Month: August 2016
Yellowstone, Wyomingphoto via katelyn
7 Ways to Get a Better Work-Life Balance
You’re reading 7 Ways to Get a Better Work-Life Balance, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
For many people, career success comes at the cost of a relatively unfair work-life balance and it can often feel like your job dominates your whole life. Here are seven ways for you to achieve a more realistic work-life balance so you can feel happier at home and more productive at work.
Take a Proper Lunch Break
Sometimes a working lunch is a great way to get on top of some work or a chance to catch up with colleagues. But ultimately a working lunch is still work and it means that you are depriving yourself of some much-needed downtime during the day. If you start to get into the habit of having lunch at your desk every single day it will be disastrous for your work-life balance. A lunch break is a legal requirement and you definitely need to take advantage of it more often than not. Get away from your desk, even for just half an hour and you’ll return more productive and feeling better about work.
Turn Off Your Emails
One of the joys of smartphones is the opportunity to have your work emails available to you at every hour of every day. Of course in the modern working environment it can be extremely useful to be able to respond immediately to an important email, rather than having to wait until the next morning. The problem is that once you start responding to important emails you can slip into the habit of simply responding to every email and getting caught in a process where can you literally never get away from them. If you must look at your emails, consider turning off notifications and simply looking once per night just to check if there’s anything vital. If not, you can get back to relaxing at home.
Take career coaching sessions
Career coaching can fulfill a number of roles and it can be about a lot more than just getting ahead in your profession. You can speak to a career coach about ways to create a better schedule for you and improve your work-life balance. Funnily enough this can actually lead to you being more successful in your career too – if you are less stressed and anxious you may find you are able to perform better.
Value Productivity Over Extra Hours
This is a misconception that if you want to get more work done, the solution is to work extra hours. In reality this isn’t the case. Studies show that a 40 hour week is optimal for productivity, and that if you try to work extra hours you’ll simply have the effect of leaving your less productive throughout the week. Interestingly, productivity in the UK has not increased at the same levels after the financial crisis as it has in many other European nations. We need to focus on finding better ways to be productive rather than trying to work more.
Leave Your Work at Work
Too many people take their work home with them. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re literally doing work tasks at home, but it can often mean you’re devoting a lot of time to thinking about work when you should be enjoying your down time.
Delegate Whenever You Can
If you find yourself constantly overworked, ask yourself whether you are doing more than your fair share. Doing too much work doesn’t do anyone any good – it leaves you feeling stressed and it leaves colleagues feeling undervalued. You need to learn to trust the other members of your team and give them the opportunity to shoulder some of that burden. Delegate tasks when you get the opportunity.
Put Personal Life Before Work Sometimes
Work is important and clearly you need to spend time focused on your career, but this should never come at the detriment of your personal life. If you’ve fallen into a routine where your job always comes first, it can pay to switch things up and start placing more of an emphasis on your home life.
This should actually benefit your career too – having a better work-life balance is good for you and will put you in a better mind-set to succeed at work.
Article provided by Mike James, an independent content writer with an aching desire to figure out the illusive work-life balance. For the information in this email, London-based CBT, Life Coach and Psychotherapist Klear Minds were consulted.
You’ve read 7 Ways to Get a Better Work-Life Balance, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Saleh Barakat Gallery / L.E.FT Architects
© Ieva Saudargaite
- Architects: L.E.FT Architects
- Location: Beirut, Lebanon
- Design Team: Ana Conchan, Alex Palmer, Valeria Fervorari, Rafah Farhat, Elias Kateb
- Area: 900.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Ieva Saudargaite, Courtesy of L.E.FT Architects
- Main Contractor: MEC Consultant
- Manufacturers: ACID
© Ieva Saudargaite
The design for the new art gallery, one of the largest and most prominent in Beirut, is an adaptive reuse of a historic theatre, Masrah al Madina, which is converted into a space dedicated to showcasing prominent as well as up and coming Lebanese and Arab artists. Before being transformed in the 90s into a theatre, the underground space was as early as 1969 one of the first cinemas in the Middle East to project art and experimental movies of Fellini and Gavras as well as Soviet films.
Section
Located mostly underground, the attempt was to create a smooth transition from the ground level to the lower gallery level, from the sidewalk to the catwalk, while bringing natural light to the buried space.
© Ieva Saudargaite
Starting with the existing theatre space, the intent was to preserve essential characteristic elements of the space, and introduce new elements that allude to the history of the space while serving its new program.
© Ieva Saudargaite
A new staircase, reminiscent of theatre promenade staircases, cascades its way down to the underground main gallery space from the ground floor, going through secondary office spaces. The cascading nature allows visual continuity between upper and lower levels, and daylight to pierce its way down to the basement.
© Ieva Saudargaite
© Ieva Saudargaite
The ceiling of the theatre has been renovated to highlight its steel catwalks, and transforming it into a repository for the gallery lighting, both ambient and accent lighting. A new electric chain hoist, usually hidden in the back of house, is fore fronted in the ceiling of the ground floor when needed, and is supported on exposed I beams that continue the industrial look of the gallery ceiling into the ground floor ceiling. The hoist would carry the art work crates down to the main gallery space, showcasing the back of house logistics and foregrounding them into the entry level.
Courtesy of L.E.FT Architects
Along the same lines, storage aisles on either side of the main gallery space were turned into intimate art galleries, the back of house becoming part of the foregrounded experience of art. A large archive gallery in the lower basement was also introduced for private client meetings.
© Ieva Saudargaite
From the mezzanine floor, the administrative offices, and that of the gallerist, have a full view of the gallery space.
© Ieva Saudargaite
The Dark Hedges, Northern Irelandphoto via gost
Shakin’ Stevens Residence / Matt Gibson Architecture + Design
© Shannon McGrath
- Architects: Matt Gibson Architecture + Design
- Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia
- Area: 200.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2010
- Photographs: Shannon McGrath
© Shannon McGrath
From the architect. This compact double fronted Victorian workers cottage in set within a gritty one way street in Richmond – a stone’s throw from the MCG and just down from the corner of the infamous Royal Hotel. Unlike other boom style Victorian double front dwellings in Australian cities this cottage is compact and quaint. This area of Richmond (in a process of gentrification) contains mostly compact and heterogeneous building types built up to the street with comparatively narrow or short lot sizes and in many cases not designed for the long term.
© Shannon McGrath
The conceptual drive for the interior of this house is largely in response to a brief which crystallised into a need to be connected with ‘green’ space. Beyond the heritage front the project wanted to not necessarily increase floor area but to increase amenity. To make spaces feel bigger, more functional, to be light filled, and to visually extend &borrow from within and beyond the site.
Diagram
‘Shakin’ Stevens’ is not only about a coloured front door but the experience of what’s beyond it. Conceptually beyond this green door, there are no doors; the newer space is about flow and continuity where delineation of space is soft and less finite than expected from the street. In a clear formal idea the rear composes 3 extruded white cubes that look essentially like they have been let go, landing like dice randomly on top of each other next to a Victorian (monopoly) house. The 3 cubes, as with the existing villa, are composed so as to be immediately deciphered internally or externally and in clear programmatic zones all house different functions. The cubes which are opened at their ends (or sides where required) are utilised as devices to orchestrate views to green elements within the structure and to greenery within or beyond the site.
© Shannon McGrath
At just over 200sqm & 25m depth, opportunities arose from site constraints. The site boundary walls were conceptually designated as internal and lined with perimeter greenery set for maturity. The existing building was seen as an endearing element worth retaining, to be celebrated and re-programmed through colour and detail into the whole.
Ground Floor Plan
1st Floor Plan
The rear spaces both internal &external are about volume & enclosure and conversely lack of it, flexibility to be undefined, spaces you move through rather in or out of. Definition is brought through the allocation of detail- ensuring structural tolerances mean cubes don’t touch, concealing fixed window framing so materials run flush continuously through thresholds. Variation of volume, material and colour similarly assist the clarity and expression of the formal idea whilst also being practical to particular spaces – living is more open, dining more intimate. ‘Non-cube’ materials are deliberately recessive – recycled timber floorboards line circulation areas while glazed panels conceal into cube walls.
© Shannon McGrath
‘Shakin’ utilises many micro level ESD principles – siting, sun protection, thermal mass, passive temperature regulation, low embodied energy (& cost @ $550k) construction techniques& materials, structural depth with high R values. A grey water system, 2 side water storage tanks, fake grass & ‘succulent’ planting temper water usage whilst providing intrinsic features of the colour scheme.
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Beyond these at a macro level this interior is about future robustness meaning users now have the amenity to avoid suburbia using up precious planet resource and transport time. They have borrowed what was previously laying dormant within and beyond their walls. This is the real ‘sustainability’- a model for space/s that can sustain user types (a couple, 2 couples, a family with teenagers, guests) through separation of sleeping zones about a flexible living zone that they can up-size (externally). This interior proposes to extend beyond its enclosure & embrace its ‘green-ness’!
© Shannon McGrath
The structures of different periods are connected yet seemingly separated by a central courtyard and vertical stair chasm. Colour & detail variation are utilised tactfully to exaggerate the settings & temporal divisions of the structures. Although clearly a strategy of ‘viva la difference’ the different structures are married by shades of green chosen to adorn feature elements within each.
© Shannon McGrath
The client requested a predominantly white interior with a feature highlight colour. Green became an obvious choice, working in combination with the proximity of the garden. The green spaces within and beyond the site -instead of being the backdrop to the white interior – became the focus. The white cubes became the lens for these events– effectively assisting in bringing the green inside and dissolving barriers of enclosure. Interior, exterior and landscape -through colour- all inform each other with equal importance. Colour was vitally important in adding glow and clarity to this expression.
© Shannon McGrath
Shenyang Taoxian International Airport Terminal 3 / CNADRI
Courtesy of CNADRI
- Architects: China Northeast Architectural Design and Research Institute
- Location: Taoxian International Airport, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China
- Architect In Charge: REN Bingwen
- Main Architecture Designer: SHAO Mingdong, YAN Yi, ZHI Yu
- Photographs: Courtesy of CNADRI
Courtesy of CNADRI
From the architect. The target year of Terminal 3 is 2020. On the basis of T1 and T2 with existing 7.5 MAP, T3 is supposed to meet the 17.5million passenger demand in 2020 with 6,430 passengers in peak hour (5,130 domestic passengers and 1,300 international passengers). Combined together, T1, T2 and T3 can meet the demand of 25 million passengers in 2020.
Courtesy of CNADRI
Plan 3
Courtesy of CNADRI
Shenyang Taoxian Airport is one of the key airports in North China, and the new T3 will not only enhance the capability of air transportation and service quality, but also improve the integrated transportation system in Shenyang. It will also expand the economic exchange, improve environment for investment and facilitate rapid economic growth and development in Northeast old industrial base. Meanwhile, the passenger friendly designing philosophy has strong demonstration effect and will inspire the designing of terminals in the future.
Courtesy of CNADRI
Lake cabin by Sini Kamppari features slatted timber walls and a projecting terrace
Le Corbusier’s Maison Curutchet in Argentina has a tree at its centre
World Heritage Corb: commissioned by an Argentinian surgeon, Maison Curutchet is the only project in Latin America among the 17 Le Corbusier-designed buildings added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List (+ slideshow). (more…)
Abandoned church – Detroit by crezyjen http://flic.kr/p/iox1W5
via Abandonedforgotten http://ift.tt/2b0oTWJ
Sig Nordal 