Gimme shelter: Destruction and Reconstruction Landscapes from the Tecton's Air Raid Precautious Plan for Finsbury Borough

In March 1939, a small-scale exhibition showing the borough's Air-Raid Precautious policy opened at Finsbury, London. The show exhibited and publicized a scheme for heavily protected underground shelters, commissioned to Tecton architects, assisted by engineer Ove Arup. Far later, after the publication of 'Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie, Instructions pratiques sur la defense passive' and illustrated proposal on air-war Le Corbusier's 'The Radiant City,' the exhibition produced a wide impression on the British public and enlarged the debate on architecture of shelters in Great Britain. Soon after, The Architectural Press published an enlarged version of Tecton-Arup's scheme for Finsbury, titled 'Planned ARP.' Martin Pawley, John Allen, Keith Mallory and Arvid Ottar had demonstrated how much the scheme is a key experience about air-raid passive defense, refuge architecture and construction strategies for urban structures during WWII. This paper will attempt to show that, as part of Berthold Lubetkin's design activity for a larger program of social building and regeneration in the borough of Finsbury, the shelters project not only reflected a deep engagement in the reform of architecture towards a 'modernist' construction attitude to war, but is also an unique case study to understand mutations in architecture from peace to war time, and from war to peace time again. If the adaptation of social and urban survey's methods to decide the size of the shelters and to planning their suitable locations illustrate the redirection of techniques towards military logistics, the spiral ramped accommodation in the shelters, designed to convert to car-parking use in peacetime, proves a practice of war-architecture as 'not a small-term response to extraordinary events but permanent investments in urban infrastructure'. At another level, before the anxious depiction of a scared humanity in London subway by Henry More became an icon of human experience at 'the age of mechanical' war, the didactic attitude of Gordon Cullen's diagrams--at that time working as free lance illustrator for Tecton--seems to communicate all the reassuring qualities of modern construction face to the war. Powerful imagery of the results of building fabric collapse due to high explosive bombs produced by Cullen don't remove the danger, but send its solution not to a individual, traditional domestic landscape, or to 'a shelter which people could use in their own homes', as proposed by the Home Ministry. They dialog with the light, progressive and fluid constructions of collective 'heavily protected shelters', and offer 'protection of civilian population rather than mere accommodation'. In this sense the representation of a destruction-scape has its double not only in the safety and quiet gestures of plastic human figures that live the cutaway models of Tecton, but also in a horizon of community in which the collective value (and living) of buildings during war give sense to design. It argues for a future of planned reconstructed-scapes that counterattacks the dispersal of population in the countryside proposed by a scarcely present Government and announce the disaster of Subtopia of the after-war period.Conference co-organized by the Institute of Fine Arts; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; and Princeton University's School of Architecture

CNS inflammatory demyelinating events after COVID-19 vaccines: A case series and systematic review

BackgroundVaccinations provided the most effective tool to fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It is now well established that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for the general population; however, some cases of rare adverse events following immunization have been described, including CNS Inflammatory Demyelinating Events (CIDEs). Although observational studies are showing that these events are rare and vaccines' benefits highly outweigh the risks, collecting and characterizing post-COVID-19 vaccine CIDEs might be relevant to single out potential risk factors and suggest possible underlying mechanisms. MethodsHere we describe six CIDEs, including two acute transverse myelitis (ATM), three multiple sclerosis (MS), and one neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), occurring between 8 and 35 days from a COVID-19 vaccine. Moreover, we performed a systematic literature search of post-COVID-19 vaccines CIDEs, including ATM, ADEM, MS, and NMOSD/MOGAD, published worldwide between December 2020 and December 2021, during 1 year of the vaccination campaign. Clinical/MRI and CSF/serum characteristics were extracted from reviewed studies and pooled-analyzed. ResultsForty-nine studies were included in the systematic review, reporting a total amount of 85 CIDEs. Considering our additional six cases, 91 CIDEs were summarized, including 24 ATM, 11 ADEM, 47 MS, and nine NMOSD/MOGAD. Overall, CIDEs occurred after both mRNA (n = 46), adenoviral-vectored (n = 37), and inactivated vaccines (n = 8). Adenoviral-vectored vaccines accounted for the majority of ADEM (55%) and NMOSD/MOGAD (56%), while mRNA vaccines were more frequent in MS new diagnoses (87%) and relapses (56%). Age was heterogeneous (19-88) and the female sex was prevalent. Time from vaccine to symptoms onset was notably variable: ADEM and NMOSD/MOGAD had a longer median time of onset (12.5 and 10 days) compared to ATM and MS (6 and 7 days) and further timing differences were observed between events following different vaccine types, with ATM and MS after mRNA-vaccines occurring earlier than those following adenoviral-vectored ones. ConclusionBoth the prevalence of vaccine types for certain CIDEs and the heterogeneity in time of onset suggest that different mechanisms-with distinct dynamic/kinetic-might underly these events. While epidemiological studies have assessed the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, descriptions and pooled analyses of sporadic cases may still be valuable to gain insights into CIDE's pathophysiology

Phyto-Courier, a Silicon Particle-Based Nano-biostimulant: Evidence from Cannabis sativa Exposed to Salinity.

peer reviewedGlobal warming and sea level rise are serious threats to agriculture. The negative effects caused by severe salinity include discoloration and reduced surface of the leaves, as well as wilting due to an impaired uptake of water from the soil by roots. Nanotechnology is emerging as a valuable ally in agriculture: several studies have indeed already proven the role of silicon nanoparticles in ameliorating the conditions of plants subjected to (a) biotic stressors. Here, we introduce the concept of phyto-courier: hydrolyzable nanoparticles of porous silicon, stabilized with the nonreducing saccharide trehalose and containing different combinations of lipids and/or amino acids, were used as vehicle for the delivery of the bioactive compound quercetin to the leaves of salt-stressed hemp (Cannabis sativa L., Santhica 27). Hemp was used as a representative model of an economically important crop with multiple uses. Quercetin is an antioxidant known to scavenge reactive oxygen species in cells. Four different silicon-based formulations were administered via spraying in order to investigate their ability to improve the plant's stress response, thereby acting as nano-biostimulants. We show that two formulations proved to be effective at decreasing stress symptoms by modulating the amount of soluble sugars and the expression of genes that are markers of stress-response in hemp. The study proves the suitability of the phyto-courier technology for agricultural applications aimed at crop protection

An introduction to the study of toilets, bathrooms, restrooms

This book presents a series of scientific and artistic interventions reflecting on the evolution of toilets, public and private, and on their many functions today, including those of transgressive, informal meeting places and spaces of forced social coexistence

“The laboratory of the future” is the title of the Architecture Biennale 2023

Curator Lesley Lokko, together with Biennale President Roberto Cicutto, unveiled the title and theme of the Biennale, which will open on May 23 next year and will feature Africa as the protagonist

The eternal return of antiquity, with Koolhaas’ hand ::“Recycling Beauty” at Fondazione Prada

With set up curated by OMA, the third chapter of Fondazione’sresearch on antiquity showcases a colossus, animal statues (including a fake), and works of art that have been “recycled” overtime, creating a link between past and present