Icelandic Blackwater by Worlds In Focus Steaming and boiling blackwater in south Iceland.
From the architect. This house is a combination of a new architectural entity with an existing house, which has been constructed by “Federación del caucho” in a working-class neighborhood.
The house, which has an irregular slab framed with inverted beams and supported on the main walls, can be identified in most of the constructions of the neighborhood. It has a good construction quality. Now, this neighborhood has become from a working-class to a high-valued district.
The new concrete shell is the result of connecting two prisms in half levels. It avoids supporting the existing house; therefore it creates a half-cover entrance and the expansion. Over the roof of the old house we define the main space with variable height and also with a terrace, which balcony over the lateral courtyard and the gallery.
The existing house was remodeled to ensure that the front and back green areas were linked and to get more brightness. We took all the non-bearing walls and we expanded the openings of some lateral bearing walls.
The original entity is connected with the new shell without leaving its identity. However, it does not contrast with it, looking for a new and complex unity.
The raw concrete defines the new building. Shaping a shell supported by three beams of ten meters free span, it releases the eye vision of the front, back and lateral. The concrete casing with vertical tables was used to create continuity with the vertical wood. We want to highlight the tightness of the private spaces in the front and back of the house.
The existing house was covered with a rustic cement looking for a texture and color like the raw material. The connection between the existing building and the new one is a glass window. It works as a connection between the existing house and the new one. Following the section defines the limits between “inside” and “outside”. The irregular section of the shell configures a landscape over the lower slab. A wood ramp leads to a garden full of wild plants and a lot of cactus.
Four horizontal plans (slabs) and three vertical plans (beams) define a continuous concrete entity suspended over the transformed house. The private spaces are between horizontal plans, making two rectangular prisms at different levels. The extension of the top slabs creates a meeting space (playroom – home office) over the existing slab.
The unintentional contrast between the house and the local architecture is the result of the intentional decision to link the new house with the existing natural landscape and the new one, the courtyard. We want natural airflow and natural lighting all over the place.
The determination of an abstract formal concept, hanging over the existing house, creates the spaces and defines the architectural identity. That guarantees the building as a whole.
You’re reading How To Keep The Conversation Alive: 4 Improv Rules by Tina Fey, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
How many times have you been in a conversation and the topic changed so quickly you never had the opportunity to say your part? You waited for that perfect moment to insert your witty joke and now everyone has moved the conversation forward. It’s frustrating; you had the perfect punchline prepared but you’ve missed your chance. Don’t fret, it happens to the best of us!
Refining your improvisation skills may not be at the top of your to-do list but the ability to react to changes within a conversation in an instant will leave others in awe of your charisma and charm. To improvise doesn’t mean you weren’t prepared, but instead are in a situation for which you could not prepare.
Similar to comedy sketches, conversations flow and move from one topic to the next rapidly. Improv comedians are prepared to make things up on the spot to keep a dialogue moving. This isn’t a natural gift, but a skill that is honed and perfected through practice. They are prepared no matter what situation unfolds. You don’t need to be ready to lead open mic night at the comedy club, but using these techniques of improv will help navigate even the most treacherous of conversations.
The following 4 rules come to you from one of the most famous women in the comedy scene, Tina Fey!
But how do we use these simple rules of improve in a world of complicated conversations?
There isn’t much that stop a conversation more than total disagreement with what you’ve said. A quality conversation is give and take, two or more people exchanging ideas and information. But, any conversation will soon come to an end if neither party can find common ground.
The 1st rule of improv is to show respect for what your partner has created. In improv scenes, the agreement is literal. The actor accepts what was said and build from it to keep a scene moving and continue the storyline.
This doesn’t mean you must agree with everything someone says, (have you seen Jim Carrey in Yes Man?) but for the conversation’s sake, agree to disagree and keep the dialogue moving forward. Respect the ideas of those in the conversation and be willing and able to change topics to avoid a disagreement. This can help build a strong foundation for the conversation to grow.
Whether it’s a sketch comedy scene or a conversation in the boardroom, when all eyes are focused on you do you know what to say next? The easiest way to keep a conversation moving is to agree (1st rule) and then ADD in your own thoughts or ideas on the topic.
In improv, pressure is taken off the first actor when the other participants add a new idea to the scene. It is not the responsibility of one actor to continue to come up with new subject matter every time. We’ve all been in one of those conversations when it’s pulling teeth to get the other party to engage in what you’re saying. Perhaps you were the person getting your teeth pulled? Adding to the exchange to create new topics for discussion shows you’re paying attention and being active in the conversation.
Always add value to your conversation. Use open-ended questions to keep a conversation flowing. However, if your only input is asking more questions, your conversation will seem like an interview. You’re more interesting than you give yourself credit. Others want to know about what you’re thinking and your insight on the topic at hand. This gives room for the conversation to grow and develop.
If you can’t think of anything to say build from information earlier in the conversation. For example, if you asked where someone is from, add your opinion about that city. Have you ever been there? Did you want to visit? Maybe you read something interesting about the sushi there. Continue to share until whoever you’re speaking with has found a topic in which they can expand. This approach provides more information from you and will keep the conversation moving forward in a more natural manner.
Sometimes conversation don’t go as planned. This is okay. You have no control over the emotions of the others involved, or how their day has been going up to this point. Remember that there are no mistakes, only opportunities. Each experience can provide a new learning opportunity. Stay positive and adapt to new situations. Just as an improv comedian needs to adapt and change direction to get through a tough scene, use these tactics help to maneuver difficult conversations.
Enjoy each opportunity to practice. Regardless if you feel like it was an unsuccessful conversation, it should provide lessons that can be taken into your next situation. Learn the rules & don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Know that at least trying to converse is better than avoiding the situation!
Use the 4 rules of improve to help guide your choices throughout your next conversation. They will lead to more comfortable conversations and less likelihood of finding yourself fighting an awkward moment. Just like the professionals in improv comedy this skill takes practice. You won’t become a professional conversationalist overnight. Everyone makes mistakes along the way, even if you have been doing it forever.
To learn how to master first impressions, conduct meaningful conversations and make more friends visit out site Life’s Secret Sauce. Just for joining our community we will provide you with a FREE E-book of 5 guaranteed ways to be the most interesting person at your next social event!
Life’s Secret Sauce, founded by Brandon Slater & Samantha Field, teaches teach young urban professionals the necessary social skills to master first impressions, build meaningful relationships, & effortlessly create quality conversations with anyone. As public speakers in the Cruise industry they have learned what it takes to make connections and engage in great conversation without distraction. Currently they live in Miami with their Shiba Inu puppy, Azumi, and enjoy hiking in Alaska throughout the summer months. To learn more click here!
Picture courtesy of Vogue Magazine.
You’ve read How To Keep The Conversation Alive: 4 Improv Rules by Tina Fey, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
In two intriguing new podcasts, the team over at 99% Invisible uncovered some never-before-heard audio and forgotten secrets about elements of architectural history. In the first, The Mind of an Architect, producer Avery Trufelman explores the audio archives of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), where a study undertaken in the late 1950s mapped the personalities of prominent architects. Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, and Richard Neutra were among the study group, and the data came to some interesting conclusions about the role of ego and the presence of creativity.
In the second, Photo Credit; The Negatives of the Bauhaus Sam Greenspan explores the misattribution of credit for some of the most prolific images of the Bauhaus. Taken in the 1930s by German photographer Lucia Moholy, the historic images paint one of the clearest pictures of life at the Bauhaus. In the turmoil of the war, her negatives were lost, and absorbed by the school’s collection, denying her the credit she deserved.
The Mind of an Architect
Architects have often been regarded as both mathematicians and artists, blending elements from each outlook to create the perfect hybrid. The IPAR certainly believed this, and in 1958 engaged a subject group of 40 architects to participate in personality tests to determine the markers of creativity. Catalyzed by the space race, the program was run in the hope of extracting characteristics of creatives and leaders, to then apply to a broader field.
The never-before-heard audio clips from the study show some insight into the minds of these famous men; whether it be Philip Johnson referencing The Fountainhead in an ethics discussion or the group arguing about where on the body a third arm should be placed. You can listen to the episode via the Soundcloud link below, or check out the illustrated transcript at the 99% Invisible website.
Photo Credit: Negatives of the Bauhaus
Intellectual property in photography is not black and white; as explained in the podcast, a photo of someone else’s artwork is unlikely to receive credit. Conversely, a photo of a three-dimensional object or scene, such as a building, requires a great deal of compositional skill that makes an image one’s own. Lucia Moholy’s Bauhaus images captured the building and its ethos in an unmistakeable style, and the images went on to help define the world’s understanding of the legendary school.
Moholy’s work often focused on the buildings of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, and her compositions were similarly balanced and simplistic. After the turbulence of the second world war in Germany, Moholy’s negatives were lost. When the pictures started cropping up as promotional and documentarian material for the Bauhaus, it was eventually revealed that Gropius himself had assumed the right to them, essentially having Moholy “written out of the history.”
To hear the full story click on the Soundcloud link below and for more of Moholy’s photographs head to the 99% Invisible website.
News via 99% Invisible.
The skyscraper: representative of spatial economy and a symbol of power. This building typology has a storied, turbulent and even contested past. Here, we bring you a selection some of the skyscrapers and high-rise buildings featured in our AD Classics section.
Among the first skyscrapers built in the world, the Wainwright Building by Louis Sullivan and partner Dankmar Adler is regarded as an influential prototype of a modern skyscraper design. The building aesthetically exemplifies the theories of Sullivan’s tall building, with the tripartite composition of base, shaft and attic, which is based on the structure of the classical column. It’s construction system is based on a steel frame that is clad in masonry and is credited for being the first successful utilization of steel frame construction.
Read more about the Wainwright Building
As one of the most widely recognized buildings in New York City,the Flatiron Building was a daring architectural statement at the turn of the 20th Century. Known for its triangular design at the intersection of 5th Ave. and Broadway, the Flatiron Buildings iconic presence has transformed an entire area of Manhattan into the Flatiron District. The Beaux-Arts styling and detailing give the steel scraper a touch of architectural precedent found Europe at the time.
Read more about the Flatiron Building
The Woolworth Building, an innovative and elegant early skyscraper completed in 1913, endures today as an iconic form on the New York City skyline. A historicist exterior sheaths a modern steel tower, embodying both the era’s modern spirit of progress and its hesitation to fully break from the past. ornate monument to the growing economic dominance of New York City, the building was dubbed the “Cathedral of Commerce.” While initially envisioned as the tallest structure in its neighborhood at 45 stories at 625 feet tall, the final design grew to 60 stories at 792 feet tall, making it the tallest building in the world at the time of its completion.
Read more about the Woolworth Building
Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City) is an unrealized urban masterplan by Le Corbusier, first presented in 1924 and published in a book of the same name in 1933. In accordance with modernist ideals of progress (which encouraged the annihilation of tradition), The Radiant City was to emerge from a tabula rasa: it was to be built on nothing less than the grounds of demolished vernacular European cities. Though radical, strict and nearly totalitarian in its order, symmetry and standardization, Le Corbusier’s proposed principles had an extensive influence on modern urban planning and led to the development of new high-density housing typologies.
Read more about Ville Radieuse
The Chrysler Building by William Van Alen is identifiable from great distances thanks to its distinguishable style and profile in the New York City skyline. Standing 319.5 meters (1048 feet) high, the Chrysler Building houses 77 floors. Its patron intended for it to be the world’s tallest building, but it only remained so for eleven months (until it was surpassed by the Empire State Building) in 1931. The Chrysler Building is a classic example of the Art Deco style, with distinctive ornamentation based on features found on Chrysler automobiles at the time.
Read more about the Chrysler Building
A corporate commitment to innovation combined with Wright’s penchant for visionary design, yielded a pioneering yet challenged structure. An expansion of the company headquarters adjacent to the Wright-designed Administration Building from a decade earlier, the tower design expanded on the architect’s visions for modern workspace and biomimetic structural systems. Floor slabs cantilever from a reinforced concrete “taproot” core, and bands of brick and crystalline glass tubes enclose laboratory spaces. Reverently maintained yet mostly unused by the SC Johnson company today, the tower can be considered either form pursued at the expense of function or a daring architectural accomplishment.
Read more about the SC Johnson Wax Research Tower
Located in the heart of New York City, the Seagram Building designed by Mies van der Rohe epitomizes the elegant principles of modernism. The 38-story building on Park Avenue was Mies’ first attempt at tall office building construction. Mies’ grand gesture with the Seagram Building was to set back the building 100 feet from the street edge, creating a highly active open plaza. The detailing of the exterior surface was carefully determined by the desired exterior expression Mies wanted to achieve. Additional vertical elements were also welded to the window panels not only to stiffen the skin for installation and wind loading, but to aesthetically further enhance the vertical articulation of the building.
Read more about the Seagram Building
In contrast with its traditional Milanese surroundings, the Pirelli Tower is one of the earliest examples of Modern skyscrapers in Italy. Affectionately called “Il Pirellone” (The Big Pirelli), the 127 meter tower stood as Italy’s tallest building from 1958 to 1995. The design of the structure, led by architect/designer Gio Ponti and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, featured a tapered plan—as opposed to the conventional rectilinear volume which was prevalent in America—encouraging greater creative freedom during a time when skyscrapers typically lacked experimentation. Ponti’s slim, 33-story structure appears to shoot up from the ground like a missile, towering over its low-rise context. Centrally located on the project site, the tower is pushed away from the streets.
Read more about the Pirelli Tower
Completed in 1961, the 60 story skyscraper by Gordon Bunshaft of SOM is a coming of age story for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill presence as an national leader of corporate architectural design that evokes efficiency and functionality. Rising 813 feet above the bustling streets of Manhattan, the slender tower only occupies 30% of the 2.5 acre site. The building employed the most readily available and economic materials that were present at the time of construction and is clad in anodized aluminum with a glass and steel facade system.
Read more about Chase Manhattan Plaza
Built in 1964 during his tenure as Dean at the Graduate School of Design, Josep Lluís Sert’s Peabody Terrace provides housing for almost 1500 Harvard graduate students and their families. One of several projects Sert designed for Harvard’s campus, it is a manifestation of his vision for the ideal neighborhood. Many elements such as the negotiation of scale, mixed use program, shared open space and design aesthetic were influenced by but represent a departure from earlier modern housing projects. Peabody Terrace is a prototypical example of a twentieth-century project heralded by the architectural community as an exemplar of progressive modern ideals, but lambasted by neighbors and members of the general public for being unattractive, cold and imposing. Three-story volumes at the perimeter step up to five and seven stories towards the interior. This lower composition of masses is punctuated by three 22 story towers. The gradation in height relates to the adjacent low-rise residential context while also providing the greater density required by the university’s demand for housing.
Read more about Peabody Terrace
Although, it is not as widely recognized as the Sears Tower or the John Hancock Building, Marina City’s distinctive “corn-cob” shape has a strong presence among modern architecture, as well as Chicago’s skyline. The architect, Bertrand Goldberg, thoroughly believed that people wanted to live in downtown Chicago. His approach to Marina City was to design a “city within a city” that could fully accommodate people’s everyday needs and activities just a short distance from their homes. It was a method of bringing suburban commodities and ease of access to an urban setting.
Read more about Marina City
Built in 1967, the building was the first spatial realization of Tange’s Metabolist ideas of organically-inspired structural growth, developed in the late 1950s. The Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center is far more significant than its relatively small size would suggest, encapsulating the concepts of the new Metabolistic order in architecture and urban planning that prevailed in post-World War II Japan.The infrastructural core was a 7.7 meter diameter cylinder, reaching a height of 57 meters, containing stairs, two elevators, and a kitchen and sanitary facilities on each floor. The core served as an access shaft to the modular office units: cantilever glass and steel boxes of 3.5 meters which punctuated the main core on alternating sides.
Read more about the Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center
Towering over the windy city of Chicago, the Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower) was once the tallest building in the world upon its completion in 1973. The “bundled-tube” configuration was innovated by engineer Fazlur R. Khan from SOM, and these nine tubes formed the skyscraper’s basic structure. This system allowed for large open office spaces on the lower levels (where the Sears offices would be located) and smaller floors as the building soared in height with unobstructed views of the city.The structural system also saved ten million dollars in steel costs.
Read more about the Willis Tower (Sears Tower)
A New York City icon that once rivaled structures such as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, colloquially known as the Twin Towers, was one of the most recognized structures in history. Designed by Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki, it held the title of Tallest Building in the World from 1972–1974. Up until its unfortunate demise, the WTC site was a major destination, accommodating 500,000 working people and 80,000 visitors on a typical weekday. The facility was envisioned as a physical expression of world peace and as a place for communication, information, proximity, and face-to-face convenience for a variety of business and financial stakeholders. The two 110-story skyscrapers primarily housed open office space, but also included an underground parking lot for 2000 cars, a tall lobby, and an observation deck. The towers shared a simple plan: a 208-foot by 208-foot square with slightly chamfered corners surrounded an 87-foot by 135-foot core that was comprised of 47 steel columns.
Read more about the World Trade Center
By Sander Lamme – Own work, CC BY 3.0, http://ift.tt/2ccX8MZ
In a city of skyscrapers of nearly every shape and size, the Citigroup Center on Lexington Avenue is one of New York’s most unique. Resting on four stilts perfectly centered on each side, it cantilevers seventy-two feet over the sidewalk and features a trademark 45-degree sloping crown at its summit. The original structure responsible for these striking features also contained a grave oversight that nearly resulted in structural catastrophe, giving the tower the moniker of “the greatest disaster never told” when the story finally was told in 1995. The incredible tale—now legendary among structural engineers—adds a fascinating back-story to one of the most iconic fixtures of the Manhattan skyline. To keep it hyper-efficient and low on mass, the finished structure was built to a minimal safety factor, a decision that would eventually come to haunt the engineers.
Read more about Citigroup Center
It may be the single most important architectural detail of the last fifty years. Emerging bravely from the glassy sea of Madison Avenue skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan, the open pediment atop Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s 1984 AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower) singlehandedly turned the architectural world on its head. This playful deployment of historical quotation explicitly contradicted modernist imperatives and heralded the mainstream arrival of an approach to design defined instead by a search for architectural meaning.While the building’s most iconic feature may be its “Chippendale Top,” a moniker it acquired for the pediment’s resemblance to the furniture maker’s classic highboy chests, perhaps the formal elements most illustrative of Postmodern sensibilities occur 647 feet below at ground level. There, a soaring entrance portico suggestive of great Italian arcades immediately removes visitors from the modern Manhattan neighborhood.
Read more about the AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower)
The design of PPG Place, by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, melds the notion of the modern corporate tower with a neo-gothic monument. It is a cluster of 6 volumes: a 40 story tower, a 14 story volume, and four 6 story buildings. The composition of lower volumes negotiates the verticality of the main tower and the lower surrounding context, yet all buildings are materially integrated and organized around a central plaza. Clad in almost a million square feet of glass manufactured by the anchor tenant PPG industries, the architects ingeniously rethought accepted practices in curtain wall design. The 1.57 million square foot complex was one in a series of high profile corporate projects completed during Johnson’s controversial foray into postmodernism.
Read more about PPG Place
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What other skyscrapers and high-rise buildings would you like to see in our Classics section? Tell us in the comments!
This Kickstarter-funded electric bicycle has been tailored to the demands of city riding with a quick-folding mechanism and remote locking system (+ movie). (more…)
Sig Nordal 