Johnathan Andrew Farris, Enclave to Urbanity: Canton, Foreigners, and Architecture from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

Johnathan Farris’s Enclave to Urbanity: Canton, Foreigners, and Architecture from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries presents a meticulous and amusing account of cross-cultural interactions in Guangzhou (Canton). During the period covered by the volume, Guangzhou was transformed from a late imperial Chinese port city for Euro-American trade into a rapidly modernizing city in China’s Republican era. Farris’s thoroughly researched book focuses specifically on the changing arch..

Assessment of the Carbon Footprint, Social Benefit of Carbon Reduction, and Energy Payback Time of a High-Concentration Photovoltaic System

Depleting fossil fuel sources and worsening global warming are two of the most serious world problems. Many renewable energy technologies are continuously being developed to overcome these challenges. Among these technologies, high-concentration photovoltaics (HCPV) is a promising technology that reduces the use of expensive photovoltaic materials to achieve highly efficient energy conversion. This reduction process is achieved by adopting concentrating and tracking technologies. This study intends to understand and assess the carbon footprint and energy payback time (EPBT) of HCPV modules during their entire life cycles. The social benefit of carbon reduction is also evaluated as another indicator to assess the energy alternatives. An HCPV module and a tracker from the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) were applied, and SimaPro 8.0.2 was used for the assessment. The functional unit used in this study was 1 kWh, which is produced by HCPV, and inventory data was sourced from Ecoinvent 3.0 and the Taiwan carbon footprint calculation database. The carbon footprint, EPBT, and social benefit of carbon reduction were evaluated as 107.69 g CO2eq/kWh, 2.61 years, and 0.022 USD/kWh, respectively. Direct normal irradiation (DNI), life expectancy, and the degradation rate of HCPV system were subjected to sensitivity analysis. Results show that the influence of lifetime assumption under a low DNI value is greater than those under high DNI values. Degradation rate is also another important factor when assessing the carbon footprint of HCPV under a low DNI value and a long lifetime assumption. The findings of this study can provide several insights for the development of the Taiwanese solar industry

The space of diplomacy

This thematic section of ABE features contributions on the role and meanings of embassies and other structures designed for diplomacy, in urban fabrics situated east and south of the Mediterranean. Albeit inherently representative objects, embassies are seldom considered as architectural signifiers, or as parts of the cultural landscape of a city. Starting from Addis Abeba and moving on to Ankara, Kabul and Beijing, the four papers of the section show that while the architecture of diplomacy displaces a fragment of the nation beyond its territorial borders, this movement is never limited to the transfer of technologies and architectural styles. The making of diplomatic landmarks can be assessed as a dialogic process of space production, entailing negotiation and domestication in the foreign context, appropriation and reworking of local symbolic and material resources, interaction with the surrounding social and physical landscape