Architectural Scheme Research Articles

Crevasse splay processes and deposits in an ancient distributive fluvial system: The lower Beaufort Group, South Africa

Up to 12% of the mud-prone, ephemeral distributive fluvial system stratigraphy in the Permo-Triassic lower Beaufort Group, South Africa, comprises tabular fine-grained sandstone to coarse-grained siltstone bodies, which are interpreted as proximal to distal crevasse splay deposits. Crevasse splay sandstones predominantly exhibit ripple to climbing ripple cross-lamination, with some structureless and planar laminated beds. A hierarchical architectural scheme is adopted, in which ~1m thick crevasse splay elements extend for tens to several hundreds of meters laterally, and stack with other splay elements to form crevasse splay sets up to 4m thick and several kilometers in width and length. Paleosols and nodular horizons developed during periods, or in areas, of reduced overbank flooding are used to subdivide the stratigraphy, separating crevasse splay sets. Deposits from crevasse splays differ from frontal splays as their proximal deposits are much thinner and narrower, with paleocurrents oblique to the main paleochannel. In order for crevasse splay sets to develop, the parent channel belt and the location where crevasse splays form must stay relatively fixed during a period of multiple flood events. Beaufort Group splays have similar geometries to those of contemporary perennial rivers but exhibit more lateral variability in facies, which is interpreted to be the result of more extreme fluctuations in discharge regime. Sharp-based crevasse splay packages are associated with channel avulsion, but most are characterized by a gradual coarsening upward, interpreted to represent progradation. The dominance of progradational splays beneath channel belt deposits may be more characteristic of progradational stratigraphy in a distributive fluvial system rather than dominated by avulsion processes in a trunk river system. This stratigraphic motif may therefore be an additional criterion for recognition of distributive fluvial systems in the ancient record.

A Settlers’ Guide: Designing for Resilience in the Hinterlands

There has often been a mutually beneficial relationship between cities and their rural hinterlands. The Kapiti region outside the city of Wellington in New Zealand is a prime example: it once provided Wellington’s food, water and cultural diversity for both Māori and European settlers. However, productivity-driven agriculture and extensive dormitory-suburbanization have affected significant parts of this once-abundant hinterland. Food production is becoming more mono-cultural, water quality is degrading, ecosystems’ biodiversity is disappearing, provincial town centres are shrinking, emigrating youth are leaving unbalanced demographics, Māori are increasingly disassociating their culture from their traditional lands and natural disasters are causing more impact—all of which is making Kapiti less resilient, and severing the once-healthy city-hinterland relationship. Our work on future settlement opportunities in Kapiti proposes alternatives, using experimental design-led research methods to develop speculative architectural and landscape architectural schemes. The schemes are framed by some of the spatial attributes of resilience: diversity, complexity, redundancy, interconnectivity and adaptability. Collectively, the work reveals design strategies that have a potential to rebuild hinterlands’ culture, town centres, housing, agriculture, community and ecosystems and to recalibrate the broader relationship between hinterlands and metropolitan systems.

The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages by Hendrik W. Dey

Reviewed by: The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages by Hendrik W. Dey David K. Pettegrew Hendrik W. Dey The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 Pp. 296. $99.00. This is a bold, ambitious, and innovative work. In just 250 pages of text, Dey offers a wide-ranging survey of the transformation of the ancient city and the persistence of late antique urban forms from the third to ninth centuries. He does so by presenting a vast array of evidence from regions as distant as Arabia and Germany that shows the centrality of colonnaded avenues and processional ceremonies in post-antique urban centers. Porticated streets, Dey argues, were the common stages for expressions of civic authority in late antiquity, and their development, elaboration, and maintenance well into the early middle ages point to the continuity of the urban habit and civilization itself. Dey’s argument is built on the recognition of three predominant patterns of ancient cities: patronage, processional ceremonies, and linear architectural schemes—which together came to form an essential expression of urban topography in late antiquity. As emperors multiplied after the establishment of the Tetrarchy and created new capitals, they increasingly sponsored the construction of colonnaded avenues for staging ceremonies such as the adventus. Ceremonial processions from city gate to palace along crowd-lined avenues functioned to create distance, awe, and authority between the potentates and their acclaiming publics (Chapter Two). Other agents of power adopted this pattern in the fourth to sixth centuries by constructing and embellishing porticated streets and the symbolic monuments between or along them, such as city gates, commemorative arches, palaces, baths, circuses, and theaters. Ecclesiastical authorities especially partnered with secular powers to commission episcopal residences, cathedrals, and significant extramural churches, and to stage liturgical processions and the translation of relics along porticated avenues (Chapter Three). This new architecture of power persisted in most regions of the former Roman Empire, including the western Germanic kingdoms, even into the murky seventh and eighth centuries, when cities were materially poorer, smaller, and less connected, and when power concentrated among an even smaller class of ecclesiastical and political elite. Despite the sharp decline in new urban investments, porticated colonnades continued to be maintained for public procession; Dey presents evidence that encroachment and demonumentalization date to the ninth century or later (Chapter Four). Indeed, Dey makes the case that monastic centers and palace-centers of Carolingian Francia (e.g., Centula and Aachen) dating to the late eighth and early ninth centuries were modeled on the colonnaded topography still prominent in Christian capitals such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople (Chapter Five). Porticated avenues remained important as far as (and as long as) emperors, kings, bishops, patrarichs, and state officials needed to express their authority through ceremonial processions. The Afterlife of the Roman City is compelling because its integration of multiple and diverse sources (textual, material, and iconographic) creates a broad [End Page 162] and consistent picture of a persisting urban topography, ceremony, and authority, despite the very real gaps in evidence. The author’s extensive coverage gives him liberty to pivot from detailed, technical descriptions of urban topography to colorful stories about specific ceremonial processions to discussions of the image or idea of cities. Swept along by the lucid presentation of the material, the reader can easily forget that, apart from a few cases like the fascinating inscribed acclamations from late antique Ephesus, the evidence of architecture (a colonnaded avenue) and ceremony (e.g., adventus) rarely aligns for the same contemporary urban context. Dey’s general and broad picture of persistence, moreover, raises a number of questions about real differences in contexts across space and time. For example, how did the subtle differences in late antique urban topography speak to distinct evolutions of ceremony between regions and cities over six centuries? What did the absence of porticated avenues in cities indicate about authority and its expression in those urban centers? And how did the development of porticated streets and ecclesiastical ceremonies in cities relate to the development of the (distinctly linear) early Christian...

Propulsion architectures using mechanical energy storage

Alternative propulsion architecture systems are described and evaluated from the standpoint of efficiency and potential for use as mechanical energy storage systems in automobiles. Air hybrids are studied and modeling/simulation results are presented along with experimental data from a test bed to assess round-trip efficiencies of such storage systems. A possible architectural scheme is proposed for the use of compressed air for rapid energy recharge. This is followed by an assessment of hydraulic hybrids and flywheel hybrids. These systems are sized for comparable applications. Simulations are then used to objectively compare losses in these systems and to estimate operating round-trip efficiencies in energy storage applications.

Vertical noir

Unerringly, across its whole history, urban science fiction has offered up imagined cities that operate about remarkably similar and highly verticalised visions. These are heavily dominated by politics of class, resistance and revolution that are starkly organized around vertically stratified and vertically exaggerated urban spaces. From the early and definitive efforts of H.G. Wells and Fritz Lang, through J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel High Rise, to many cyberpunk classics, this essay – the latest in a series in City on the vertical dimensions of cities – reflects on how vertical imaginaries in urban science fiction intersect with the politics and contestations of the fast-verticalising cities around the world. The essay has four parts. It begins by disentangling in detail the ways in which the sci-fi visions of Wells, Lang, Ballard and various cyberpunk authors were centrally constituted through vertical structures, landscapes, metaphors and allegories. The essay's second part then teases out the complex linkages between verticalised sci-fi imaginaries and material cityscapes that are actually constructed, lived and experienced. Stressing the impossibility of some clean and binary opposition between ‘factual’ and ‘fictional’ cities, the essay explores how verticalised projects, material cities, sci-fi texts, imaginary futures, architectural schemes and urban theories mingle and resonate together in complex, unpredictable and important ways which do much to shape contemporary urban landscapes. The third section of the essay explores such connections through the cases of retro-futuristic urban megaprojects in the Gulf and forests of towers recently constructed in Shanghai's Pudong district. The essay's final discussion draws on these cases to explore the possibilities that sci-fi imaginaries offer for contesting the rapid verticalisation of cities around the world.

The effect of number and position of braced frames on column behavior of the dual steel structural system (MRF and EBF) (With a view on amplified seismic load)

In seismic design of structures, determination of number and position of braced frames, considering the architectural scheme of projects, is usually confronted by obstacles. Due to this fact, in some cases, selecting the best location and number of braced bays has led to mistakes in determination of their adjacent members (columns) design loads. One of the seismic design requirements of lateral resisting system is to control the columns adjacent to braced bays for load combinations of amplified seismic load, which is a function of over-strength factor of the structure. This research aims to present and introduce the best structural model of number and position of braced frames in a structural system, such as steel moment resisting frame and eccentric braces dual system; because in 3rd revision of Iranian 2800 standard of seismic provision, there are statements and criteria provided only for capacity of moment frame, not for braces. Though the amplified seismic load function is controlled in models which columns are connected to braces in 2 directions, and seismic loads are applied in those 2 directions, number of damage hinges (Exceeding CP) is significantly increased in comparison to the models with straggly braces. As the increase in axial force of these columns leads to decrease in their moment capacity (despite controlling the amplified seismic load provision), columns in dual systems that resist flexure, would be damaged and exceed the collapse threshold much sooner than other columns. This important fact is not presented in Iranian or even American codes and provisions.

A Novel FPGA Architecture Based on Ultrafine Grain Reconfigurable Logic Cells

In this paper, we investigate the opportunity brought by controllable-polarity transistors to design efficient reconfigurable circuits. Controllable-polarity transistors are devices whose polarity can be electrostatically programmed to be either n- or p-type. Such devices are used to build ultrafine grain computation cells. These cells are arranged into regular matrices, called MClusters , with a fixed and incomplete interconnection pattern, employed to minimize the reconfigurable interconnection overhead. We subsequently use them into field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). To assess this architectural scheme in an efficient and objective manner, we present a complete benchmarking tool flow and focus on the packing algorithm developed to handle the architecture. We finally perform the evaluation with widely used benchmark circuits. Leveraging the ultrafine grain cells compactness from a system-level perspective, we show that FPGAs exploiting MClusters demonstrate average savings of 43% and 23% in area and delay, respectively, as compared with the CMOS lookup table FPGA counterpart at 22-nm technological node.

Constraints on Animal (and Plant) Form in Nature and Art

The forms of all extant animals and plants agree with a small number of main architectural schemes emerged through the history of life, which function as largely invariant patterns of body syntax. To a considerable extent, these ‘rules of forms’ are obeyed by the products of imagination developed in myth and represented in art, such as chimeras, centaurs, mermaids, angels and dragons. The main exception to this rule is the frequent occurrence of additional sets of paired appendages, such as two wings added onto a human figure or a four-legged beast. However, Turpin’s Urpflanze is totally at variance with respect to the body syntax of existing plants. Generalized familiarity with animals’ body syntax provides a scope for perceptual manipulations experienced by humans but also by other animals.

Structural appraisal of climate-induced effects on E. Torroja’s unreinforced brickwork shell structure of the IETcc winter garden

In this paper, the design and causes of deterioration of the Winter Garden located in the Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Sciences (IETcc) in Madrid, as well as the structural rehabilitation works carried out are discussed. The structural and architectural scheme was devised by E. Torroja and is examined using numerical analysis under dead load. This allows the failure pattern of the arches and shells to be assessed, as a consequence of water ingress through the cracks formed and settlement, as also the effectiveness of the repair techniques applied in 2009.

History of Mosque Architecture in Lahore

The mosque has served as one of the most important institutions of the Muslim world at all times. This paper outlines the religious function of a mosque and explains the architectural scheme to fulfill the required function. Numerous historical mosques have been built by the Muslims in different parts of the world. These are famous on account of their attractive architecture, attention to detail and wider horizontal as well as vertical arrangements. The city of Lahore possesses a heritage of different civilizations, which include Pathan, Mughal, Sikh and British. A number of historic mosques built from the Pathan to the British period were surveyed to analyze early mosque architecture. The study of the prominent congregational mosques, before the establishment of Pakistan and the post-independence mosques shows influence from the Prophet’s (SAW) Mosque in Madina-al-Munawara. An analysis concludes that historical mosques were magnificent and a great source of inspiration for the post-independence mosque architecture. Thus, there is a need to conserve them with all their original architectural and decorative features for future generations.

Neurocomputational approaches to modelling multisensory integration in the brain: A review

The Brain’s ability to integrate information from different modalities (multisensory integration) is fundamental for accurate sensory experience and efficient interaction with the environment: it enhances detection of external stimuli, disambiguates conflict situations, speeds up responsiveness, facilitates processes of memory retrieval and object recognition. Multisensory integration operates at several brain levels: in subcortical structures (especially the Superior Colliculus), in higher-level associative cortices (e.g., posterior parietal regions), and even in early cortical areas (such as primary cortices) traditionally considered to be purely unisensory. Because of complex non-linear mechanisms of brain integrative phenomena, a key tool for their understanding is represented by neurocomputational models. This review examines different modelling principles and architectures, distinguishing the models on the basis of their aims: (i) Bayesian models based on probabilities and realizing optimal estimator of external cues; (ii) biologically inspired models of multisensory integration in the Superior Colliculus and in the Cortex, both at level of single neuron and network of neurons, with emphasis on physiological mechanisms and architectural schemes; among the latter, some models exhibit synaptic plasticity and reproduce development of integrative capabilities via Hebbian-learning rules or self-organizing maps; (iii) models of semantic memory that implement object meaning as a fusion between sensory–motor features (embodied cognition). This overview paves the way to future challenges, such as reconciling neurophysiological and Bayesian models into a unifying theory, and stimulates upcoming research in both theoretical and applicative domains.

A New Architectural Scheme for Power Lighting Control Systems

A new control scheme for power lighting systems is studied in this paper. It consists of a few subsystems including a lighting plant, a set of fluorescent lamps with dimmable ballasts, a multifunction Ethernet data acquisition board, a local area network, and a PC-based remote controller. Following Strecj's identification technique, the power lighting plant is modeled in the analog domain as a time-delay dynamic process. Then, the corresponding discrete model is developed using the modified z-transform, whereas the discrete dynamic model of the remote controller is built according to Tustin's transform method. In addition, the virtual version of the PC- based remote controller is implemented using Labview professional Edition. Furthermore, the results obtained when simulating and testing a prototyping lighting control system are presented and analyzed. These results show the good dynamic and static performance as well as the great robustness of the proposed remote control scheme for power lighting systems, via a standard local area network .

An ultra-low power resilient multi-core architecture with static and dynamic tolerance to ambient temperature-induced variability

Near-threshold operation is today a key research area in Ultra-Low Power (ULP) computing, as it promises a major boost in energy efficiency compared to super-threshold computing and it mitigates thermal bottlenecks. Unfortunately near-threshold operation is plagued by greatly increased sensitivity to threshold voltage variations, such as those caused by ambient temperature fluctuation. In this paper we focus on a tightly-coupled ULP processor cluster architecture where a low latency, high-bandwidth processor-to-L1-memory interconnection network plays a key role. We propose an architectural scheme to tolerate ambient temperature-induced variations capable of statically (off-line) and dynamically (on-line) adapting the processor-to-L1-memory latency without compromising execution correctness. We extensively tested our solution in different scenarios and we evaluated the different design trade-offs, showing the cost, performance and reliability gain compared to state-of-the-art static solutions. The dynamic solution, thanks to its lightweight runtime overhead, outperforms the static solution and is able to reach a performance gain up to 25% in a typical use case scenario with a very low (<4%) area overhead.

The Architecture of Metabolism. Inventing a Culture of Resilience

The Metabolist movement, with its radical and visionary urban and architectural schemes, drew the attention of an international architecture community to Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. Seen from a contemporary perspective, the movement’s foremost concern was cultural resilience as a notion of national identity. Metabolism responded to the human and environmental catastrophe that followed the atomic bombing of Japan and vulnerability to natural disasters such as earthquakes, with architecture envisioning the complete transformation of Japan as a system of political, social, and physical structures into resilient spatial and organizational patterns adaptable to change. Projecting a utopia of resilience, Metabolism employed biological metaphors and recalled technoscientific images which, together with the vernacular, evoked the notion of a genetic architecture able to be recreated again and again. A specific concern was to mediate between an urbanism of large, technical and institutional infrastructures and the freedom of the individual. My aim is to critically examine the notion of sustainable architecture by rereading Metabolist theories and products, such as terms, models, projects, and buildings. For a better understanding of the present discourse, this text searches for a possible history of sustainable architecture, a subject mostly presented ahistorically.

Design, development and assessment of control schemes for IDMS in a standardized RTCP-based solution

Currently, several media sharing applications that allow social interactions between distributed users are gaining momentum. In these networked scenarios, synchronized playout between the involved participants must be provided to enable truly interactive and coherent shared media experiences. This research topic is known as Inter-Destination Media Synchronization (IDMS). This paper presents the design and development of an advanced IDMS solution, which is based on extending the capabilities of RTP/RTCP standard protocols. Particularly, novel RTCP extensions, in combination with several control algorithms and adjustment techniques, have been specified to enable an adaptive, highly accurate and standard compliant IDMS solution. Moreover, as different control or architectural schemes for IDMS exist, and each one is best suited for specific use cases, the IDMS solution has been extended to be able to adopt each one of them. Simulation results prove the satisfactory responsiveness of our IDMS solution in a small scale scenario, as well as its consistent behavior, when using each one of the deployed architectural schemes.

Technical Analysis of Optimal Design for Building Structure Considering Cost Constraint of Project

Cost of building structure takes a large proportion of total construction investment. Investors also come to realize that different structural designs affect project cost, which means the higher demand for structural design institutes, because it requires structural designers to work out safe, suitable, perdurable and economic structural design by either meeting current design codes, or considering structure cost constraints and architectural design scheme. One way of controlling the structural engineering cost is to optimize the structural design. This article analyzes the factors which affect the structural costs and optimal design methods, and it discusses the relationship of structural material quantity and structural safety. This article aims to provide reference and guidance for structural designer’s optimization.

A new mechanism for chenier development and a facies model of the Saltés Island chenier plain (SW Spain)

The scientific literature describes two types of cheniers. These two types differ in the origin of the coarse sediments that constitute the ridge and the relative significance of the transversal and longitudinal wave transport. In both cases storm waves are described as the main factor responsible of the origin and development, and both final facies are characterized by ridges of coarse sediments above the finer sediments of a tidal flat.The Odiel–Tinto estuary is one of the most significant estuarine systems of the mesotidal Huelva Coast, on the northwestern portion of the Gulf of Cadiz, and Saltés Island is a part of the closure history of the estuarine system. Previous works on Saltés Island described the surficial disposition of sandy landforms as a classic ridge chain or a barrier-island succession; nevertheless an architectural scheme based on a vibracore study shows a disposition that accord to the typical chenier plain facies model. This disagreement was the basis for a controversy about the origin of the ridges. In this study historical nautical charts and aerial photographs document the evolution of the last of these cheniers during the past 200years. In contrast to the accepted models of chenier evolution, the cheniers of Saltés Island migrated on the tidal flat but did not evolve only during storms, indeed their development occurred mainly during high spring tides. The data presented in this paper are used as the basis for a new conceptual model of chenier generation and evolution. The model consists of a migration of sand bars in a similar way to the classic beach ridges, with the difference that in our case, the bars migrate over a tidal flat. From a local point of view this paper removes the controversy about the origin of the island's geomorphology, but from a global point of view this mechanism can explain certain chenier plains in estuarine mouths located in other coasts of the world.

Art of Light and Shadow Reflected in Architecture

Architecture is a kind of art and the substance of architecture lies in space. Based on the change of light and shadow the plane and elevation scheme of the school history Museum was designed in detail. When the space of building is no longer drawn conclusion with the traditional entity enclosing, light gives architectural space new vitality, and creates a variety of architectural space artistic conception. The different architectural mood which is brought about by the change of light and shadow is analyzed and compared. The result shows the art of light and shadow should be embodied constantly during the design. These can provide valuable references for initial architectural scheme design.

A hierarchical approach to architectural classification in marginal-marine systems: Bridging the gap between sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy

A new hierarchical architectural classification for clastic marginal-marine depositional systems is presented and illustrated with examples. In ancient rocks, the architectural scheme effectively integrates the scales of sedimentology (core, outcrop) and sequence stratigraphy (wireline-log correlation, reflection seismic). The classification also applies to modern sediments, which allows for direct comparison of architectural units between modern and ancient settings. In marginal-marine systems, the parasequence typically defines reservoir flow units. This classification addresses subparasequence scales of stratigraphy that commonly control fluid flow in these reservoirs. The scheme consists of seven types of architectural units that are placed on five architectural hierarchy levels: hierarchy level I: element (E) and element set (ES); hierarchy level II: element complex (EC) and element complex set (ECS); hierarchy level III: element complex assemblage (ECA); hierarchy level IV: element complex assemblage set (ECAS); and hierarchy level V: transgressive-regressive sequence (T-R sequence). Architectural units in levels I to III are further classified relative to dominant depositional processes (wave, tide, and fluvial) acting at the time of deposition. All architectural units are three-dimensional and can also be expressed in terms of plan-view and cross-sectional geometries. Architectural units can be linked using tree data structures by a set of familial relationships (parent-child, siblings, and cousins), which provides a novel mechanism for managing uncertainty in marginal-marine systems. Using a hierarchical scheme permits classification of different data types at the most appropriate architectural scale. The use of the classification is illustrated in ancient settings by an outcrop and subsurface example from the Campanian Bearpaw–Horseshoe Canyon Formations transition, Alberta, Canada, and in modern settings, by the Mitchell River Delta, northern Australia. The case studies illustrate how the new classification can be used across both modern and ancient systems, in complicated, mixed-process depositional environments.

FPGA-based fast computation of gray-level morphological granulometries

Morphological granulometries constitute one of the most useful and versatile image analysis techniques applied to a wide range of tasks, from size distribution of objects, to feature extraction and to texture characterization in industrial and research applications where high-performance instrumentation and online signal processing are required. Since granulometries are based on sequences of openings with structuring elements (SEs) of increasing size, they are computational demanding on non-specialized hardware. In this paper, a pipelined hardware architecture for fast computation of gray-level morphological granulometries is presented, centered around two systolic-like processing arrays able to process with flat SEs of different shapes and sizes. To validate the proposed scheme, the architecture was modeled, simulated and implemented into a field programmable gate array. Implementation results show that the architecture is able to compute particle size distribution on 512 × 512 sized images with flat non-rectangular SEs of up to 51 × 51, in around 60 ms at a clock frequency of 260 MHz. It is shown that a speed up over two orders of magnitude is obtained compared to a naive software implementation. The architecture performance compares favorably to similar hardware architectural schemes and to optimized high-performance graphical processing units-based implementations.