Batna City from Organized Planning to Distortion (Case Study Biskra Road Axis - Algeria)

The ecological processes known to the various manifestations of visual pollution, which is defined as: every element of the physical environment is affected by changes or interventions made by man to the natural and constructed environment, which leads to its distortion and harms the public health of citizens. In order to understand its reasons for reaching a balanced urban scene and thus affecting human health. Where its features appear in various visual and visual aspects of public space, especially roads, due to the misuse of this space, which stems from wrong behaviors in addition to the lack of the planning system,which leads to emptying the architectural image of the city of its content. Received: 11 October 2021 / Accepted: 20 November 2021 / Published: 5 January 2022

Fantastic Fauna in a Global Perspective: understanding composites in early Eurasian Antiquity

Ancient tombs and hoards across the Eurasian steppe call for a thorough revision of art-historical categories associated with pastoral societies from Mongolia to Crimea. This study focuses on one such category. “Animal style” is an umbrella term traditionally used to categorise portable precious metalwork ornamented with dynamic scenes of vigorous animal fights and entwined zoomorphic designs. With its emphasis on irregular animal anatomies and deeply rooted in a “pars-pro-toto” mode of expression, steppe imagery of fantastic fauna presents a useful case study in broader investigations of composites in the ancient world and their diffusion across cultural spheres. This study views beasts through a binary lens, the structured monsters of Greco-Roman thinkers and the organic composites of nomadic steppe artisans. In the Western canon, “composites” existed within a politically-manufactured framework of governable “otherness”, in which fantastic fauna conveys a certain tension with the exotic, unknown and uncontrollable East. Meanwhile, in the visual rhetoric of steppe artisans, monsters represented a tension with the (cyclical) shifts occurring in one's biota rather than the tumultuous events in one's constructed environment. This paper explores how the contrasting steppe pastoralist and sedentary imperial world-views came to define the various functions and meanings of “composites” in Eurasian Antiquity.

A Comparative Study on Conventional Clay Bricks and Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Blocks

In India, traditional clay brick is the most common filler material used in building. The materials used in construction have a significant influence on both the constructed environment and the project’s ultimate cost. Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) has recently emerged as a viable alternative to clay and fly ash bricks. In this work, a comparison of clay bricks and AAC blocks is explored. Although AAC blocks have been utilised in building since 1924, they now account for just 16-18% of all construction in India. AAC blocks have desirable mechanical qualities in proportion to their low bulk density, improved thermal and acoustic properties, light weight, and ease of installation, making them an obvious alternative to replace traditional clay bricks. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the potential of AAC blocks as an infill material to replace clay bricks and to encourage its usage in construction to create more energy efficient and sustainable structures. AAC blocks’ potential as an infill material in hilly areas is discussed.

Influencing sustainable travel using Instagram

Sustainable tourism is defined as a development of tourism that does not exploit natural and constructed environment and instead preserves the culture, inheritance, and artistic values of the local community (Dávid, 2011). Global mass tourism, a form of tourism that involves tens of thousands of travellers going to the same destination during the same time of year, has contributed to an increase in waste, carbon, water scarcity, cost of living, overcrowding, and misconstrued cultural identities (Juvan, Ring, Leisch, & Dolnicar, 2016; Eraqi, 2014; Smith, 2018). The use of social media has changed the way people discover, research, discuss, and book travel destinations. As a tool that hosts travel discussions and affords travel experiences to be documented, viewed, and narrated, the content posted to Instagram plays an instrumental role in shaping pre-travel narrative. Using studies on sustainable tourism, social media, and persuasive design, this Major Research Project analyzes how Instagram can promote sustainable tourism by integrating new features to its platform.

Influencing sustainable travel using Instagram

Sustainable tourism is defined as a development of tourism that does not exploit natural and constructed environment and instead preserves the culture, inheritance, and artistic values of the local community (Dávid, 2011). Global mass tourism, a form of tourism that involves tens of thousands of travellers going to the same destination during the same time of year, has contributed to an increase in waste, carbon, water scarcity, cost of living, overcrowding, and misconstrued cultural identities (Juvan, Ring, Leisch, & Dolnicar, 2016; Eraqi, 2014; Smith, 2018). The use of social media has changed the way people discover, research, discuss, and book travel destinations. As a tool that hosts travel discussions and affords travel experiences to be documented, viewed, and narrated, the content posted to Instagram plays an instrumental role in shaping pre-travel narrative. Using studies on sustainable tourism, social media, and persuasive design, this Major Research Project analyzes how Instagram can promote sustainable tourism by integrating new features to its platform.

Acquiring Interactional Competence in A Socially Constructed Environment Through the Use Of “Roll N’ Play”: An Interactional Board Game

This paper highlights the benefits of game-based learning for adults in acquiring interactional competence in English. Roll N’ Play is an interactional board game that is deemed to be an appropriate learning tool for acquiring interactional competence in English for adults because in acquiring a language, it has to be of use in any adult’s professional and personal lives. Roll N’ Play enables players to use English, the target language, in a socially constructed environment while having fun in a competitive environment and at the same time applying peer-learning strategies. Roll N’ Play allows a hands-on experience in language use and it also fosters creativity and problem-solving skills as players compete to reach the highest score in order to win the game. This board game has four bonus squares, eight challenge squares, two penalty squares and one first date square. The educational benefit of this innovation is that it will inevitably improve players’ interactional competence because players are required to interact with other players to complete situational-based tasks in a timely manner. Although there are many online language games and applications, those who are not Internet- savvy will not be able to enjoy such games applications and some users may even find them unappealing. This paper concludes that purposeful language use can be promoted through an engaging and enjoyable social activity such as a board game.

The American spaceport and the power of cultural imaginaries

Cape Canaveral, the site of the American space programme launch complex located on the coast of Central Florida, has both a deep history in technological innovation and has been the place for architecturally imagining the new frontier of civilization. The range and trajectory of this new extraterrestrial frontier today resides within this once remote wilderness at the ends of architecture – both at the ends of a disciplinary formation and the physical site that enables the departure from Earth. Cultural imaginaries, collective forms created by culture, such as images relating to the assumed efficiencies of space exploration, construct a political desire for departing the Earth, yet rely heavily on architectural and infrastructural devices that are soon left abandoned on our terrestrial surface. This article moves from the geographic space of the late nineteenth century to the celebrated technological objects of NASA’s Apollo 11 programme for reaching the moon. By tracking the range, escape and return of the Apollo programmes’ constructed environment, the American spaceport reveals an invisible wilderness as an architectural aesthetic formed out of the cultural imagination in the early twenty-first century.