141 research outputs found
From Ornament to Building Material: Revisiting the Aesthetics and Function of Green Architecture
Housing Design: Furniture or Fixtures? Accommodating Change through Technological and Typological Innovation
The recent global pandemic has sped up architectural research in residential design aimed at rethinking housing layouts, services, and construction methods to accommodate the changing needs of the rapidly evolving contemporary society. New typological and technological design approaches are required to address, on the one hand, the adaptability of the plan as a result of higher flexibility and temporariness in familiar and working patterns, together with a downsizing of the layouts to ensure affordability and quality of life. On the other hand, the issues of sustainability and circular economy require specific attention to interpret the resilience of the building and the reuse/recycle of the fit-out systems. The paper aims at interpreting the notion of integration between fixtures and furnishing in housing design, based on a comprehensive literature review enriched with a case study analysis that shows design concepts and approaches rooted in theories and experiences of 20th-century architecture. Principles, potentials, and barriers to the development of integrated systems are highlighted and the possible implementation of industrialised production components, the potential for modularity, flexibility, and assembly are discussed
Aminata Fall & Reinhard Haas (Eds) Sustainable Energy Access for Communities. Rethinking the Energy Agenda for Cities
The architecture of energy systems between technological innovation and environment
This paper has the aim of defining possible interpretive models concerning the integration of energy infrastructures
and landscape, highlighting emerging issues and drafting future paths for further development through technological
innovation of energy systems and beyond. A taxonomy of different design approaches is disclosed, portraying
different energy landscapes and supported by a selection of case studies (built and concepts) in a historical perspective.
Whilst the research towards alternative sources of energy has recently downsized, albeit considered determining
at the beginning of the century, technological change moves towards the enhancement of the existing common
sources, an incremental innovation which benefits from well-established experiences and therefore affordable in
terms of availability and size of investments. Product innovation trends are directed towards an increased upgrading
and advancement in order to develop flexibility in architectural integration or to improve energy storage systems for
a widespread uptake of microgeneration. Finally, the paper emphasizes the need for an active, bottom-up involvement
of society in the energy transition and thus in landscape transformation, a perspective requiring a rethinking of
energy laws and market regulations still strongly related to top-down energy policies and oligopoly
The Magnitude of Global Marine Species Diversity
Background: The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discovered.
Results: There are ∼226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (∼20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are ∼170,000 synonyms, that 58,000–72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000–741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may be 0.7–1.0 million marine species. Past rates of description of new species indicate there may be 0.5 ± 0.2 million marine species. On average 37% (median 31%) of species in over 100 recent field studies around the world might be new to science.
Conclusions: Currently, between one-third and two-thirds of marine species may be undescribed, and previous estimates of there being well over one million marine species appear highly unlikely. More species than ever before are being described annually by an increasing number of authors. If the current trend continues, most species will be discovered this century
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