Summer House Research Articles

Optimization of geometry of horizontal roof overhangs during a summer season

This paper presents the simultaneous optimization of the depths of the horizontal roof overhangs for the design of a residential summer house for house operation during summer season in Belgrade, Serbia. The overhangs facing south, east, and west are made by using reinforced concrete. The two objective functions are used such as (1) minimizing the sum of the primary operative energy consumption during the overhang life cycle and the embodied energy in the roof overhangs and (2) maximizing the ratio of the annual primary operating energy saving and the annualized embodied energy of the applied roof overhangs. For the optimization, the Hooke-Jeeves method is used, and the EnergyPlus software is used to simulate energy behavior of the house. The research showed that two different optimizations gave different results. However, if the house is not used during the same time for which the overhangs are optimized, there is a slight increase in primary energy consumption, although the operative energy consumption may be lower.

H.C. Andersen Was (NOT) Here

‘Our office is on Rolighedsvej,’ I said, during a casual conversation with a colleague after a seminar. ‘Rolighedsvej?’ she replied, ‘H. C. Andersen died in Villa Rolighed’. I shivered. What a strange coincidence. The building next door to my office is called Villa Rolighed, an elegant eighteenth-century villa in what was once rural Frederiksberg and which is now part of the campus of the University of Copenhagen. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘I thought he spent his last years in Nyhavn?’ I knew this, because, at the time, I was living in one of the buildings in Nyhavn, a well-known seventeenth century canal in the city centre, where H. C. Andersen was known to have resided. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but he died in Villa Rolighed!’ What a surprise. A double nearness. I rushed home and looked it up. Yes, indeed, as is well known, H. C. Andersen lived at many addresses in Copenhagen in general and in Nyhavn in particular. The high volume of tourists gathering on the pavement outside several houses in Nyhavn every day, seeking a somewhat uncanny sense of closeness to the famous writer, is a constant reminder of this fact. Yet while Andersen spent his last years overlooking the canal in Nyhavn, where he was given two rooms by his benefactors the Melchior family who owned the first floor of number 18, he also partly lived in their summer villa, Villa Rolighed. This is where the Melchior family brought the famous writer on 12 June 1875 to nurse him during the illness from which he died on 4 August 1875. Yet, their summer house was Villa Rolighed on Østerbro, not the Villa Rolighed on Frederiksberg I can see if I lean out my office window. The double movement of nearness thus became a double movement of alienation, once again distancing H. C. Andersen’s mysterious ghostly presence from that momentary feeling of proximity in spatial terms, despite the undoubted temporal distance of the long dead writer to my everyday life.

Seasonal settlement and the interpretation of upland archaeology in the Galtee Mountains, Ireland

This paper discusses the complexity of archaeological evidence associated with seasonal upland settlement in Ireland, a subject which has only recently started to come to light. As a result of the lack of attention, many uncertainties remain in the interpretation of upland sites compared to lowland archaeology. The paper uses a case-study of the Galtee Mountains in the south of Ireland, where it focuses on the material culture of transhumance in the post-medieval period. It explores two important aspects of this: first, the activities of transhumant herders in the wider landscape as revealed by the various material remains they have left behind; and second, the identification of chronological depth in these landscapes, as revealed by the morphology of summer (booley) houses and the context in which they are found.

Upės kaip modernizacijos proceso dalis tarpukario Kaune

Recreation , leisure and entertainment have become important elements of the European urban culture long time ago. Places where nature and urban environment meet together have always been identified as comfortable. Thus, it is not surprising that the city parks, or even more, the beaches become a desirable part of the city’s image. Kaunas city is not an exception, here the initiatives of the revitalization of the riverbanks have become a recent center of attention of urban activists as well as architecture historians. Interest in the history of Kaunas riverside relates to the fact that the areas of the modern leisure in Lithuania have a long tradition, as its starting point can be associated with the interwar period (1918-1940). The article provides a brief summary of the study of “the resort network” being built near the river throughout the Kaunas region during the WWI and WWII as well as of its leisure culture that was flourishing and the related architectural marks and shapes of urbanization: newly built summer houses adapted to provide treatment (rehabilitation) and a place for living, villas, Kurhaus, restaurants, sanatoria, health resorts, commercial places, and public infrastructure.

Summer Houses, Ruin, Demolition and Rehabilitation , Modern Architecture heritage between 1950 and 1960 in Portugal

From the decades 1930/1940 in Portugal, begins the search for a new architectural model of holiday house derived from the chalet.From the late 1950s and according to Ana Tostões[1], begins a widespread acceptance of modern architecture by an elite bourgeoisie which will develop new resorts in Portugal.According to Rui Ramos [2] the urbanization along the beaches from Ofir in the North to Rodízio in the South, reveals this new way of modern living.These houses have resisted as built heritage from the decades of the 1940 till now. Some have not been able to avoid demolition; others are in a state of decay and abandoned ruin. It is urgent to avoid bad interventions that adulterate there main architectural characteristics or even the ruin and consequent demolishing in order of touristic investments of greater value.House Aiola was located in Arrábida, work of unquestionable modern taste, made use of prefabrication systems. The use of new materials, such as plywood and wood panels makes this house an authentic modern laboratory. The internal organization of the house in perfect communion with the outside is very fluid.According to Rui Ramos[3], the house reveals an unconditional adoption of modern, being able to innovate on the constraints imposed on it. The quality of this house and the uniqueness of his work transform this house one of the most radically modern examples built in Portugal, yet virtually unknown and demolished.The José Soares House in Ofir, of architects Cassiano Barbosa and Arménio Losa, was built in the year of 1950. This unknown work of the modern Portuguese architects is located in the summer resort of Ofir, where other important summer houses were built predominately between the decades of 1940 and 1970. This house experiments the new modern movement concepts as the use of ramps, new materials as fibre cement roofing or the clear distribution of sleeping and living areas in two blocks. At the same time it questions vernacular architecture by the use of apparent granite stone walls, the use of decorative tiles or wooden joinery. Nowadays the house is abandoned for decades and is coming to an advanced state of ruin.Modern Portuguese architecture has to be enlightened as of great value, so that owners and general public get aware of its heritage, before bigger mistakes are made.[1] TOSTÕES, Ana, “Casas de Férias modernas, anos 50 e estilo contemporâneo- A utopia de uma doce vida”, in Jornal de Arquitectos, Nº 196, Lisboa, 2000, Ordem dos Arquitectos, pp. 45-53.[2] RAMOS, Rui Jorge Garcia, A casa: arquitectura e projecto doméstico na primeira metade do século XX português, Porto, FAUP publicações, 2010.[3] Ibidem, pp.512.

An investigation into the potential use of nutrients recovered from urine diversion on a summer housing site: self-sufficiency based on nitrogen balance.

ECOSAN is a recent domestic wastewater management concept which suggests segregation at the source. One of these streams, yellow water (human urine) has the potential to be used as fertilizer, directly or indirectly, because of its rich content of plant nutrients. One physicochemical method for indirect use is adsorption/ion exchange using clinoptilolite. This paper aims to present the results of a scenario focusing on possible diversion of urine and self-sufficiency of nutrients recovered on site through the use of this process, using actual demographic and territorial information from an existing summer housing site. Specifically, this paper aims to answer the questions: (i) how much nitrogen can be recovered to be used as fertilizer by diverting urine? and (ii) is this sufficient or in surplus within the model housing site? This sets an example of resource-oriented sanitation using stream segregation as a wastewater management strategy in a small community. Nitrogen was taken as the basis of calculations/predictions and the focus was placed on whether nitrogen is self-sufficient or in excess as fertilizer for use within the premises. The results reveal that the proposed application makes sense and that urine coming from the housing site is self-sufficient as fertilizer within the housing site itself.

Days of Peculiar Splendour: Howards End and The Sea, The Sea in the Context of the Poetics of Summer House Fiction

This article explores the ways in which E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel, Howards End, and Iris Murdoch’s 1978 novel, The Sea, The Sea, elaborate the constitutive elements of the poetics of summer house fiction. While reflecting major ecological, cultural, social and political concerns of their individual periods, these novels reverberate with timeless issues, including unfulfilled desire for the pastoral and the fruitless search for eternal summer with its promise of spiritual and physical regeneration if not rebirth. The thematic connection between the two works is intensified by their focus on the quest for authenticity, including compromises stemming from the inevitable failure of any idealised or definitive solution to the fundamental existential struggle. This endeavour is reflected in the circular character permeating all aspects of the novels, from imagery and motifs to the overall arrangement of the plot and its philosophical interpretation.

Floating Worlds

Floating Worlds Kathleen Hellen (bio) Leaving the Emperor’s Summer House In Hirohito’s house my father lives in the collapse of silk.The floating world of sake, scotch, and yellow fin.A strange cocoon of bars on back streets of the Ginza’s grid, Kabuki.The famous hot springs.He takes a bath. He speaks the language.He wears a moustache thin as Errol Flynn’s,bows to options from Nigeria.Oil from offshore rigs.Winter ’56:In a dolphin-gray kimono, my fatherwith my mother in a winter mink,her bangs cut straight, her belly big. In Hirohito’s house tea thins. My father trades for passport,trades the mink to pay his driver, pay the nursemaidthey call Monkey. In his duffle from the px stolen blankets.“We’ll always have …,” my mother says, her words a sigh, like Bergman’s playing Ilsa in Casablanca.The fall of Tokyo like Paris. In photographs they wear thedrab-green coats she sews from Army blankets.The stove’s a pit of ashes. [End Page 642] Sayonaras A son.He died bravely, they said,but details were unavailable. Only sand in the box sent back like an aerial view: 67 citieslike Hartford,the size of Hamamatsu. Yokohama/ Kawasaki /Nagoya. The waves of gale-force winds so hot. Self-sustaining, the cratered places where they had trainedin snow-white mufflers, all the same.“I saw him swimming in the flames,” a mother says.A daughter. [End Page 643] Kathleen Hellen Kathleen Hellen’s poetry has been published in Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Witness, and other places. Her most recent collection is Umberto’s Night, winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize. Copyright © 2015 Kathleen Hellen

Charles Darwin and lady hope — the legend still alive

The theme of the present paper is the story of Darwin’s conversion as spread by Elizabeth Hope. Her article was published in August 1915. She wrote under the pseudonym “Lady Hope”, and her paper was titled “Darwin and Christianity”. Elizabeth Hope claimed that she visited Charles Darwin in autumn 1881, a couple of months before his death. Darwin during her visit was supposedly bedfast and reading Hebrews. During their conversation Darwin allegedly asked her to speak about Jesus Christ and sing some hymns in his summer house. I claim that (1) strong arguments exist that Lady Hope’s story is only the fruit of her imagination, and (2) all her adherents can only have hope that Darwin, renouncing his theory, returned to Christianity. Finally, I show some unpublished opinions of modern scholars which indicate that Darwin’s conversion never took place, and he never rejected his theory of evolution by natural selection.

This issue of ACTA, printed and electronic

The cover illustration shows senile scleral plaques which is reported by Beck et al. in the electronic part of this issue of ACTA. Grzybowski points out that the various disciplines in medicine and science differ in size and that this effects the impact factor calculation. Scheerlinck et al. in the Netherlands found that the preoperative vision predicts postoperative visual acuity in many studies on epiretinal membrane surgery. OCT characteristics, metamorphopsia and autofluorescence may also have a prognostic role. Fernandes et al. in the United Kingdom and China reviewed smoking during pregnancy and vision difficulties in children. There were higher rates of strabismus, refractive errors and retinopathy among children of women who smoked during pregnancy. Leivo et al. in Helsinki describe a considerable risk of eye injury in sports, such as ice hockey and tennis. Klefter et al. in Denmark used motion-contrast velocimetry to study the regulation of retinal perfusion. Faber et al. in Denmark found increased plasma levels of tumour necrosis factor to be associated with age-related macular degeneration. They suggest that this supports low-grade inflammation. Knaapi et al. in Finland refine an old method to determine the actual size of retinal features on a fundus photograph. Carreno et al. in the United Kingdom, Australia and Spain describe panuveitis with nodular peripapillary changes in juvenile systemic granulomatous disease also known as Blau syndrome. Fledelius et al. in Copenhagen describe corneal deposits and abnormal vessel morphology in patients with Fabry disease. Holmström et al. in Sweden evaluated new Swedish guidelines for screening for retinopathy of prematurity and found the guidelines adequate. Zetterberg et al. in Sweden used anterior chamber angle surgery and in some cases tube implantation to treat paediatric glaucoma. Pärssinen et al. in Finland studied the prevalence of and changes in astigmatism from the onset of myopia at school age. They found that the prevalence and mean amount of refractive astigmatism associated with corneal astigmatism increased, and the axis of astigmatism changed among myopics during the 23-year follow-up. Koefoed et al. in Norway found that contrast sensitivity is not diminished by sleep deprivation. Talebizadeh et al. Uppsala describe the distribution of caspase-3 in the rat lens and suggest this enzyme may be involved in cataract formation. Mollazadegan and Lundström in Sweden analysed the relationship between patient-reported outcome measures and clinical outcome measures in 42 individual Swedish cataract surgery settings. For some clinics, up to 50% of the patients stated that they were very satisfied with their vision before surgery. The following articles are published electronically only. They are available on www.actaophthalmologica.com. On actaopthalmologica.com, you can find all the articles of this issue of ACTA and indeed all articles published in ACTA from the beginning. Eppig et al. in Germany found that the aberration-correcting intraocular lenses are associated with better contrast sensitivity. Beck et al. in Switzerland study senile scleral plaques with imaging and anterior segment OCT. They point out that these plaques have gained increased interest since the advent of intravitreal injections. These plaques are depicted on the cover of this issue of ACTA. Pérez-Rico et al. in Spain found the poor glucose control affects corneal biomechanics in patients with diabetes. Steinberg et al. in Germany and the United Kingdom validated a previously described algorithm as well as Scheimpflug tomography for the diagnose and classification of keratoconus. Rao et al. in India found that the spectral domain OCT imaging of the neuroretinal rim of the optic nerve did not adequately differentiate between glaucomatose and non-glaucomatose discs. Tanito et al. in Japan found no association between exfoliation and central retinal vein occlusion even when they used the LOXL1 gene as a marker for exfoliation. Maestroni et al. in Italy found that vasostatin-1 prevents choroidal neovascularization in mice. Zhang et al. in China found gene polymorphisms which are associated with increased risk of proliferative diabetic retinopathy in a Chinese population. Kessel et al. in Denmark review ocular injuries from ammonium hydroxide sprayed into eyes. Massamba et al. in France found that the pain associated with intravitreal injection was greater in the inferior quadrants of the eye and in the right eye. Rantala and Majander in Helsinki used OCT to image cornea plana. Iribarren et al. in Norway describe the loss of refractive power of the lens in early adulthood. Fleischman et al. in USA reviewed cerebrospinal fluid pressure trends in diseases associated with glaucoma. Sung et al. in Korea found OCT reliable in assessing nerve fibre layer thickness regardless of refractive error. Tanito et al. in Japan describe a bidirectional flow of aqueous following glaucoma tube surgery. Introini et al. in Italy describe ischaemic maculopathy associated with cocaine use. I hope that the current issue of ACTA provides pleasant and educational reading in your summer house and elsewhere.

The Girls on the Bridge

<i>The Girls on the Bridge</i>

Multi-label class assignment in land-use modelling

During the last two decades, a variety of models have been applied to understand and predict changes in land use. These models assign a single-attribute label to each spatial unit at any particular time of the simulation. This is not realistic because mixed use of land is quite common. A more detailed classification allowing the modelling of mixed land use would be desirable for better understanding and interpreting the evolution of the use of land. A possible solution is the multi-label (ML) concept where each spatial unit can belong to multiple classes simultaneously. For example, a cluster of summer houses at a lake in a forested area should be classified as water, forest and residential (built-up). The ML concept was introduced recently, and it belongs to the machine learning field. In this article, the ML concept is introduced and applied in land-use modelling. As a novelty, we present a land-use change model that allows ML class assignment using the k nearest neighbour (kNN) method that derives a functional relationship between land use and a set of explanatory variables. A case study with a rich data-set from Luxembourg using biophysical data from aerial photography is described. The model achieves promising results based on the well-known ML evaluation criteria. The application described in this article highlights the value of the multi-label k nearest neighbour method (MLkNN) for land-use modelling.

Measurement of the Thermal Environment in Temporary Settlements with High Building Density after 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China

After 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, a large amount of temporary settlements with high building density had appeared in the earthquake-stricken area. These temporary settlements all consisted of low-energy temporary buildings: prefab houses. In order to make clear the indoor and outdoor physical environments in the settlements, we measured the relevantly important parameters such as wind velocity, air temperature in Happy Homeland, a typical post-disaster temporary settlement. The field measurements’ results showed as followed: (1) the indoor thermal environment of the prefab houses in summer was always worse than that in winter, (2) the wind velocity inside settlement was much lower than that outside, and indoor ventilation was very poor, (3) a micro-scale heat island effect further deteriorated both the summer outdoor and indoor thermal environment.

FICTION IN REVIEW

1 5 4 Y F I C T I O N I N R E V I E W D A V I D G A L E F What’s by turns comic or confusing, real or imaginary, and has Something Not Quite Right? The literary genre known as slipstream , by definition evading easy categorization, hovers between mainstream and speculative fiction. Readers are never exactly sure whether the thing that goes bump in the night is a loose floorboard or a ghost on the loose. Though the term was coined by William Gibson, one of the originators of cyberpunk, perhaps the best-known practitioner of ‘‘maybe’’ is Kelly Link, whose first short story collection, Stranger Things Happen, came out in 2001. It contained such titles as ‘‘Flying Lessons’’ and ‘‘Survivor’s Ball; or, The Donner Party.’’ Are we in some fairy tale past or an uncertain present? Exactly what kind of meal is being served at the hotel? Has a minor character died or merely vanished – and how? Idiosyncratic lists and acontextual observations provide more intrigue without quite answering the questions they raise. Yet the style is authoritative. These are people and situations that Link makes us believe in, as in this G e t i n Tr o u b l e : S t o r i e s , b y K e l l y L i n k ( R a n d o m H o u s e , 3 5 2 p p . , $ 2 5 ) 1 5 5 R introductory bit from ‘‘Travels with the Snow Queen’’: ‘‘You enter the walls of the city early in the evening, when the cobblestones are a mottled pink with reflected light, and cold beneath the slap of your bare, bloody feet. You ask the man who is guarding the gate to recommend a place to stay the night, and even as you are falling into the bed at the inn, the bed, which is piled high with quilts and scented with lavender, perhaps alone, perhaps with another traveler, perhaps with the guardsman who had such brown eyes, and a mustache that curled up on either side of his nose like two waxed black laces, even as this guardsman, whose name you didn’t ask calls out a name in his sleep that is not your name, you are dreaming about the road again.’’ Link followed this up in 2005 with her second collection, Magic for Beginners, which drew praise from writers ranging from Michael Chabon to Daniel Mendelsohn. Link has also come out with Pretty Monsters, a collection marketed for the Young Adult crowd, as well as an edited anthology, Trampoline, which shows Link’s a≈nity for experimental work, not just in form but also in stance. Link possesses the literary equivalent of peripheral vision – like peering into a neighboring, o√-kilter realm. As the French surrealist Paul Éluard is reputed to have remarked, ‘‘There is another world, and it is in this one.’’ Link’s latest collection, Get in Trouble, contains stories with her trademark weirdness, including hints of magic and science fiction, yet these narratives take a few steps away from her earlier work. If they seem a bit less edgy (as in cutting edge and the edge of reality), they’re also more substantial, imbued with definite meaning and morality. Starting o√ the collection is ‘‘The Summer People,’’ in part a tale about elves, maybe, and the tactful handling they require. The teenage protagonist, Fran, acts as caretaker for a clutch of summer houses, but one of those houses has rather special inhabitants . As Ophelia, a schoolmate of Fran’s, finds out when she enters, they hoard items: ‘‘Dolls’ legs and silverware sets and tennis trophies and mason jars and empty matchboxes and false teeth and still chancier things poked out of paper bags and plastic carriers.’’ They make ingenious little objects, including a grotesque jack-in-the-box and a walnut-and-ebony iPhone case. They can be nice or nasty, fairies or fae. Part of Link’s elusivity, if that’s a 1 5 6 G A L E F Y word, is a refusal to clarify. Perhaps the...

Casa de verano en Linescio. Suiza

&lt;p&gt;En Linescio, un pequeño pueblo en el remoto valle Rovana, se encuentra un edificio de piedra de 200 años de antigüedad que se reconstruirá como casa de verano. El edificio consta de una bodega soterrada, que se extiende profundamente bajo la ladera empinada. En el primer piso hay un espacio sencillo destinado a vivienda, sin calefacción y sin agua, por encima del cual hay un altillo para heno con un porche en forma de logia. La estructura de madera con base de piedra perpendicular al edificio, construida con troncos a modo de cabaña, se utilizó anteriormente como secadero de castañas. El edificio estaba vacío desde hacía cincuenta años.&lt;/p&gt;

Still Life Architecture

Turkey’s biggest villa city eco-project located near Catalca in Istanbul fails in fulfilling the aspects of an ecological planning and moreover becomes a land piece of rows of summer houses on a resource protection area. Despite its large scale planning, this gated villa town has recently turned into a ghost town and a still life architecture without much notice. However, there are remedies for transforming this area into an ecological park by implanting renewable energies.

Mirages, and: Mice Dart over the Drafty Floor

Mirages, and: Mice Dart over the Drafty Floor Jonas Modig (bio) Translated by Swedish Christian Gullette (bio) Mirages The neighbor’s balcony door stands open the whole day, airs out a party that unraveled all night. Fine mist. Thick newspaper inserts. Slow breakfast. Taking my time. I sew on a shirt button with white thread, straightaway it meets the needle’s eye. The long beaches that have learned to live with water, to brave its moodiness and vanity, allow themselves to be soaked and abandoned, see their destiny in the borderline’s eternal dilemma. Whoever runs along a beach is always the last man on earth, the last to witness freedom’s impotence disappear in one forward line. There’s joy in this soil that refuses to sprout. There’s no such climate. Maybe the summer meadow will survive, at least for a few decades; the ninth of August it will be culled with a scythe. Until then, longing’s wildflowers flex in the wind: ox-eye daisy, spotted cat’s ear, bluebell, quaking grass. [End Page 152] Mice Dart over the Drafty Floor Mice dart over the drafty floor investigating cracks in the sapwood, waiting in the darkness to sample the edge of a yellowed newspaper and gnaw away last summer’s celebrity gossip. No one comes and disturbs the short winter days that disappear in a hollow of falling snow. Frost creeps into this vacancy, labors breathing and barricades the door, the slow chill’s long lockdown under a choleric sun. [End Page 153] Jonas Modig Jonas Modig published his first book of poems in 1968 but didn’t return to writing poetry until 2007 with his critically acclaimed collection Annandagar [Other Days], inspired by the death of his son in Thailand as a result of the 2004 tsunami. Modig is also the author of two other collections: Radfall [Typography] (Norstedts, 2009), and Vinter i summerhuset [Winter in the Summer House] (Norstedts, 2011). He worked for many years as an editor at Alfred Bonniers, one of Sweden’s oldest and most respected publishing houses. Christian Gullette Christian Gullette received his mfa from the Warren Wilson mfa Program for Writers and is currently a phd student at the University of California, Berkeley, in Scandinavian Literatures and Languages. His poems have appeared in various journals, including Smartish Pace and Ocho, and he was one of the winners of Knockout Literary Magazine’s Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize, judged by Carl Phillips. He is also a poetry editor for the Cortland Review. Copyright © 2014 Center for Literary Publishing

Values of property (properties of value): capitalization of kinship in Norway

This paper examines the multiple forms of value invested in holiday properties among some Norwegian families. Holiday homes – summer houses, mountain cabins and country houses – are common in Norway, as are many of the practices through which they are inhabited, shared and inherited. Within the legal practices of testaments and handovers can be found a wealth of kinds of value, some of which can be translated into each other. For example, the capitalization of ownership and use for the purposes of inheritance concretize the relations between family members in both financial and emotional terms. In exploring these relations, this paper considers the connections between people, property, landscape and movement through time.

How to Become a Forest Ecologist In Only 40 Years

When I was 12 years old, my mother took me to the public library where I had to check out at least one book every week. John T. Curtis’ great classic The Vegetation of Wisconsin, an Ordination of Plant Communities (1959) was on the shelf. Despite my lack of appreciation for the words “plant community” and “ordination.” I checked out the book. According to the index it mentioned Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, where our family summer house was located, and I might learn about the surrounding forests. Surprisingly, I was engrossed in the book, read it cover to cover, memorized the plant species in every native plant community, and within a few weeks decided to carry on the type of work Curtis had started, and set the personal goal of obtaining a Ph.D. in Forest Ecology at Curtis’ university, The University of Wisconsin-Madison. While a senior undergraduate student in Botany and Bacteriology at UW-Madison, I noticed Craig Lorimer’s newly published paper on reconstructing disturbance history of forest stands from tree-ring analysis (Lorimer 1980). Out of the blue one day I stopped by his office and suggested a Ph.D. project to examine disturbance history of many stands across a large landscape in Upper Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, with its 35,000 acres of old-growth hemlock and sugar maple forests. We agreed that this was a worthy project, and after five summers of field work, we produced several papers with new methods for analyzing disturbance history and applied these methods to obtain recurrence intervals for treefall (mostly wind) disturbances across a gradient of severities (Frelich and Lorimer 1989, 1991). The next step in my career resulted from attending the 1987 ESA Annual Meeting in Columbus, Ohio, where I met with prominent paleoecologist Margaret B. Davis (who was ESA President that year). Margaret had illuminated the development of forest communities during the Holocene by using fossil pollen analyses across eastern North America to show that each tree species migrated independently in response to climate change, and that the tree community in any one place was a temporary phenomenon, perhaps the best demonstration of the individualistic nature of plant communities (Davis 1981). I moved to the University of Minnesota for a post doc with Margaret to examine in detail how the unlogged hemlock and maple forests where I had done my Ph.D. field work formed and maintained alternate communities on very similar sites due to neighborhood effects (Frelich et al. 1993). A highlight was dating fossil black spruce needles from the bottom of Lee’s hollow at ~9700 years before present; boreal spruce gave way to jack pine, then oak and white pine, and finally a patchy mosaic of hemlock and maple as the climate warmed and then slightly cooled over the ensuing 9000 years. Living in Minnesota, I finally was able to visit the primeval rock-bound forests of northern Minnesota, after many years of studying the classic work of Heinselman (1973, 1981), which showed how fires and succession (or oftentimes a lack of succession) created a landscape mosaic in the boreal forests of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I was able to spend a few days canoeing with Heinselman before he died in 1993, enough to get the necessary ideas to build on his published work and launch a major, 20-year effort to understand fire and wind disturbance in collaboration with Peter Reich (e.g., Reich et al. 2001).

Power or Leisure? Remarks on the Architecture of the European Summer Embassies on the Bosphorus Shore

AbstractThis study is part of a larger project on theLandscapes of the Eastern Question, contextualizing the architecture of diplomacy in İstanbul as a symbolic and material refraction of changing power balances and representational strategies. In Beyoğlu, where most of the main diplomatic residences were located, the embassies were originally Ottoman woodenkonakstructures, but, in time, the increasing influence of Russia, Great Britain and France fostered their monumentalization and the adoption of European academic classicism. By contrast, the summer embassies on the European shore of the Bosphorus remained largely local in terms of technology, image, materials, and spatial layout until the end of the Ottoman Empire. The paper argues that, for many diplomats, a stately winter residence representing national identity, along with a summer house in the spirit of the local traditions, would be used as a communicative and performative resource in the drama of European-Ottoman relations. It also evaluates foreign settlement on the northern shore of the Bosphorus as conforming to a strategy of surveillance and control in keeping with the strategic relevance and contested status of the straits.