Elegant Building Research Articles

Analysis of Project Delay Using the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) Method in Rising Building Projects

A job on a construction project can affect delays throughout the project. Every construction project has a specific plan and schedule for when to start when to finish, how to schedule, and how to provide resources. There should be no delays in implementation because they will result in increased project costs. However, there was a delay in the performance of the lecture building construction project with the Faculty of Engineering UPN "Veteran" East Java. The methods given in the discussion to determine the factors that influence the occurrence of delays are the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) method and the Obtain Cut Set Method (MOCUS). Work items that experienced delays were structural, architectural, and MEP work. There are three top events known through FTA analysis, namely delays caused by design changes and wrong drawings, which are factors causing delays from service users. The dominant factor causing delays in structural work is the difference in elevation with elegant buildings and a need for more attention to structural safety. This problem occurs in the top event factor of service users. The service users referred to in scientific research are the owners and/or planning consultants. From the results of a quantitative Fault Tree analysis, the reliability value of the structural work is 0.861. In this case, the structural work experienced a delay of >10% with a Reliability value below 90%, so the contract was declared critical.

Food and Shelter for the Itinerant Pilgrims: Maratha Chattrams in Southernmost India

A chattram, also called choultry, primarily refers to a wayside inn or resthouse for travelers, mostly pilgrims. They may halt here for a meal or for a few hours or even for a few days or weeks. Such chattrams were built almost throughout India by many kings and queens, ministers and merchants. Although there are copious references to such chattrams in ancient and medieval literature and inscriptions, actual specimens of such chattrams are limited in number. Many of them appear to have been destroyed during wars or in the course of later developments and constructions. In Tamil Nadu, in southern India, the Tanjavur Maratha dynasty (1676-1855) that ruled this region with Tanjavur as the capital, erected scores of such chattrams. Some of these chattrams have survived to this day. Many of these chattrams are massive and elegant buildings displaying innovative architectural features. Some of them also bear beautiful sculptures and wall paintings akin to those in the medieval temples of the region. Mainly based on archival and field researches, the present paper analyzes the historical, architectural and artistic importance of these chattrams and simultaneously, probes the role of these institutions in the socio-economic life of the Maratha period. The paper concludes with a brief account of the present-day condition of these chattrams and the ways in which they could be put to adaptive reuse according to the exigencies of contemporary times.

중국 변경도시 하얼빈(哈??)의 ‘문화적 정서’에 대한 연구

The northeastern part of China was a region where plains, mountains, and rivers were harmonized together, rich in resources, and equipped with temperatures and conditions necessary for the survival of mankind, which allowed the population to concentrate and create cities. Among them, Harbin, the border city, is located at the northernmost point of the three northeastern provinces, and has close historical and cultural ties with the Korean Peninsula. Although the East Qing Railway was created by Russia’s economic interests, it was once transformed into an international city due to its geopolitical location and is remembered as a space for revolution and independence movements where many conscious elites gather. Therefore, the harsh winter and dry environment created emotions that could romanticize the environment with a space of blooming superiority and a collection of elites, and a global “Ice Festival” could be conceived based on the romantic sentiment. In addition, Russian-style elegant buildings strengthened the romance of cultural sentiment and added to the unique spirit of the northern horse race, represented by the “Northeast Tiger” making it an irreplaceable “Northeast Temperament.”

Arts & Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation. By Anton Howes (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020) 416 pp. $35.00

This enjoyable and interesting book tells the story of the Royal Society of Arts from its founding in 1754 to the present day. In many ways, it is a microcosm of the course of British society for the past 266 years. The crucial question raised by this study is suggested in its subtitle. It is, paradoxically, both accurate and misleading. The activities of the Society certainly had significant effects on what has happened in Britain, but the subtitle also seems to suggest that the Society mapped out a systematic plan for what should happen to the nation. Nothing could be further from what generally happened. Through the many years of its continual existence, the Society took the lead in quite a few instances. Yet in so many of its campaigns, it was not responsible for the initiative. Rather, it subsumed many of the incredibly varied causes that came to its attention.Its shortened name, by which it is generally known, is deceptive, implying that its main concern is the arts. In fact, its full name at its founding (the Royal came later) was The Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, which is a more accurate description of what it does, though in its early years, it was much concerned with the arts, particularly through the activities of William Shipley, its first leader. It is an organization very much in the British tradition, effective in many, but not all, cases in reforming society through committees, lobbying, working with other smaller organizations dedicated to a variety of causes. Its approach was generally empirical and nonideological. If it had any overarching philosophy, it was utilitarianism, which befitted its independence. The Society has a respected status, and membership is easily acquired. It was unusual in admitting women from its inception, although not until recently were women involved in its leadership. Its main activity is to bring an amazingly wide range of schemes forward for the public good.Throughout the years, it has shown a continued interest in design, but its main concern is not so much to emphasize aesthetics as to find ways to improve the quality of the manufacture and sale of products. Working to reduce the British disdain for industry in the twentieth century, it became active in an impressive array of British activities—chimney sweeping, ensuring a supply of timber for ships, preventing the forgery of bank notes, etc. In the nineteenth century, it was deeply involved in education, setting up a system of national examinations. Among the other disparate things in which it has had a guiding hand are patents, copyrights, public toilets, postage, cooking, international travel, limited liability, girls’ schools, and the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square!In the nineteenth century, Henry Cole was instrumental in helping the Society to create the Great Exhibition of 1851, a triumph in the combination of art and commerce. Some of the designs shown were magnificently ugly. Later, the Society supported the Arts & Crafts movement in revolt against Victorian design. The Society was also clever is using royal backing, notably consorts. Prince Albert, president of the Society of eighteen years, was also an activist on behalf of the Great Exhibition. Prince Philip, who became president in 1952, was an equally active president, following the tradition of having the grandest-possible figure in that position, even though the great majority of the Society’s members are from the middle class. Philip involved the Society in matters of the environment, both built and natural.Howe’s book has a wealth of information about the Society’s organizational history, as well as its pursuits. Boasting thousands of members, the Society also functions as something of a club—its elegant building in London housing a Great Room, a restaurant, and a coffee shop. Although its leaders have frequently been successful in enacting their own agendas for the public good, more often than not, the Society has been reactive, taking up causes that have originated elsewhere during the past many years. This may well be a better way to improve the world than grander, more sweeping plans. Howe is to be thanked for a story so very well told.

Understanding Globalized Digital Labor in the Information Age

Abstract The development of globalized digital labor brings to mind a labor process that seems to have changed dramatically from that of the industrial age. The toil of low-wage manual labor inside extensive buildings with smokestacks prevalent in the industrial age seems to have evolved into well-paid, enjoyable, meaningful labor in elegant buildings in tune with spacious vegetation-filled campuses. At the same time, social polarization is increasing with the threat of minimum-wage service labor and labor-replacing robots seeming to be the order of the day. The bottom line that drives this process seems to be the same as always, i.e. what benefits the capitalist owner is what is good for the digital workplace. This article seeks to identify and demystify the fundamental elements of digital labor in the globalized information age.

Secure Automated Valet Parking: A Privacy-Preserving Reservation Scheme for Autonomous Vehicles

It is believed that automated valet parking (AVP) system has great potential to mitigate the parking headache for the future smart city, as it can provide on-demand parking services, bringing immense benefits from energy saving for vehicles to time saving for drivers. For an AVP system, parking reservation is an indispensable part so that vehicles can accomplish automated parking in accordance with the reserved parking information. However, the reservation requests may not only reveal the driver identity, but also disclose his/her sensitive locations, e.g., the most visited places, which are of great concerns to users. To deal with this challenge, the anonymous techniques can be naturally applied during parking reservation, but directly applying the anonymous techniques in AVP will introduce a new security issue, i.e., the anonymous user may maliciously crash the AVP system by repetitively sending the reservation requests, which is called “double-reservation attack.” In this paper, we propose a new privacy-preserving reservation scheme for securing AVP system. Specifically, each anonymous user must have only one valid reservation token at any moment, and the token can only be used for booking one vacant parking space once. The proposed scheme does not only preserve the user's identity privacy and location privacy but also prevents the “double-reservation attack” based on several elegant building blocks, i.e., zero-knowledge proofs of knowledge and proxy resignature. Detailed security analysis confirms the security properties of our proposed scheme. In addition, extensive simulations are conducted to compare our proposed scheme with three previous schemes, and the experiment results demonstrate that our scheme is also much efficient in a WiFi-based testbed.

One pot synthesis of C-dots and study on its interaction with nano ZnO through fluorescence quenching

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are novel fluorescent nanomaterials and elegant building blocks for future nano devices, and have garnered much interest as potential competitors to conventional semiconductor quantum dots. Herein, we report the microwave assisted synthesis of carbon quantum dots of size less than 10nm and the synthesis of Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO) by combustion method. The synthesized ZnO nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope and high resolution transmission electron microscope. Due to hazardous effect of ZnO nanoparticles on human health, its detection is important. The fluorescence quenching method has been employed to study the interaction between CQDs and ZnO nanoparticles involving steady state and time resolved measurements at room temperature. The interaction between CQDs and ZnO nanoparticles were studied, due to excellent overlap between the donors’ (CQD) emission spectrum and the acceptors’ (ZnO nanoparticles) absorption spectrum, Forster's resonance energy transfer theory is applied to measure the distance between the donor and acceptor (r0 = 5.56nm) as well as the critical energy transfer distance (R0 = 55.6Å).

Collecting Shakespeare: the story of Henry and Emily Folger

In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr. While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday, April 23, 1932. The library houses 82 First Folios, 275,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, D.C., for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings. The library provided Grant with unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault. He draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.

A true look at the value of life: Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center

‘‘I would use the famous quote here that Cardinal Cooke favored ‘Life is no less precious when accompanied by sickness’: these are the words Dr. Lechich from the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center chooses to describe the place where he works and the place he loves. He continues ‘‘This was his exhortation to all of us to care for the least of our brethren’’. Dr. Lechich is the Medical Director and Sr. V.P. for Medical Affairs at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Center. But what is the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center? A 729-bed continuing facility with a variety of special care units and two large outpatient clinics. The Center serves many people with developmental disabilities, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses. Just to mention a couple of numbers, in 2010 there were 1,803 admissions and more than 1,400 volunteers engaged residents in various activities. Located in an elegant building on the corner Fifth Avenue and 106th St. facing New York’s City back yard Central Park toward its right side top angle, the center is a sign of beauty not indifferent to its patients, in fact many can daily enjoy the view of the park from one of the several common rooms featuring large windows (Figs. 1, 2, 3). The building itself has been the site of medical practices for many years. Early on, it was called the Flower Free Surgical Hospital which then joined forces with New York Medical College. In 1938, Flower Hospital and New York Medical College merged with Fifth Avenue Hospital at the Center’s present site (Fig. 4). As Doctor Lechich puts it, the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center ‘‘was born on the ashes of the bankrupt Flower Fifth Avenue Hospitals. Archbishop Terence Cardinal Cooke acquired the property and building when the New York Medical College moved to Valhalla in Westchester.’’ The tradition to devotedly serve the community was already there, yet Dr. Lechich explains that it truly was ‘‘Terence Cardinal Cooke who willed the center’’. It is evident that his leadership had a very profound impact on the hospital, its staff and naturally all the patients as well, so much so that in 1984 the facility was renamed in memory of New York’s beloved Archbishop (Fig. 5). As Dr. Lechich exemplified by citing Terence Cardinal Cooke’s famous quote the Archbishop lived by putting his dedication to human lives in front of everything. By saying that ‘‘Life is no less precious when accompanied by sickness’’ he gave, and continues to do so through the center and people like Dr. Lechich, a value that is often lost, forgotten and even denied in today’s society. The value of this health care center is hence exactly in taking care of its patients until their last breath. Its mission is to go beyond, past their physical healing by showing a beautiful and unique attention to their humanity, their souls. This goal, since the very beginning, is a special attention for the disenfranchised, meaning not only the poor and the elderly but also the people affected by chronic illness. Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center is part of the Catholic Health Care System and strongly believes that every life is worthy of high quality medical support and rehabilitative services. The Center is also sponsored by the C. Raimondi Pre-med College, Fordham University, New York, USA

Recent Patents on Expanded Metal

Expanded metal has been widely used around the world. This paper is aimed at presenting latest advances in the use of expanded metal in engineering. Currently, expanded metal is mainly used in the construction industry as furniture, fences or protection purposes. Hundreds of patents can be found in the literature regarding possible applications for expanded metal. These applications fall into four main areas: furniture, construction, biomechanics, and energy absorption systems. When expanding the metal, the material undergoes slits and stretching modifying the mechanical properties of the base metal, hence enhancing the material strength. Additionally, there is a reduction of the weight per unit of area, which is an asset when designing lightweight structures. Waste material from the manufacturing process is almost none, since the base metal is cut and stretched to the final form. Recently, expanded metal sheets are used in architecture to create modern, efficient and elegant buildings that are also energy-efficient, open and transparent. The relevant patents on expanded metals are discussed.

THE MEDINA, THE HAMM.M AND THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY

The Islamic Mediterranean city faces increasing pressures from without and within. It is faced with the question of how to support the valued institutions and traditions of the past, while confronting the influences and pressures of the present and the opportunities of the future. The hamm.m has been centered on a venerable tradition from the past that is both a building as well as a cultural tradition and that is trying to survive in a modern world. Hence, each of these historic building should be seen as cultural heritage sites. One of the given aspects of this study has been the question of conservation and preservation of these once elegant buildings, the hammams. Strategies for the restoration of these buildings thus become the precondition for many of our other considerations. At the opposite extreme of building restoration considerations is the question of sustainability. Therefore the other major issue looked at in this study is: how can we develop scenarios that propose a sustainable future for these hammams. Scenarios that are both respectful and supportive of the historic local culture yet also create a viable strategy for developing a sustainable mode of contemporary life. It was the ambitious charge of our research to explore the territory between these two questions.

Performing Elegance

AbstractAt the level of global culture, the impact of elegant buildings is magnified where there is a seamless integration of complex parts and fabrication expressed through a mastery of techniques and transformative set of features. Hani Rashid of Asymptote explains how, in working at an international scale, the practice is now seeking to propagate innovative design through a ‘developed understanding of the multiple levels of local responses that affect both local and global conditions’. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Procter & gamble, Edificio Administrativo - Schwalbach. Alemania Federal

This elegant building was constructed on a large lot with a beautiful panoramic view near the city of Frankfurt. In consists of a basement, a large ground floor with reception and social facilities such as lounges, lobbies, coffee shops, etc.; seven-story star-block with vertical circulations and the laboratories are in the center. The building is basically used for offices. In a separate rectangular body, the service and boiler facilities are located. A spacious garden and parking area fill out the rest of the grounds. The possibility of quadrupling the current built volume is anticipated. The stories have been distributed with a basic 1.50 x 1.50 m module. Construction based on: metallic structure, concrete casting on metallic frames, red granite-covered concrete enclosures, double glazed glass, indoor vertical sunshades, carpeted floors and air conditioning.