Pleasing Structures Research Articles

Climate-responsive wada architecture: a bioclimatic design for climate change resilience

ABSTRACT With rising living standards and a growing global population, the energy consumption of buildings is predicted to soar. Energy efficiency and occupant comfort may both be enhanced by constructing buildings with climate-sensitive design principles in mind. The traditional architectural style of a given region, known as vernacular architecture, has changed throughout the years to accommodate the local climate. One example of a vernacular style of building that made use of climate-responsive design to produce energy-efficient and aesthetically pleasing structures is the Wada style, which is located in the Pune region of India. The performance of the traditional Wada House envelope and its thermal characteristics are being researched in this study. This study investigates the thermal performance of traditional Wada houses, utilizing simulation models, validation, and analyzing climate change scenarios for 2050 and 2080. Research shows that passive design principles are widely used in Wada architecture to control inside temperatures and cut down on energy usage. Insulation through thick walls and roofs, orientation to reduce solar heat gain, and natural ventilation are all part of these measures.

Enhancing structural stability in civil structures using the bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization method

Topology optimization techniques are increasingly utilized in structural design to create efficient and aesthetically pleasing structures while minimizing material usage. Many existing topology optimization methods may generate slender structural members under compression, leading to significant buckling issues. Consequently, incorporating buckling considerations is essential to ensure structural stability. This study investigates the capabilities of the bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization method, particularly its extension to handle multiple load cases in buckling optimization problems. The numerical examples presented focus on three classical cases relevant to civil engineering: maximizing the buckling load factor of a compressed column, performing buckling-constrained optimization of a frame structure, and enhancing the buckling resistance of a high-rise building. The findings demonstrate that the algorithm can significantly improve structural stability with only a marginal increase in compliance. The detailed mathematical modeling, sensitivity analyses, and optimization procedures discussed provide valuable insights and tools for engineers to design structures with enhanced stability and efficiency.

Making our industrial heritage work for the future, in the context of climate change

As Climate Change continues to drive major changes in policy and practice on a global scale, the role of industrial heritage is becoming increasingly important. There remains strong pressure from business interests to clear away the past and start again from a blank canvas, but now there are growing arguments for an alternative approach which re-cycles the carbon already invested in industrial buildings and structures and gives them a second life. There is also an increasing number of examples that demonstrate the power of industrial heritage to drive sustainable regeneration and re-vitalization schemes across the world. Significantly, this trend is not confined to the most attractive, aesthetically pleasing structures – a wide variety of industrial sites have been imaginatively adapted to a new life and in many cases have helped engineer a vibrant future for previously marginalised communities and areas.In Scotland, our national heritage body, Historic Environment Scotland, recently published it’s ‘Climate Action Strategy’. At its heart is the ambition to transform the challenge facing us from one in which our heritage is a victim, instead harnessing it and all its attributes in the battle against Climate Change. This paper will argue that industrial heritage is especially well placed to do this.

Stitching up the Belt[n]arenes

A synthetic strategy reported recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society by Wang and coworkers, who used laser irradiation in the final key step of the synthesis, has led to the formation of highly strained belt[8]arene derivatives. This breakthrough could open doors to more controlled and precise syntheses of zigzag carbon nanotubes.

Geometry, Pattern, Kinetics: Beginning Studio Pedagogy from 2D to 3D

Architecture has the strongest educational ties to geometric organization because of the necessity for order and efficiency in construction, three-dimensional space composition, and the desire to create aesthetically pleasing structures. Kimberly Elam, the author of “Geometry of Design” mentions, “Too often as a design professional and educator I have seen excellent conceptual ideas suffer during the process of realization, in large part because of the designer did not understand the visual principles of geometric composition. These principles include an understanding of classic proportioning systems such as the golden section and root rectangles, as well as ratios and proportion, interrelationships of form, and regulating lines.” With the primary objective of linking art and architecture through observation, analysis, and composition, this paper demonstrates beginning studio projects where geometry, pattern and kinetics are exercised to enhance understanding of two-dimensional pattern and three-dimensional construction. The objective is to enhance three-dimensional design thinking that has become a challenge in recent trends of questionable dependency on computer modeling applications for design decisions.

Cucurbit[n]uril-Based Microcapsules Self-Assembled within Microfluidic Droplets: A Versatile Approach for Supramolecular Architectures and Materials.

ConspectusMicroencapsulation is a fundamental concept behind a wide range of daily applications ranging from paints, adhesives, and pesticides to targeted drug delivery, transport of vaccines, and self-healing concretes. The beauty of microfluidics to generate microcapsules arises from the capability of fabricating monodisperse and micrometer-scale droplets, which can lead to microcapsules/particles with fine-tuned control over size, shape, and hierarchical structure, as well as high reproducibility, efficient material usage, and high-throughput manipulation. The introduction of supramolecular chemistry, such as host–guest interactions, endows the resultant microcapsules with stimuli-responsiveness and self-adjusting capabilities, and facilitates hierarchical microstructures with tunable stability and porosity, leading to the maturity of current microencapsulation industry.Supramolecular architectures and materials have attracted immense attention over the past decade, as they open the possibility to obtain a large variety of aesthetically pleasing structures, with myriad applications in biomedicine, energy, sensing, catalysis, and biomimicry, on account of the inherent reversible and adaptive nature of supramolecular interactions. As a subset of supramolecular interactions, host–guest molecular recognition involves the formation of inclusion complexes between two or more moieties, with specific three-dimensional structures and spatial arrangements, in a highly controllable and cooperative manner. Such highly selective, strong yet dynamic interactions could be exploited as an alternative methodology for programmable and controllable engineering of supramolecular architectures and materials, exploiting reversible interactions between complementary components. Through the engineering of molecular structures, assemblies can be readily functionalized based on host–guest interactions, with desirable physicochemical characteristics.In this Account, we summarize the current state of development in the field of monodisperse supramolecular microcapsules, fabricated through the integration of traditional microfluidic techniques and interfacial host–guest chemistry, specifically cucurbit[n]uril (CB[n])-mediated host–guest interactions. Three different strategies, colloidal particle-driven assembly, interfacial condensation-driven assembly and electrostatic interaction-driven assembly, are classified and discussed in detail, presenting the methodology involved in each microcapsule formation process. We highlight the state-of-the-art in design and control over structural complexity with desirable functionality, as well as promising applications, such as cargo delivery stemming from the assembled microcapsules. On account of its dynamic nature, the CB[n]-mediated host–guest complexation has demonstrated efficient response toward various external stimuli such as UV light, pH change, redox chemistry, and competitive guests. Herein, we also demonstrate different microcapsule modalities, which are engineered with CB[n] host–guest chemistry and also can be disrupted with the aid of external stimuli, for triggered release of payloads. In addition to the overview of recent achievements and current limitations of these microcapsules, we finally summarize several perspectives on tunable cargo loading and triggered release, directions, and challenges for this technology, as well as possible strategies for further improvement, which will lead to substainitial progress of host–guest chemistry in supramolecular architectures and materials.

Computational design of stable planar-rod structures

We present a computational method for designing wire sculptures consisting of interlocking wires. Our method allows the computation of aesthetically pleasing structures that are structurally stable, efficiently fabricatable with a 2D wire bending machine, and assemblable without the need of additional connectors. Starting from a set of planar contours provided by the user, our method automatically tests for the feasibility of a design, determines a discrete ordering of wires at intersection points, and optimizes for the rest shape of the individual wires to maximize structural stability under frictional contact. In addition to their application to art, wire sculptures present an extremely efficient and fast alternative for low-fidelity rapid prototyping because manufacturing time and required material linearly scales with the physical size of objects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a varied set of examples, all of which we fabricated.

Phosphonate Based High Nuclearity Magnetic Cages.

Transition metal based high nuclearity molecular magnetic cages are a very important class of compounds owing to their potential applications in fabricating new generation molecular magnets such as single molecular magnets, magnetic refrigerants, etc. Most of the reported polynuclear cages contain carboxylates or alkoxides as ligands. However, the binding ability of phosphonates with transition metal ions is stronger than the carboxylates or alkoxides. The presence of three oxygen donor sites enables phosphonates to bridge up to nine metal centers simultaneously. But very few phosphonate based transition metal cages were reported in the literature until recently, mainly because of synthetic difficulties, propensity to result in layered compounds, and also their poor crystalline properties. Accordingly, various synthetic strategies have been followed by several groups in order to overcome such synthetic difficulties. These strategies mainly include use of small preformed metal precursors, proper choice of coligands along with the phosphonate ligands, and use of sterically hindered bulky phosphonate ligands. Currently, the phosphonate system offers a library of high nuclearity transition metal and mixed metal (3d-4f) cages with aesthetically pleasing structures and interesting magnetic properties. This Account is in the form of a research landscape on our efforts to synthesize and characterize new types of phosphonate based high nuclearity paramagnetic transition metal cages. We quite often experienced synthetic difficulties with such versatile systems in assembling high nuclearity metal cages. Few methods have been emphasized for the self-assembly of phosphonate systems with suitable transition metal ions in achieving high nuclearity. We highlighted our journey from 2005 until today for phosphonate based high nuclearity transition metal cages with V(IV/V), Mn(II/III), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), and Cu(II) metal ions and their magnetic properties. We observed that slight changes in stoichiometry, reaction conditions, and presence or absence of coligand played crucial roles in determining the final structure of these complexes. Most of the complexes included are regular in geometry with a dense arrangement of the above-mentioned metal centers in a confined space, and a few of them also resemble regular polygonal solids (Archimedean and Platonic). Since there needs to be a historical approach for a comparative study, significant research output reported by other groups is also compared in brief to ensure the potential of phosphonate ligands in synthesizing high nuclearity magnetic cages.

Manipulating silver dendritic structures via diffusion and reaction

A dendrite is one of the most esthetically pleasing structures, with the best-known example being snowflakes. Although the formation of dendrites has been studied for centuries, the way to control their growth is limited. Here we report an attempt to manipulate the growth of dendritic structures via controlling chemical diffusion and reaction. The silver dendritic structures are synthesized by reducing silver ions in solution. The diffusion of chemical agents is regulated by changing the viscosity of the solution while the reaction is regulated by adding acids. The decrease of reaction rate leads to the disappearance of side branch of dendrites while the reduction of diffusion rate shortens the main trunk of dendrites. The silver dendrites are finely tuned by chemical diffusion and reaction. Following studies suggest that diffusion and reaction determines the chemical concentration around the growth fronts, which influences the growth of crystal structures, leading to the formation of diverse silver dendritic structures. The findings in this study indicate that chemical diffusion and reaction are two effective tools to regulate dendritic structures, promising a different way to promote or prevent the growth of dendritic structures in industries.

Edge-Aware Volume Smoothing UsingL0Gradient Minimization

In volume visualization, noise in regions of homogeneous material and at boundaries between different materials poses a great challenge in extracting, analyzing and rendering features of interest. In this paper, we present a novel volume denoising / smoothing method based on the L0 gradient minimization framework. This framework globally controls how many voxels with a non-zero gradient are in the result in order to approximate important features’ structures in a sparse way. This procedure can be solved quickly by the alternating optimization strategy with half-quadratic splitting. While the proposed L0 volume gradient minimization method can effectively remove noise in homogeneous materials, a blurring-sharpening strategy is proposed to diminish noise or smooth local details on the boundaries. This generates salient features with smooth boundaries and visually pleasing structures. We compare our method with the bilateral filter and anisotropic diffusion, and demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method with several volumes in different modalities.

A. Quincy Jones: building for better living

While A. Quincy Jones is most recognized as an architect of glamorous homes owned by Los Angeles' cultural elite, he was equally dedicated to less prosperous clients - middle-class families who were quickly populating the postwar Southern California landscape. As this fascinating book reveals, Jones and his collaborators were truly ahead of their time. Their vision of creating affordable, sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing structures prefigured the advent of several important architectural trends such as innovative and sustainable building designs, maximization of available space, careful detailing, and sensitive site planning. Filled with images from noted photographer Jason Schmidt, as well as with period photographs by Julius Shulman and others, this volume looks at every aspect of Jones' career. Original drawings, models, and furniture designs from the architect's personal archives illustrate a wide variety of projects featuring the hallmarks of Jones' style: soaring interior spaces, the blurring of indoor and outdoor spaces, laminated timber construction, angled walls, and innovate use of concrete, redwood, and glass. Essays explore Jones' quintessentially collaborative nature as he consulted with other noted architects, landscapers, interior designers, developers and city planners to create buildings of lasting beauty and importance.

Discrete and encapsulated molecular grids: homometallic Mn15 and heterometallic Mn24Ni2 aggregates.

Two molecular grid-like clusters are reported, one is a discrete [3 × 5] grid and the other a [3 × 4] grid within a Mn12Ni2 loop. Both Mn24Ni2 and Mn15 aggregates display novel and aesthetically pleasing structures with the former one being among the highest nuclearity heterometallic MnxMy clusters (M = any transition metal ion).

Wet Chemical Functionalization of Graphene

The fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene have enriched the family of carbon allotropes over the last few decades. Synthetic carbon allotropes (SCAs) have attracted chemists, physicists, and materials scientists because of the sheer multitude of their aesthetically pleasing structures and, more so, because of their outstanding and often unprecedented properties. They consist of fully conjugated p-electron systems and are considered topologically confined objects in zero, one, or two dimensions. Among the SCAs, graphene shows the greatest potential for high-performance applications, in the field of nanoelectronics, for example. However, significant fundamental research is still required to develop graphene chemistry. Chemical functionalization of graphene will increase its dispersibility in solvents, improve its processing into new materials, and facilitate the combination of graphene's unprecedented properties with those of other compound classes. On the basis of our experience with fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, we have described a series of covalent and noncovalent approaches to generate graphene derivatives. Using water-soluble perylene surfactants, we could efficiently exfoliate graphite in water and prepare substantial amounts of single-layer-graphene (SLG) and few-layer-graphene (FLG). At the same time, this approach leads to noncovalent graphene derivatives because it establishes efficient π-π-stacking interactions between graphene and the aromatic perylene chromophors supported by hydrophobic interactions. To gain efficient access to covalently functionalized graphene we employed graphite intercalation compounds (GICs), where positively charged metal cations are located between the negatively charged graphene sheets. The balanced combination of intercalation combined with repulsion driven by Coulombic interactions facilitated efficient exfoliation and wet chemical functionalization of the electronically activated graphene sheets via trapping with reactive electrophilic addends. For example, the treatment of reduced graphite with aryl diazonium salts with the elimination of N(2) led to the formation of arylated graphene. We obtained alkylated graphene via related trapping reactions with alkyl iodides. These new developments have opened the door for combining the unprecedented properties of graphene with those of other compound classes. We expect that further studies of the principles of graphene reactivity, improved characterization methods, and better synthetic control over graphene derivatives will lead to a whole series of new materials with highly specific functionalities and enormous potential for attractive applications.

ChemInform Abstract: Supramolecular Coordination: Self‐Assembly of Finite Two‐ and Three‐Dimensional Ensembles

AbstractReview: 840 refs.

Supramolecular coordination: self-assembly of finite two- and three-dimensional ensembles.

Supramolecular coordination: self-assembly of finite two- and three-dimensional ensembles.

Homo‐ and Heterovalent Polynuclear Cerium and Cerium/Manganese Aggregates

AbstractReactions of CeIII(NO3)3⋅6 H2O or (NH4)2[CeIV(NO3)6] with Mn‐containing starting materials result in seven novel polynuclear Ce or Ce/Mn complexes with pivalato (tBuCO$\rm{{_{2}^{-}}}$) and, in most cases, auxiliary N,O‐ or N,O,O‐donor ligands. With nuclearities ranging from 6–14, the compounds present aesthetically pleasing structures. Complexes [CeIV6(μ3‐O)4(μ3‐OH)4(μ‐O2CtBu)12] (1), [CeIV6MnIII4(μ4‐O)4(μ3‐O)4(O2CtBu)12(ea)4(OAc)4]⋅4 H2O⋅4 MeCN (ea−=2‐aminoethanolato; 2), [CeIV6MnIII8(μ4‐O)4(μ3‐O)8(pye)4(O2CtBu)18]2[CeIV6(μ3‐O)4(μ3‐OH)4(O2CtBu)10(NO3)4] [CeIII(NO3)5(H2O)]⋅21 MeCN (pye−=pyridine‐2‐ethanolato; 3), and [CeIV6CeIII2MnIII2(μ4‐O)4(μ3‐O)4(tbdea)2(O2CtBu)12(NO3)2(OAc)2]⋅4 CH2Cl2 (tbdea2−=2,2′‐(tert‐butylimino]bis[ethanolato]; 4) all contain structures based on an octahedral {CeIV6(μ3‐O)8} core, in which many of the O‐atoms are either protonated to give (μ3‐OH)− hydroxo ligands or coordinate to further metal centers (MnIII or CeIII) to give interstitial (μ4‐O)2− oxo bridges. The decanuclear complex [CeIV8CeIIIMnIII(μ4‐O)3(μ3‐O)3(μ3‐OH)2(μ‐OH)(bdea)4(O2CtBu)9.5(NO3)3.5(OAc)2]⋅1.5 MeCN (bdea2−=2,2′‐(butylimino]bis[ethanolato]; 5) contains a rather compact CeIV7 core with the CeIII and MnIII centers well‐separated from each other on the periphery. The aggregate in [CeIV4MnIV2(μ3‐O)4(bdea)2(O2CtBu)10(NO3)2]⋅4 MeCN (6) is based on a quasi‐planar {MnIV2CeIV4(μ3‐O)4} core made up of four edge‐sharing {MnIVCeIV2(μ3‐O)} or {CeIV3(μ3‐O)} triangles. The structure of [CeIV3MnIV4MnIII(μ4‐O)2(μ3‐O)7(O2CtBu)12(NO3)(furan)]⋅6 H2O (7⋅6 H2O) can be considered as {MnIV2CeIV2O4} and distorted {MnIV2MnIIICeIVO4} cubane units linked through a central (μ4‐O) bridge. The Ce6Mn8 equals the highest nuclearity yet reported for a heterometallic Ce/Mn aggregate. In contrast to most of the previously reported heterometallic Ce/Mn systems, which contain only CeIV and either MnIV or MnIII, some of the aggregates presented here show mixed valency, either MnIV/MnIII (see 7) or CeIV/CeIII (see 4 and 5). Interestingly, some of the compounds, including the heterovalent CeIV/CeIII 4, could be obtained from either CeIII(NO3)3⋅6 H2O or (NH4)2[CeIV(NO3)6] as starting material.

Synthetic routes to a family of Mn–Ce heterometallic clusters

Synthetic methods are described that have resulted in the preparation of several mixed-metal Mn–Ce clusters. The methods involve the reaction of Mn II salts or preformed Mn clusters with Ce IV reagents. The products may be divided into three general classes on the basis of the Mn and Ce oxidation states, Mn IV–Ce IV, Mn III–Ce IV, and Mn III–Ce III/IV. All Mn IV–Ce IV compounds were prepared by addition of Ce IV to Mn II salts, whereas all Mn III–Ce IV and Mn III–Ce III/IV clusters were prepared by addition of Ce IV to Mn III-containing clusters. All the mixed Mn–Ce clusters have aesthetically pleasing structures and some of them also have interesting magnetic properties.

Bucky ferrocene and ruthenocene: serendipity and discoveries

An idea of making a ferrocene/fullerene hybrid, “bucky ferrocene”, has intrigued chemists for some time, but the compounds remained to be hypothetical. The synthesis of such hybrid molecules as Fe(C 60Me 5)Cp, Ru(C 60Me 5)Cp and Fe(C 70Me 3)Cp as well as their functionalized derivatives from [60] and [70]fullerenes has been achieved in recent years. With their esthetically pleasing structures and the dual character of metallocene and graphite, these molecules may stimulate the interest of both chemists and non-chemists.

Shape Optimization of RC Flexural Members

A natural velocity field method for shape optimization of reinforced concrete (RC) flexural members has been demonstrated. The possibility of shape optimization by modifying the shape of an initially rectangular section, in addition to variation of breadth and depth along the length, has been explored. Necessary shape changes have been computed using the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique. Genetic algorithm has been used to optimize the diameter and number of main reinforcement bars. A limit-state design approach has been adopted for the nonprismatic RC sections. Such relevant issues as formulation of optimization problem, finite-element modeling, and solution procedure have been described. These design examples—a simply supported beam, a cantilever beam, and a two-span continuous beam, all under uniformly distributed loads—have been optimized. The results show a significant savings (40–56%) in material and cost and also result in aesthetically pleasing structures. This procedure will lead to considerable cost saving, particularly in cases of mass-produced precast members and a heavy cast-in-place member such as a bridge girder.

Pylon Designs for Concrete Cable-Stayed Bridges, USA

Central pylons that utilize saddles to support a single plane of stays are presented as a cost-effective solution for the design of concrete cable-stayed bridges. The success of these structures within the two-alternatives design process for cable-stayed bridges in the USA is discussed. The case of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Bridge is presented as an example of these cost-effective and aesthetically pleasing structures.