Expanding the scope of architectural education: creating a culture of global citizenship for students

This paper describes an alternative model of community-engaged architecture teaching, bridging professional practice activities and speculative studio-based reflections by enabling experimentation within the context of the needs of communities. Our unique teaching framework uses a project entitled Crossing Cultures as its vehicle of investigation to experiment with forms of integration of refugees into depopulated Italian villages, whilst offering students to positively impact and become an integral part of this new community, thereby, ensuring its continuity long-term. Such pedagogical experiments provide an education beyond architecture, and shape society by teaching citizenship to students

Comparing surface-soil moisture from the SMOS mission and the ORCHIDEE land-surface model over the Iberian Peninsula

The aim of this study is to compare the surface soil moisture (SSM) retrieved from ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) with the output of the ORCHIDEE (ORganising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic EcosystEm) land surface model forced with two distinct atmospheric data sets for the period 2010 to 2012. The comparison methodology is first established over the REMEDHUS (Red de Estaciones de MEDición de la Humedad def Suelo) soil moisture measurement network, a 30 by 40. km catchment located in the central part of the Duero basin, then extended to the whole Iberian Peninsula (IP). The temporal correlation between the in-situ, remotely sensed and modelled SSM are satisfactory (r. >. 0.8). The correlation between remotely sensed and modelled SSM also holds when computed over the IP. Still, by using spectral analysis techniques, important disagreements in the effective inertia of the corresponding moisture reservoir are found. This is reflected in the spatial correlation over the IP between SMOS and ORCHIDEE SSM estimates, which is poor (¿. ~. 0.3). A single value decomposition (SVD) analysis of rainfall and SSM shows that the co-varying patterns of these variables are in reasonable agreement between both products. Moreover the first three SVD soil moisture patterns explain over 80% of the SSM variance simulated by the model while the explained fraction is only 52% of the remotely sensed values. These results suggest that the rainfall-driven soil moisture variability may not account for the poor spatial correlation between SMOS and ORCHIDEE products.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Crossing cultures

The title suggests journeys and mixing of cultures. The project brings depopulated Italian villages in close proximity with a growing need to integrate refugees arriving on its southern coast. This is an on-going research project based in the small abandoned mountain village Belmonte Calabro in Southern Italy, which started in summer 2016. The region is currently a frontier for migrants and refugees from West Africa, attempting to gain access to Europe, as well as a frontier for Italians, attempting to sustain their towns against the magnetic influence of the growing cities. The project focuses on the development of public spaces and buildings which can enrich the everyday life of the town, steered through consultations with key players which include refugees and inhabitants. These dialogues address the challenging aspects of Belmonte’s future - currently a derelict town at the fulcrum of migration from the southern hemisphere. The problematic, but potentially fortunate coincidence of these two is the need to settle and (re)build local communities, which is fuelling the subject of inter-disciplinary cultural integration in a wider sense. The project was developed after a student led summer workshop, which casts its nets wider than the academic studio: This brought various government stakeholders in holistic dialogue with Cass students and tutors, seeing this collaboration as an innovative contribution to the ontology of practice. Our working method has involved discussions with refugees, town inhabitants, school children, local and regional government, asking how this inevitable crossing of cultures - induced by global politics - can continue to create the richness of architectural setting already enjoyed as part of Italian culture and at the same time develop the skills that empower both, brief encounters and settled stays. Resulting from investigative workshops earlier in the year, the projects developed during the past academic session have been speculative. This paper highlights participatory events based on our previous speculations, organised by La Rivoluzione di Seppiei- an active ensemble interested in exploring the boundaries of practice and education. Our endeavour is to surface Belmonte’s cultural memory through participatory practices and to re-imagine the village’s identity. Our interests have therefore explored both, theories on cultural memory and on participatory systems of governance. It is worth noting that the Calabrian virtue fortunately is hospitality, and as such Crossing Cultures have been practiced in their cuisine, customs and architectures for centuries. As a result, our group of architecture tutors and students have sensed little estrangement as curiously we are but another foreigner engaged in dialogue along a border of history, culture and human finitude

Shelter for the sharks

This document takes the form of a newspaper and documents the work that Architecture Studio 3 at The Cass has done to explore the use of a shipping container to provide shelter for a canoeing club “The Sharks” in Hayes, West London. All projects illustrated in the newspaper aim to contribute to communities wider than canoeists and the canal, and to provide sites that can contribute to strategic urban development. The work shows how a shipping container can provide a flexible, low cost, robust and easy transportable module. Students continued working with the canoeing club to develop and deliver a shelter for The Sharks in Hayes. The work of the students and the dissemination to a wider audience has impacted on a housing development by the canal, and lead to the inclusion of a canoe club as a public amenity

Making masks for maternity staff

Despite self-isolation, social distancing and NHS work during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sandra Denicke-Polcher and Anna Lawin-O’Brien found a way to make a joyous difference, connecting the community with healthcare providers on the shop floor. The article describes an initiative to provide face masks for NHS and key workers by connecting a community of home makers throughout the UK, with benefits to both, makers and receivers

Effects of Land-Surface-Vegetation on theboreal summer surface climate of a GCM

A land surface model (LSM) has been included in the ECMWF Hamburg version 4 (ECHAM4) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). The LSM is an early version of the Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) and it replaces the simple land surface scheme previously included in ECHAM4. The purpose of this paper is to document how a more exhaustive consideration of the land surface–vegetation processes affects the simulated boreal summer surface climate. To investigate the impacts on the simulated climate, different sets of Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-type simulations have been performed with ECHAM4 alone and with the AGCM coupled with ORCHIDEE. Furthermore, to assess the effects of the increase in horizontal resolution the coupling of ECHAM4 with the LSM has been implemented at different horizontal resolutions. The analysis reveals that the LSM has large effects on the simulated boreal summer surface climate of the atmospheric model. Considerable impacts are found in the surface energy balance due to changes in the surface latent heat fluxes over tropical and midlatitude areas covered with vegetation. Rainfall and atmospheric circulation are substantially affected by these changes. In particular, increased precipitation is found over evergreen and summergreen vegetated areas. Because of the socioeconomical relevance, particular attention has been devoted to the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) region. The results of this study indicate that precipitation over the Indian subcontinent is better simulated with the coupled ECHAM4–ORCHIDEE model compared to the atmospheric model alone

Building civic pride

Can we instigate public pride? This question was explored during 2013-14 in the Architecture Undergraduate Studio 3 at The Cass. The booklet discusses how civic pride has been constructed throughout history and how this is still crucial to positively build public space. It illustrates the case studies students studied in order to develop their own proposals for their sites in Hayes, West London. Students tested their proposals with "conversation kits" on the Austin Estate in Hayes, and finalised the year with architectural designs developed from these 1:1 kits

A comprehensive approach to analyze discrepancies between land surface models and in-situ measurements: a case study over the US and Illinois with SECHIBA forced by NLDAS

The purpose of this study is to test the ability of the Land Surface Model SECHIBA to simulate water budget and particularly soil moisture at two different scales: regional and local. The model is forced by NLDAS data set at 1/8th degree resolution over the 1997–1999 period. SECHIBA gives satisfying results in terms of evapotranspiration and runoff over the US compared with four other land surface models, all forced by NLDAS data set for a common time period. The simulated soil moisture is compared to in-situ data from the Global Soil Moisture Database across Illinois by computing a soil wetness index. A comprehensive approach is performed to test the ability of SECHIBA to simulate soil moisture with a gradual change of the vegetation parameters closely related to the experimental conditions. With default values of vegetation parameters, the model overestimates soil moisture, particularly during summer. Sensitivity tests of the model to the change of vegetation parameters show that the roots extraction parameter has the largest impact on soil moisture, other parameters such as LAI, height or soil resistance having a minor impact. Moreover, a new evapotranspiration computation including bare soil evaporation under vegetation has been introduced into the model. The results point out an improvement of the soil moisture simulation when this effect is taken into account. Finally, soil moisture sensitivity to precipitation variation is addressed and it is shown that soil moisture observations can be rather different, depending on the method of measuring field capacity. When the observed field capacity is deducted from the observed volumetric water profiles, simulated soil wetness index is closer to the observations