Your personal brand has an effect on your success. Here are 6 personal branding lessons you can learn from the 2016 US presidential candidates.
Month: August 2016
House in Mikage / SIDES CORE
© Takumi Ota
- Architects: SIDES CORE
- Location: Higashinada Ward, Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
- Architect In Charge: Sohei Arao
- Construction: Nakanishi Kenchiku
- Area: 101.2 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Takumi Ota
© Takumi Ota
From the architect. Simple containers made of quality materials are the easiest to use. You don’t grow tired of them, and they bring out the best in whatever is inside. We think of living spaces as containers that bring out the best in your family and your life.
© Takumi Ota
The project began with a request from a couple that owns a beauty salon we designed 15 years ago. The salon still feels modern today, and shows how well the owners have taken care of it.
Plan 1
When we visited their house, there was nothing unnecessary or out of place. DIY metal hardware made it possible to change the way they use the space to match their changing lifestyle. A single wild flower their child had picked stood in a simple vase. We felt they wanted a house to enhance the free and pleasant nature of their lives.
© Takumi Ota
Plan 2
© Takumi Ota
The property is located in a quiet residential area of Mikage, a nice contrast to their salon in downtown Rokko. It sits two meters above the street that forms its southern border, protecting the family’s privacy from the eyes of passersby below. A forested area on a cliff, spared from development, is visible to the south. The view from the house takes full advantage of the borrowed scenery.
© Takumi Ota
Nature is present in the house. South-facing windows lead to outdoor spaces, like deep tunnels that create a serene space by obscuring neighboring houses while framing the borrowed scenery. Exposed structural elements in equal pitch showcase the wood’s natural character, while straddling and connecting inside and outside.
© Takumi Ota
The custom-ordered trestle table on the first floor can be diassasembled and stored. The legs are interchangeable, so it can be a chabudai (Japanese-style low table), or taken up to the enclosed terrace and surrounded with furniture for lounging. The space is flexible. The owners will likely continue to change their DIY furniture as their life changes. We hope this space will be a container that accomodates the family’s unfettered and free lifestyle for many years to come.
© Takumi Ota
© Takumi Ota
Marrakech, Morocco photo via aldo
Adagio Valley for Department of Music at University of Seoul / Wooridongin Architects
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
- Architects: Wooridongin Architects
- Location: Jeonnong-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, South Korea
- Collaborators: J & J Architects Inc.
- Area: 1285.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
- Photographs: Kim Jae-Kyeong
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
From the architect. The project is located at the edge of the campus where the Baebong Mountain starts in Seoul, Korea. The project is enclosed by small pond and outdoor stage, in the front, and Baebong Mountain, in the back, which make the location a great spot to overlook the whole campus of University of Seoul. Before the project, the location was used for recycling disposal plant. The project was initiated with the mindset of minimizing the damage to the mountain and green space of the city so that the planning was limited within the boundary of existing facility.
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
Section
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
The concert hall is placed on the top floor, planned to have the best scenic view as well as its function as a concert hall, to meet the importance within the department of music, lecture and rehearsing rooms were placed in the lower volume of the building. An atrium is placed in the center of the bottom volume to empty the volume through to introduce the view of Baebong Mountain into the space. The terraced atrium is the leading space towards the concert hall. The atrium space also acts as a buffer zone that separates the rehearsing space from the other functions of the project. Curved walls of the atrium help the visitors to readily reach into different levels.
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
The colonnade of the front and each sides of the concert hall is reflecting the image of oak trees in Baebong Mountain so that the visitors can indirectly experience the forest inside. The material of the exterior was initially to be rough textured concrete mimicking the patterns of pine boards, yet it was changed to black stone and oxidized stainless steel plates to perceive ease of construction.
© Kim Jae-Kyeong
Villa Ribander / Raya Shankhwalker Architects
- Architects: Raya Shankhwalker Architects
- Location: Ribandar, Goa, India
- Area: 628.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2016
From the architect. The villa was originally built in the early 19th century and is located on the banks of the Mandovi River in Goa, India. The design brief entailed retaining as much of the original structure as possible and adding a new wing as an extension.
The exterior of the old house has been meticulously restored to its original character involving extensive research on the building style of the period. Rather than emulating the design style of the original villa for the new wing, it follows a contemporary design language so that a degree of lightness and modernity is introduced into the house. The intent was to create an interesting aesthetic with the juxtaposition of new against the old.
Plan
The villa has an unassuming entrance off a main road through the original structure and it slowly unfolds gradually increasing in transparency as one moves through the house closer to the river. The interior design includes a blend of modern furniture and found pieces. Careful planning and craft have produced a house that has both, the nostalgia of the past, and the practicality of the present.
Dolomites, Italyphoto via cindy
Atelier Tom Vanhee adds pair of gabled extensions to brick farmhouse in Belgium
Belgian studio Atelier Tom Vanhee has added two offset gabled volumes onto the side of an existing brick structure near the village of Aartrijke to turn it into a modern home (+ slideshow). (more…)
Abandoned Workshop by TAWilsonPhotography Abandoned, deserted…
via Abandonedforgotten http://ift.tt/2b7C0X8
The Complete Guide To Learning Languages Online
You’re reading The Complete Guide To Learning Languages Online, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
“How are you learning languages online?”
“Where do you connect online?
“Is that really that effective?”
These are some of the most common questions we get from our prospective customers.
Many of you reading this may be thinking the same thing. Maybe you’ve never worked with a private teacher online, or you’ve tried software solutions online that didn’t work out for you.
Today, we’ll be addressing many of the questions or thoughts you may have about learning languages online. We hope it helps you make an informed decision.
The Future Of Language Learning
As an immigrant, I’ve personally experienced the upside of learning another language. The world is becoming a more multicultural place by the second, and we’re surrounded by friends, co-workers, and even extended family members who speak another native language.
To give you some data, the language learning will have grown from $115B to $286..2B between 2012 and 2018. And online language learning will be growing 11% year-over-year in the next 5 years.
That’s massive growth. And we share this number to show you that the future of language learning (and education) is heading online.
What’s driving this massive growth?
For one, communication tools have become powerful enough where there’s very little distinction between in-person lessons and live video lessons.
But more importantly, the benefits of learning languages online are clear.
The Benefits
While there are endless benefits to learning online, the top three are: convenience, productivity, and quality.
Learn Anywhere (Convenience)
Most of us don’t have the luxury of picking up our bags and booking a one-way ticket to Argentina to learn how to speak Spanish. Nor is it necessary today.
Having lived in a foreign country for 18 months, I’ve met many people who weren’t able to learn the local language simply because they didn’t put in the effort. Sometimes it was out of laziness, but often times it was out of shyness.
If you’re an introverted learner, having the ability to learn at the comforts of your own home, or at an environment where you feel safe is undervalued.
While real-life immersion is powerful, you can reap the same benefits without sacrificing your lifestyle.
Save Time (Productivity)
With the ability to learn at the comforts of your own home, we can eliminate the biggest timesucker we have in today’s society – commuting.
An average American wastes over 15 full days per year commuting. While we can’t change our work environment overnight, we can change our learning environment.
For most of us learning languages in-person, the time wasted commuting is just as harmful, if not worse (depending on where your teacher or school is located). Since time is the most important commodity we have, learning languages online helps us win back more time instantly.
The Best Teachers Are Everywhere, Not In Your Local City (Quality)
As remote working becomes more prevalent in today’s workplace, so is the saying, “the best talents are everywhere.”
When it comes to language learning, this is especially true.
For one, language learning is as much of a cultural experience as it is an educational experience. The reason most of us learn a language (ex. Spanish) in the first place is to have a deeper connection with someone that comes from a different culture (ex. Colombia).
Yet the chances of you finding the right teacher that matches your learning style, personality, and needs, who also originates from your desired location is pretty slim.
By leveraging learning languages online, we have the power to work with the best teachers (and talent), not just the available ones within a mile radius from your home.
How To Make The Most Out Of Learning Languages Online
If you’ve decided that learning languages online could be for you, we’ve gathered some tips and tactics for you to make the most of it.
Starting with…
1. Quality > Price
Price shopping is the most common form of human behavior when we’re investing in anything.
But when you analyze the top performers in business, athletics, learning, they only work with the best. This is a pattern we see over and over again.
What these high performers understand is that by working with the best, you can actually save more time and money in the end.
When you’re starting a business, hiring the cheapest developer can cost your business 5x more time and money to fix the bugs and mistakes the developer made.
When you’re an athlete, working with the cheapest physiotherapist can cost you your career.
When you’re learning a language, working with the cheapest teacher can be the difference between knowing a foreign language or nothing at all.
This is because learning something new is often more about self-motivation and persistency then strategy, especially when you’re just getting started.
With that said, experience and qualifications only go so far.
Working with someone who deeply understands your goals, needs, and proficiency should be a top priority, once you’ve found a teacher that’s qualified and experienced.
2. Remove Distractions
When you’re learning languages online, it’s easy to be multitasking while you’re simultaneously on a call with your teacher (i.e. checking Facebook).
But the cost of distraction is bigger than we think.
According to Gloria Mark, Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine, upon being distracted during a task at hand, it takes us 23 minutes and 15 seconds on average to regain our focus.
While some of us can regain our focus when we’re working on miscellaneous tasks like email or reports, it’s much harder to do when learning a language.
This is why it’s important to…
3. Learn In Shorter Periods
Through our experience in high school, and college, we’ve become accustomed to sitting in two hour long lecture halls, trying to retain as much information as our brain allowed.
Given by how little most of us actually remember from college, it’s safe to say that learning over long periods of time doesn’t work, especially if it’s inconsistent.
Our most successful students at Rype are those who have managed to consistently learn in shorter periods of time over months, versus binge learning one week, and skipping out on the next week.
Instead of learning for 5 hours once a week, try to break it down into 30 minute periods a couple of times a week.
“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.”
― Tony Robbins
In order to ensure you can do this, we recommend you…
4. Schedule Ahead Of Time
One of the easiest and most powerful ways to build new habits (and avoid decision fatigue) is to systemize your process.
Studies have shown that willpower is limited, and the top performers have gotten to where they are by putting in more work over time.
When you’re learning languages online with a teacher, the most important thing you can systemize is scheduling your lessons. It’s often overlooked because we’re already so distracted by everything else in our lives.
While platforms like Rype directly allow you to schedule multiple lessons ahead of time, this option isn’t as convenient for other language learners.
One way to overcome this barrier if you want to book lessons ahead of time with your teacher is to set up repeat events on your calendar (i.e. Google Calendar), and invite your teacher to each event.
The point here is to make it as easy as possible for yourself to continue showing up for your lessons, because like many things in life, learning a language is mostly about showing up.
5. Use Complementary Tools
Just like you would want to leverage fitness tools like Fitbit or calorie trackers, even when you’re working with a personal trainer, you should be doing the same when learning languages online.
There’s great memorization tools like Memrise or vocabulary learning tools like Duolingo that you can use while you’re working with your language teacher.
Taking control over your own success, without solely relying on someone else is the best way to guarantee real results for anything you want to accomplish.
You can also check out our free Learn a Language Challenge, which will give you 10 new most common words every morning.
What To Do Next
If you’re already in the process of learning languages online, congrats! To make sure you’re making the most out of the experience, and filling in the necessary gaps, we hope our tips today helped.
For a quick review:
1. Quality > Price
2. Remove distractions
3. Learn in shorter periods
4. Schedule ahead of time
5. Use complementary tools
Now we’d love to hear from you. What has been your experience like learning languages online, and what are some tips and strategies that have worked well for you? Share with us below 🙂
p.s – if you liked reading this post, we think you’ll also enjoy checking out:
- Complete Guide on How to Speak Spanish
- How to Learn Any Language in 90 Days
- 17 Language Tips From 17 World-Class Language Experts
You’ve read The Complete Guide To Learning Languages Online, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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