, and affords, the design of public space, rendering them places of play: Playces. Although play is an important component of everyone’s lives, this research portfolio focuses on adult play.  Like art, music, dance and literature, play is a way of engaging and expressing our being in the world. It is a pleasurable activity that also serves a biological function. Play nurtures the mind and challenges our physical capabilities. It is a critical component of human development.  Play is largely associated with childhood but maintaining a sense of playfulness is also a critical component of fulfilling adult lives. As we become adults, however, we tend to devalue the significance of play, relegating it to specific times and setting. We usually play in structured settings, solely dedicated to playing, unlike when we were children; we make very little distinction between play and other activities.  A person’s propensity to play depends not only on their physiological and emotional state, but also on their environment. Play, unfortunately, is rarely encouraged in urban spaces and even more seldom is it integrated in the design of architecture. As a result, it has generated a society of disconnection, comfortable in the predictability of their surroundings. Architecture has the potential to design for a ludic environment. It can establish a new and ever-changing relationship with adults and re-engage them to the built environment through design for play. A playful framework can allow spaces to inspire new states of mind and detach adults from their everyday reality. Spaces can invite new relationship with the built environment, one of participation and ambiguity, allowing social interactions to thrive, routine to be interrupted and adults to become spontaneously engaged. These areas are investigated following a research through design methodology to provide an understanding of the qualities that can pave way for the ideas of playful urban design.  Through a design as research methodology, Playces aims to discover how it can design a play-space that is not specifically created to accommodate play but invites players to appropriate that space through play.  Play is explored at four designs phases, which implement a range of playful design techniques. Phase one serves as a preliminary exploration of play through the design of an installation. Phases two and three explore how architecture can possess the same playful interaction in the magnitude of a medium-scale and large-scale public space. The final design is a journey through space where conditions essential for play become evident.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel Childs

<p><b>The consequence of homogenised place is becoming a growing concern across New Zealand’s built environment (Najafi, 2011). In a time where placelessness, sameness and architectural standardization threaten the concept of spatial identity, there is an opportunity to research further into how we can design to maintain cultural and spatial differentiation within New Zealand’s cities.</b></p> <p>Wellington City is New Zealand’s capital, it is an old city with copious layers of topographic and environmental depth. With the harbour water and undulating terrain greatly contributing to the city’s identity, the somewhat disenfranchised population that occupy Wellingtons Streets are lacking this connection to place. This research is looking to defend the notion of a bounded place through reinterpreting our architectural identity. This research searches for continuity in the face of change, where takings from the environment’s past and present will come together to create one unified future identity.</p> <p>This thesis investigates design opportunities within Wellington’s Civic square, design explorations and interventions seek to encourage and foster a rich sense of attachment to place. Architectural qualities are used as tools, with which to think through and create connections around which people actively create identities. The final design outcome aims to facilitate discussion of those qualities of public space that encourage and sustain concern for Wellington’s social identity and its contribution to a sense of place.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel Childs

<p><b>The consequence of homogenised place is becoming a growing concern across New Zealand’s built environment (Najafi, 2011). In a time where placelessness, sameness and architectural standardization threaten the concept of spatial identity, there is an opportunity to research further into how we can design to maintain cultural and spatial differentiation within New Zealand’s cities.</b></p> <p>Wellington City is New Zealand’s capital, it is an old city with copious layers of topographic and environmental depth. With the harbour water and undulating terrain greatly contributing to the city’s identity, the somewhat disenfranchised population that occupy Wellingtons Streets are lacking this connection to place. This research is looking to defend the notion of a bounded place through reinterpreting our architectural identity. This research searches for continuity in the face of change, where takings from the environment’s past and present will come together to create one unified future identity.</p> <p>This thesis investigates design opportunities within Wellington’s Civic square, design explorations and interventions seek to encourage and foster a rich sense of attachment to place. Architectural qualities are used as tools, with which to think through and create connections around which people actively create identities. The final design outcome aims to facilitate discussion of those qualities of public space that encourage and sustain concern for Wellington’s social identity and its contribution to a sense of place.</p>


Author(s):  
С. Л. Подвальный ◽  
О. А. Сотникова ◽  
Я. А. Золотухина

Постановка задачи. В настоящее время формирование современной комфортной городской среды приобретает особое социально-экономическое значение и выдвигается в число приоритетных государственных масштабных программ. В связи с этим необходимо разработать концепцию благоустройства ключевого общественного пространства, а именно: определить основные и сопутствующие функции данной территории, создать эскизное предложение проекта благоустройства с учетом всех необходимых норм и стандартов, внедрить современные технологии. Результаты. Выполнен эскизный дизайн-проект «Аллеи архитекторов» по ул. Орджоникидзе г. Воронеж, включающий в себя основные элементы по зонированию территории, проектированию акцентных объектов и внедрению инновационных технологий «умного города», позволяющих повысить уровень комфорта горожан. Выводы. Благоустройство населенных мест приобретает особое значение в условиях дискомфорта среды. С выполнением комплекса мероприятий, направленных на благоустройство, и с внедрением современных технологий значительно улучшается экологическое состояние, внешний облик города. Оздоровление и модернизация среды, которая окружает человека в городе, благотворно влияет на психофизическое состояние, что особенно важно в период интенсивного роста городов. Statement of the problem. Currently the formation of the modern comfortable urban environment is gaining a special social and economic value and moving forward in the priorities of state large-scale programs. The purpose of development of the concept of improvement of public space is definition of the main and accompanying functions of this territory, design of the outline offer of the project of improvement considering all necessary norms and standards and implementation of modern technologies. Results. The conceptual project of “Alley of Architects” includes the basic elements of territory zoning, design of accent objects and implementation of technologies of a “smart-city”. These elements allow one to increase the level of comfort of inhabitants. Conclusions. Improvement of the inhabited places is of particular importance in the conditions of discomfort of the environment. Carrying out a complex of the actions directed to gardening and improvement, introducing modern technologies, the ecological condition, the physical appearance of the city considerably improves. Improvement and modernization of the environment which surrounds the person in the city influences a psychophysical state well that especially important during intensive growth of the cities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew O'Hagan

<p>The current linear use of plastic products follows a take, make and waste process. Commonly used by large scale industries, including the commercial fishing industry, this process results in approximately 8 million tonnes of plastic entering the ocean every year. While the fishing industry supplies livelihoods, a valuable food source and financial capital to millions of people worldwide, it’s also a significant contributor to the ocean plastics crisis. Without effective recycling schemes, an estimated 640,000 tonnes of plastic fishing gear is abandoned, lost or discarded within the ocean every year. New Zealand is no exception to this problem, as China’s waste import ban, as well as a lack of local recycling infrastructures, has resulted in the country’s commercial fishing gear polluting local coastlines as well as islands in the pacific. With the only other option for the plastic fishing gear being landfill, there is a critical need for circular initiatives that upcycle used plastic fishing gear locally into eco-innovative designs.  This research examines the issue by investigating how used buoys, aquaculture ropes and fishing nets from New Zealand’s fishing company ‘Sanford’ may be upcycled into eco-innovative designs through distributed manufacturing technologies. It introduces the idea of the circular economy, where plastic fishing gear can be reused within a technical cycle and explores how 3D printing could be part of the solution as it provides local initiatives, low material and energy usage and customisation. Overall, the research follows the research through design based on design criteria approach. Where materials, designs and systems are created under the refined research criteria, to ensure the plastic fishing gear samples are upcycled effectively into eco-innovative designs through 3D printing.  The tangible outputs of this research demonstrate how a circular upcycling system that uses distributed manufacturing technologies can create eco-innovative designs and provide a responsible disposal scheme for plastic fishing gear. It provides a new and more sustainable waste management scheme that could be applied to a range of plastic waste streams and diverts materials from entering the environment by continuously reusing them within the economy.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Borris D. Aldonza ◽  
Junghwa Cha ◽  
Insung Yong ◽  
Jayoung Ku ◽  
Dabin Lee ◽  
...  

AbstractCancer secretome is a reservoir for aberrant glycosylation. How therapies alter this post-translational cancer hallmark and the consequences thereof remain elusive. Here we show that an elevated secretome fucosylation is a pan-cancer signature of both response and resistance to multiple targeted therapies. Large-scale pharmacogenomics revealed that fucosylation genes display widespread association with resistance to these therapies. In both cancer cell cultures and patients, targeted kinase inhibitors distinctively induced core fucosylation of secreted proteins less than 60 kDa. Label-free proteomics of N-glycoproteomes revealed that fucosylation of the antioxidant PON1 is a critical component of the therapy-induced secretome. Core fucosylation in the Golgi impacts PON1 stability and folding prior to secretion, promoting a more degradation-resistant PON1. Non-specific and PON1-specific secretome de-N-glycosylation both limited the expansion of resistant clones in a tumor regression model. Our findings demonstrate that core fucosylation is a common modification indirectly induced by targeted therapies that paradoxically promotes resistance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Christiana Panteli ◽  
Eglė Klumbytė ◽  
Rasa Apanavičienė ◽  
Paris A. Fokaides

Financial supporting schemes for the energy upgrading of the building sector in Europe constitute one of the major policies of the European Union (EU). Since the beginning of the 2000s, dozens of funding programs and initiatives have been announced by the European Commission (EC). It is a fact that the majority of these policies have borne fruit, as the metrics on both energy savings in the building sector and the promotion of renewable energy in the built environment have turned the EU into a global pioneer. This paper attempts to give a brief overview of the main policy and financial tools for the energy upgrading of the built environment in Europe. Emphasis is placed on three major mechanisms, which concern different-scale projects: crowdfunding projects, public-private co-financing projects, and large-scale projects funded by financial institutions such as European Investment Bank (EIB). Reference is also made to recently implemented EU funded research programs in this field. This work aspires to constitute a reference study for future research activities in the field of financial supporting schemes for energy upgrading of buildings in Europe.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Conrad Jackson ◽  
Joseph Watts ◽  
Johann-Mattis List ◽  
Ryan Drabble ◽  
Kristen Lindquist

Humans have been using language for thousands of years, but psychologists seldom consider what natural language can tell us about the mind. Here we propose that language offers a unique window into human cognition. After briefly summarizing the legacy of language analyses in psychological science, we show how methodological advances have made these analyses more feasible and insightful than ever before. In particular, we describe how two forms of language analysis—comparative linguistics and natural language processing—are already contributing to how we understand emotion, creativity, and religion, and overcoming methodological obstacles related to statistical power and culturally diverse samples. We summarize resources for learning both of these methods, and highlight the best way to combine language analysis techniques with behavioral paradigms. Applying language analysis to large-scale and cross-cultural datasets promises to provide major breakthroughs in psychological science.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Salvador José Sanchís Gisbert ◽  
Pedro Ponce Gregorio ◽  
Ignacio Peris Blat

Marcel Breuer was in the first year of architectural technicians to graduate from Bauhaus School. The peculiar education he received there allowed him to explore the concept of design in its broadest sense. In his European stage we find, on the most private and small scale, unique solutions for furniture. In his first American stage we see a strong commitment with solutions related to the residential land and, when he earned international recognition, he developed large scale solutions for his public non-residential buildings and urban equipments in locations all over the world. It is strange to see that an architect like him did not have the opportunity to materialize any of his proposals associated with the public space. The 1945 Cambridge Servicemen’s Memorial project, also known as the Memorial War, is the most significant one he developed in his last years in Cambridge. Had it been built, it would have been a valuable example of modernity and contemporary reinterpretation of the monument in the public space.


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