New York City – New York – USA (by August Brill) 

New York City – New York – USA (by August Brill

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Top 10 Tips to Help Children Develop Useful Habits

Being a good parent means helping your kids acquire healthy habits and helping them drop the bad ones. It doesn’t matter whether your child is a toddler or a teenager, there is always time for you to help and motivate your children to be better people by aiding them and setting an example.

However, with the sheer amount of pressure every parent experiences when trying to raise children, they might often feel helpless and desperate. Parents might not know what healthy habits are of the biggest priority for children and where the best place to start is.

This might be a bit overwhelming considering that the problems your children need help with vary greatly, from providing help with term paper writing to picking sports to practice. To help you along, we have created a list of things you definitely should teach your child regardless of their age.

Eat healthy food

This might be one of the most simple habits your child should be introduced to. By feeding them healthy products, you will increase their energy and promote better well-being.

However, as children tend to like unhealthy foods more, introducing them to this habit might not be the easiest task. So, make sure to be a good example for them because no matter what you teach them, if they see you eating pizza for dinner while they have to eat broccoli, it will only make them angry.

Some households are successful in getting their children to eat healthy by not introducing junk foods into their diet at all and letting children understand the benefits of healthy eating.

Also, it might be easier if you make eating healthy into a fun activity. An example would be creating pictures out of food. Check out bento boxes for inspiration.

See Also: Four Simple Ways to Teach Your Kids to Say “NO” to Junk Foods

Say no to gadgets

If you can’t keep your children from using their gadgets, at least limit the time and duration that they are used. For instance, you can ask them to spend up to twenty minutes a day watching their favorite cartoons.

On top of that, you can use this time as a reward for helping family members or for doing the homework. This way, you are hitting two birds with one stone.

Also, make sure you are a good example for them here as well. If you cannot spend even a few moments without your cell phone, your kids will surely pick up the same habits.

Quality family time

family quality time

Spending quality family time is an investment for your children. Not only are you creating many happy memories for your children, you are also teaching them how precious the family is.

So, consider planning family trips or celebrating certain holidays only in the family circle and involve your children in making preparations.

Playing sports

Taking care of your health is vital. However, not all parents can be considered as role models for their kids in this area. Some parents are too stressed at work while some run away from exercise.

Show your children that taking care of one’s health is a priority. Get involved in some kind of sport with your kids and inculcate it as a habit.

Life values

It is from parents that we learn our values first. They teach us responsibility, accountability, and selflessness.

Therefore, if you want your child to grow up to be mature and grown-up, be the kind of person you want them to be. You are the first and the most important role model for them.

Being positive

Don’t be a negative person. Try to cheer your children up even when things are not going as well as you would want them to. You can always find a bright side and encourage your whole family.

By choosing a positive path, you will improve your children’s future. In comparison, being a negative person will definitely affect their own personalities and well-being.

Realistic goals

People often get frustrated after they fail to achieve goals they set. They feel like a failure, even though they are not.

Sometimes, failing is a byproduct of setting unrealistic goals. Therefore, to keep your children happy and going, teach them to set realistic goals and then to go on from there.

Teach them to break up their ambitions into doable tasks and challenges, all the while working towards their bigger dreams.

Saying “no”

Many people regret not having this habit. We cannot say “no” even when we know that we cannot fulfill what people ask us for. We tend to try and please everyone, and we mostly pick it up after our parents who either used to be like this or set huge expectations we could not meet. Thus, teach your children to say “no”, and they will be forever grateful to you.

Being a good friend

being a good friend

This habit is a key to a successful life. We never feel like a failure when we have friends who can help us get through life’s darkest moments. Therefore, teaching your children how to make genuine friends and what it means to be a good friend themselves is truly a blessing. First, be a good friend to your kids, and then encourage them making friends with kids of their age.

Honesty

And finally, we come to honesty. Teach your children how to be true to themselves, their friends, and to you. Help them understand that lying or pretending never works as a lie is always found out in the end. To be happy and satisfied, they have to be real and true to what they believe in.

If parents teach their children these simple yet powerful habits, parents will see a real miracle of how a small helpless child grows to be a healthy young person of great value.

See Also: 11 Ways Parents Can Help Children Do Better In School

 

The post Top 10 Tips to Help Children Develop Useful Habits appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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“Hardcore Heritage”: How RAAAF is Redefining Historical Preservation


Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as “‘Hardcore Heritage’: RAAAF Reveals Its Latest Experiment in Historical Preservation.”

In the practice of historic preservation, there is often a temptation to turn a building into an object on display—meticulously restored, unchanging, physically isolated—in order to remove it from the flow of history. The multidisciplinary Amsterdam-based studio Rietveld-Architecture-Art-Affordances (RAAAF) situates itself in opposition to this method of dealing with architectural remnants. Instead, it proposes to make history tangible by altering these decaying structures in a way that makes their stories plainly visible. The practice has a name for this approach—”hardcore heritage.”

Founded and led by brothers Ronald and Erik Rietveld, RAAAF has completed several projects that together form a kind of built manifesto for hardcore heritage, with the next iteration due out in 2018. The procedure changes with each project—there are excavations, but also deletions—but in every case, the end result charges them with a new special significance. In Ronald’s words, the works are “about the spatial experience that triggers imagination.”

The first stirrings came in Vacant NL, the studio’s installation for the Dutch pavilion at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, which cataloged thousands of vacant properties in the Netherlands. The Rietvelds see these dormant structures as resources to be awakened and reused—and their most famous project shows how it can be done.


Bunker 599, which cut a 19th-century concrete pillbox in half, sheds new light on Dutch and UNESCO policies on cultural heritage while making people look at their surroundings in a new way. Image © Allard Bovenberg

Bunker 599, which cut a 19th-century concrete pillbox in half, sheds new light on Dutch and UNESCO policies on cultural heritage while making people look at their surroundings in a new way. Image © Allard Bovenberg

Bunker 599, designed with Atelier de Lyon, made the team aware of the vast challenges in preserving structures so they can be truly reused, not just conserved as museum pieces or recycled as anchors for retail. The project entailed reviving a concrete bunker by cutting it in half, transforming it from an inert solid sitting in the landscape to something that could be walked through and interacted with. But experimental approaches like these can often be difficult to mount, Ronald says, because local authorities are wary of diverting public funds to them: “There is a lack of vision on this topic; policies concerning heritage are far too conservative.”


After Image shows the world below the Netherlands’ terrain, constructed on millions of pillars. RAAAF’s intervention reveals part of the exciting underworld of a former sugar silo, where uncovering the foundation of just one silo exposes an enormous concrete cathedral below ground. Image Courtesy of RAAAF

After Image shows the world below the Netherlands’ terrain, constructed on millions of pillars. RAAAF’s intervention reveals part of the exciting underworld of a former sugar silo, where uncovering the foundation of just one silo exposes an enormous concrete cathedral below ground. Image Courtesy of RAAAF

Named a Dutch national monument two years after it opened in 2010, Bunker 599 has thankfully opened up the door to other hardcore heritage undertakings. For instance, After Image, an excavated “forest” of concrete foundation piers that stand beneath a demolished sugar factory in Groningen, is set to open in 2018.


Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

And if the renderings are anything to go by, RAAF’s latest will bring their plays in mass and scale to an altogether more powerful level. Deltawerk 1:1 adapts another Dutch national monument, a portion of the former Dutch hydrodynamics laboratory at Waterloopbos, which once tested one-to-one scale models of engineered water defenses. Now sitting empty, RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon propose excavating the 820-foot-long concrete structure to fully reveal its enormous volume.


Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

Rendering of Deltawerk 1:1. Image Courtesy of RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon

The final stage of the project will involve cutting panels from the tank’s walls and turning them 90 degrees. Their huge size and precarious positions recall images of seemingly robust and monumental objects tossed around by wind, storms, floods, or waves. As the seasons change, daylight will spotlight different facets of the structure, even as its original use becomes more and more forgotten. Ronald hopes that it will “open up ways of interpreting history toward the future, rather than just telling stories from the past.”

The designers are looking into how their unique take on preservation can be adopted beyond the Netherlands, where they would have greater opportunities to generate the new from the old, rather than simply halting decay. That is the urgent next step, Ronald says. “Preservation by itself doesn’t bring us further into the future. We need radical new perspectives.”

RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon Reveal a Monumental Tribute to the Dutch Delta Works in Waterloopbos

See more of the Deltawerk 1:1 project here.

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Want to Understand the Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East? Start Here.


© <a href='http://ift.tt/2ie4vFf user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

© <a href='http://ift.tt/2ie4vFf user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

The Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative has organized a collection of essays, entitled The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Napoléon to ISIS, which examines several centuries of the demolition of monuments in the Middle East. With world events like ISIS and the protection of architectural heritage growing to be more and more topical, this collection is a useful tool in considering the role of violence, how ancient architecture is perceived as a cultural entity, what role the media has to play, and beyond.


Tetrapylon in the Great Collonnade. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2iea1Yu user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>


Palmyra site overview. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvNzG user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>


Arch of Triumph (detail), destroyed by ISIS, October 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ie7w8s user Alessandra Kocman</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2az4bMy BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>


Temple of Bel, Destroyed by ISIS, August 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ieexG9 user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>


Palmyra site overview. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvNzG user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

Palmyra site overview. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvNzG user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

In the essay collection, prominent scholars in the field discuss the above issues and more in the hope of expanding readers’ frames of reference concerning the nuanced issue of threatened monuments. For example, the introductory essay of the series delves into the historic destruction of cultural heritage, as well as changing motivations for destruction, and the use of documentary imagery to accentuate violence and evoke horror.


Arch of Triumph (detail), destroyed by ISIS, October 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ie7w8s user Alessandra Kocman</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2az4bMy BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>

Arch of Triumph (detail), destroyed by ISIS, October 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ie7w8s user Alessandra Kocman</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2az4bMy BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>

This and other essays go on to discuss various views on the subject, including the role of museums in cultural destruction, how Islamic culture is perceived abroad, how cultural damage affects local citizens, whether buildings deserve the same protections as people, Napoleonic forms of looting, and how the structure behind war can be influenced to prevent destruction.


Temple of Bel, Destroyed by ISIS, August 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ieexG9 user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

Temple of Bel, Destroyed by ISIS, August 2015. Image © <a href='http://ift.tt/2ieexG9 user Jiří Suchomel</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2jdvwwD BY-NC 2.0</a>

Learn more about The Destruction of Cultural Heritage by reading the full essay collection here.


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Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine / MLB Architects


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich


© Wieland Gleich


© Wieland Gleich


© Wieland Gleich


© Wieland Gleich

  • Architects: MLB Architects
  • Location: Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Architects In Charge: Erik Janse van Rensburg, Peter Kraus, Xico Meirelles
  • Area: 10000.0 ft2
  • Project Year: 2014
  • Photographs: Wieland Gleich
  • Client Team (Su Facilities Management):: Gretha Jacobs, Maggie Walters, Kevin Matthew, Anton Kriel, Junaid Gafieldien
  • Structural Engineers: KFD Wilkinson Consulting Engineers
  • Mechanical Engineers: Triocon Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd.
  • Electrical Engineers: Triocon Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd.
  • Acoustic Engineers: Andrew Wade – Sound Research Laboratories – South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
  • Landscape Architect: Danielle Cloete DCLA
  • Quantity Surveyor: DV Boland Consulting (Pty) Ltd.
  • Consultants/Other Specialists: Health & Safety Consultant: Safe Smart

© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

The client for this project was SU’s Facilities Management,with the end user being SU’s Faculty of Medicine. The brief called for two 450 seater auditoriums, with break out areas. The budget was tight, the program fast-tracked and siting crucial.   


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

This building had to be located close to the existing Teaching Hub, while not affecting campus parking & landscaping. Of the three potential sites identified, this one was selected for its ability to comply with the above prerequisites, while offering more. 


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

By ‘docking’ into the Teaching Hub, with auditoriums straddling the axis, the opportunity arose to create a new iconic entrance. This also reinforced the axis, linking the Student Union to the Teaching Hub, bringing it indoors, transforming the row of trees into columns. 


Ground Floor Plan

Ground Floor Plan

Scale & Massing were important urban design considerations. A low profile was maintained, so to not block a visual connection to the Teaching Hub building behind it. Even so, ± 4,5m internal ceiling heights were maintained appropriately-scaled to internal public space. 


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

The Tygerberg campus lacked a focal outdoor space, as in UCT’s Jameson steps. These new entrance steps were thus designed to establish symbolic interface. The platforms out of which steps were carved, also serve as seats, while also having planters for trees. 


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

The low profile also gave the building good human scale. Straddling the 2 auditoriums over an axis,created the opportunity for a looser composition of solids. These were fronted by a biomorphic break out area, its asymmetry held together by the axis cutting through it.


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

The West-facing, glazed ‘fish bowl’, break-out area presented its own difficulties, which in turn, triggered design solutions. Firstly was the need for precise sun control measures. Secondly the quest to also capture good outward views to the campus gardens.  


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

A layer of vertical sun control fins was thus added to the West elevation, manufactured from Hulabond sandwich panels, perforated with stylized DNA patterns. The patterns & signage were designed in collaboration with renowned graphic designer, Robin Lancaster.


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

Considerable effort went into auditorium design – size, shape, raking, seating, finishes, lighting & services. The faceted plan was found to be efficient for sight-lines, acoustics & distance from lecturer, while strict lines of geometry where imposed on services, for visual order. 


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

A complex arrangement of communication, climate control, power, lighting, audio visual, acoustic & fire detection services were incorporated. The consultant team was managed by a high level of coordination, to achieve functionally efficient, visually uncluttered interiors.


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

Product Description.

The most significant material used in the project is that of the Hulabond aluminum screens.

Part of the client’s vision was to have break-way spaces from the main auditorium that would have a visual connection with the campus surroundings. Due to the orientation of the new building with relation to the old, a clear, unshaded Western façade was not possible. In response to this climatic barrier, the architects decided to introduce vertical sunscreens that were pivoted in such a way that the sun would be blocked out, and the view only partially obscured. 


© Wieland Gleich

© Wieland Gleich

Using aluminum made sense for various reasons. The product is light weight which made the manufacturing of these large fins easy. Being in a coastal area the corrosive properties and durability of the material is also advantages. From an aesthetic point of view, aluminum has a clean and contemporary appearance and could be punctured with a DNA pattern to let in additional filtered light. 

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Cities Need Change: The Durability of Jane Jacob’s Legacy

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In an exclusive half-hour episode focusing on the life and legacy of Jane Jacobs, “one of the most influential urban thinkers and city activists of our time.” Featuring interviews with a carefully selected range of city planners, historians and activists, alongside recordings of Jacobs herself, this special episode of Monocle 24’s The Urbanist examines why Jacobs was—and remains—so influential when considering the contemporary city.





Opinion: Why Our Cities Need Less Jane Jacobs
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Daniele Petteno Architecture Workshop Modernizes a Tiny Apartment for a Young Family in London, England

Nevern Square Apartment by Daniele Petteno Architecture (1)

“Micro living” might be all the rage in some cities right now, but that doesn’t mean anyone’s prepared to live in a tiny space if they don’t have the kind of furniture, style, and organizational skill that goes with making a very small apartment into a functioning home. In big cities like London, England, however, families are often left with no choice if they want to live right in the..

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💙 The Lagazuoi… on 500px by Massimo Pistone, La…

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Five of the best home gyms for working off the Christmas bulge

Gym roundup

New Year’s resolutions dictate the annual renewal of an unused gym membership but, for those still unwilling to leave the lounge behind we’ve rounded up five of the best home workout spaces, from punch bags that keep you fit while you type to a basketball court that doubles as an entrance hall.


Gym roundup

Basketball Court House, Japan, by Koizumi Sekkei

An indoor basketball court takes the place of an entrance hall in this home in eastern Japan designed by Koizumi Sekkei. Rooms surround the wooden court, but are protected from stray balls by sliding doors and metal grilles.

Find out more about Basketball Court House ›


Gym roundup
Photograph by Adrien Williams

In Suspension, Canada, by Naturehumaine

A pair of gymnast’s rings dangle from the ceiling of this Montreal home renovated by Naturehumaine to create a workout space for the client’s athletic children. The apparatus is installed in a double-height atrium and overlooked from a gallery above.

Find out more about In Suspension ›


workout_computer_innes_kaag_desiree_heiss

Workout Computer by Ines Kaag and Desiree Heiss

Punch bags take the place of keyboard keys in this conceptual computer by Ines Kaag and Desiree Heiss – the perfect home office for a fitness fiend. The designers developed the Workout Computer to “blur the boundaries between working in the office and working out”.

Find out more about Workout Computer ›


Gym roundup
Photograph by Ewout Huibers

Zoku hotel, Netherlands, by Concrete

Gymnast’s hoops allow guests at this Amsterdam hotel an impromptu workout. Concrete styled this suite and 132 others in the same block as micro apartments, giving guests all the amenities they might expect at home.

Find out more about Zoku hotel ›


Gym roundup

Cache Creek Residence, America, by Carney Logan Burke

Brightly coloured foot- and hand-holds form a climbing wall at one side of this corrugated metal-clad house in Wyoming by Carney Logan Burke.

Find out more about Cache Creek Residence ›

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