The Pursuit of the Future: an Investigation into a Sustainable Office Tower

The City of New York has long been known to be one of the most influential cities in the world for corporations. It is a hotbed for talent and innovation alike. It is a city that never sleeps and often times forces employees, whom are just trying to make a name for themselves, to work 60+ hours a week in cramped conditions. In surveying the city, it is prevalent that there is a lack of sustainable office buildings which in return has adverse effects on the employees’ health and productivity. Corporations are continuously transform their practices and missions to be in line with the twenty-first century consumer. They are forced to house their businesses in buildings that do not reflect what they are preaching and are causing more harm than good on our environment. This project will work to investigate the Midtown East Business District Rezoning and look to employ the ideas it produces to one of the fourteen available sites within the district. The project will involve completely dismantling and demolishing an existing twenty-two story building and replacing it with a new efficient and sustainable tower for the twenty first century. It is provocative project; a project meant to inspire and generate conversation about building tectonics and create controversy

The Pursuit of the Future: an Investigation into a Sustainable Office Tower

The City of New York has long been known to be one of the most influential cities in the world for corporations. It is a hotbed for talent and innovation alike. It is a city that never sleeps and often times forces employees, whom are just trying to make a name for themselves, to work 60+ hours a week in cramped conditions. In surveying the city, it is prevalent that there is a lack of sustainable office buildings which in return has adverse effects on the employees’ health and productivity. Corporations are continuously transform their practices and missions to be in line with the twenty-first century consumer. They are forced to house their businesses in buildings that do not reflect what they are preaching and are causing more harm than good on our environment. This project will work to investigate the Midtown East Business District Rezoning and look to employ the ideas it produces to one of the fourteen available sites within the district. The project will involve completely dismantling and demolishing an existing twenty-two story building and replacing it with a new efficient and sustainable tower for the twenty first century. It is provocative project; a project meant to inspire and generate conversation about building tectonics and create controversy

ER stress and the unfolded protein response in neurodegeneration.

The clinical manifestation of neurodegenerative diseases is initiated by the selective alteration in the functionality of distinct neuronal populations. The pathology of many neurodegenerative diseases includes accumulation of misfolded proteins in the brain. In physiological conditions, the proteostasis network maintains normal protein folding, trafficking and degradation; alterations in this network - particularly disturbances to the function of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) - are thought to contribute to abnormal protein aggregation. ER stress triggers a signalling reaction known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), which induces adaptive programmes that improve protein folding and promote quality control mechanisms and degradative pathways or can activate apoptosis when damage is irreversible. In this Review, we discuss the latest advances in defining the functional contribution of ER stress to brain diseases, including novel evidence that relates the UPR to synaptic function, which has implications for cognition and memory. A complex concept is emerging wherein the consequences of ER stress can differ drastically depending on the disease context and the UPR signalling pathway that is altered. Strategies to target specific components of the UPR using small molecules and gene therapy are in development, and promise interesting avenues for future interventions to delay or stop neurodegeneration