Unique Architectural Design Research Articles

Disappearing gradually and unconsciously in rural China: Research on the sunken courtyard and the reasons for change in Shanxian County, Henan Province

China’s rural areas have entered an important period of modernization, experiencing the rapid transformation from traditional rural society to modern urban society. In this context, since the 1980s, the rural traditional dwellings with unique local characteristics and ecological advantages encounter an enormous threat. The rapid demolition of famous heritage sites and landscapes easily garners the public’s attention, but traditional dwellings in rural areas are gradually disappearing as part of the residents’ long-term daily practices. The cave dwelling, “sunken courtyard” (known as “di keng yuan” in Mandarin), is an appropriate subject for interpreting this type of change and cultural transformation. The sunken courtyards are primarily distributed throughout central China, Henan Province, Shanxian County; their unique architectural design method show the characteristics of the Loess Plateau culture. This study adopts qualitative research methods, selecting five study cases in Shanxian County, to discuss the changes in the traditional sunken courtyard and to explore the reasons behind these changes. Based on the literature and preliminary investigation, a formal interview was conducted. The results indicate the causes of the changes in terms of decoration, custom, family structure and policy. Additionally, the key conclusion is that the rural land use policy, the limitations of the sunken courtyard itself, the change in residents’ ideas and the lack of proper management are the major reasons for this heritage change phenomenon. This study proffers a method regarding the protection of traditional dwellings to attract attention to the disappearing dwellings and to provide a scientific planning method for them.

Generalizable Synthesis of Metal‐Sulfides/Carbon Hybrids with Multiscale, Hierarchically Ordered Structures as Advanced Electrodes for Lithium Storage

Transition-metal sulfides/carbon hybrids with a multiscale, multidimensional, and hierarchically ordered architecture have been designed and synthesized by a general and facile method. As a result of this novel and unique architecture design, the obtained hybrid electrodes show attractive reversibility and cycle stability as well as excellent rate capability.

ZnCl2-activated porous carbon spheres with high surface area and superior mesoporous structure as an efficient supercapacitor electrode

Thanks to the unique architectural design, nanosized porous carbon materials exhibit better behavior as electrical double-layer capacitors than conventional carbon-base materials. In this work, porous carbon sphere (PCS) materials with superior porosity and uniform nanospherical morphology were successfully prepared by means of a facile chemical activation route. The analysis of pore structure and morphology of the resultant PCS were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, N2 sorption technology and electron microscope. The results indicated that this PCS material possess remarkable porosity, extremely large surface area (∼2500 m2 g−1), large pore volume (1.37 cm3 g−1) and narrow pore distribution (2.73 nm). The well-developed mesoporous structure and high surface area benefited the PCS to exhibit an excellent charge storage capacity with a specific capacitance of 196 F g−1 in 2 M KOH at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 and long-term cycling stability over 1000 cycles. Compared with ordered mesoporous carbon and other porous carbon materials, PCS present an enhanced electrochemical performance, which could be attributed to its high surface area and well-developed mesoporosity, as well as its nanospherical morphology, favoring the ion accumulation on the electrode surface and facilitating fast electrolyte ion transportation.

Synthetic adhesive attachment discs inspired by spider's pyriform silk architecture

ABSTRACTSpiders attach their major ampullate silk dragline fibers to surfaces using attachment discs spun from pyriform silk fibers. These attachment discs allow spiders to move safely from place to place while secured to a dragline and to attach their webs to a variety of surfaces. Here, we demonstrate a simple electrospinning process to mimic the “staple‐pin” architecture used by spiders for these attachment discs. Experimental and theoretical evidence are provided to confirm the advantages of thousands of micron‐size “staple‐pins” and their low peeling angles to enhance the adhesive forces required to peel the natural and synthetic attachment discs. These results provide a unique architectural design for fabricating new adhesives that uses very little material for various biomedical and material science applications. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014, 52, 553–560

Effects of the mesostructural order on the electrochemical performance of hierarchical micro–mesoporous carbons

Hierarchical ordered porous carbons show a better behavior as electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs) than disordered carbons especially at high rates thanks to their unique architectural design.

Architectural design of hierarchically ordered porous carbons for high-rate electrochemical capacitors

The rate capability of carbon-based electrochemical capacitors (ECs) is an important issue for applications and the three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically ordered porous carbon (HOPC) can reduce the diffusion length to improve the rate performance by the unique architectural design. In this study, a modified dual-templating strategy for architectural design of 3D HOPC as a promising electrode material for high-rate EC applications was developed by using polystyrene and Pluronic F127 as macro- and meso-porous templates, respectively. Tetraethyl orthosilicate was also added as the silica precursor, and then the sol–gel-derived SiO2 was removed by sodium hydroxide to form the second mesopore in HOPC (HOPC-s) for enhancing the accessible surface areas and pore structures. The HOPC-s formed by the templating strategy is composed of highly ordered macropores, macroporous windows, bimodal mesopores, and micropores, resulting in high specific surface area (1112 m2 g−1), high total pore volume (1.18 cm3 g−1) and an easily accessible environment for fast electrolyte ion transport. The specific capacitance of the HOPC-s electrodes can reach 316 F g−1 at 25 mV s−1 and maintain excellent capacitive retention at a high scan rate of 1000 mV s−1 when compared with that of ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC-s). Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy fitting shows that the pore electrolyte resistance of HOPC-s is 3 times lower than that of OMC-s, which is attributed to the hierarchical macroporous structures and short mesoporous channels. In the symmetric capacitor test, the HOPC-s also shows excellent power capability, and the energy density of 4–10 W h kg−1 can be maintained over the power density range of 1–14 kW kg−1. In addition, the capacitance of HOPC-s in the polycarbonate-containing ionic liquid shows 80% retention at a scan rate of 500 mV s−1, indicating that the unique hierarchical structure can provide efficient ion-buffering capacity for high-rate performance. These exceptional electrochemical performances clearly demonstrate that 3D HOPC-s is a superior material to solve the poor ion transport limitation, which can open an avenue to fabricate high-rate ECs with high power and energy densities for energy storage.

Central Park Mixed-Use Building in Jakarta

This paper describes challenges during the structural design phase as well as during the construction stage of this mega Central Park Project. Most of the challenges occurred due to the unique architectural design of this mixed-use building, which consists of three 50-floor apartment towers, a 42-floor office tower, a podium mall with 12-floor car park building, a 13-floor hotel building on top of the podium and car park, two layer basement for the entire building complex and a large open space garden at the ground floor. The total floor area is 720,000 square meters. Up to now, this is the largest mixed use project in Indonesia.A series of seismic site response investigation was conducted. The results were then used and combined with other loads which were taken into account in the structural analysis. Wind tunnel test were also performed since the current wind loading code in Indonesia has still not covered cases for tall buildings such as this project. Transfer beams and inclined columns were installed to accommodate some special requirements for the structural frames. Monitoring of building settlements during construction was carried out and the outcomes were then compared with the predicted values obtained as the results of the structural analysis.The construction was started in September 2007. The soft opening ceremony of the mall and the topping off of the whole project was conducted in September 9, 2009 and January 5, 2010 respectively.

Effect of microprocessors on traditional chromatography instrumentation

This paper reviews the various design approaches using microprocessors for chromatography automation with emphasis on a new multi-channel data reduction system using a unique architectural design. This new architecture uses a distributed network of microprocessors organized in a hierarchical scheme. This new advance in chromatography automation is the result of recent technological achievements in microprocessor development. The availability of low-cost, powerful microcomputer elements has made it possible to assign a microprocessor to each chromatograph. The result is a major improvement in performance by providing at the chromatograph a control station and an input/output terminal. This allows the chromatographer complete access to a powerful computer even though he can still distribute the cost of this data reduction system over a large number of his chromatographs. Possibilities of major improvements in analytical performance using microprocessors to replace analog control circuits are discussed. Advances yet to be made in this direction can lead to more reliable analytical results with less involvement of the analytical chemist.