The symbolist interior and crystal imagination

Transparency, translucency and surface reflectance are material qualities that underpin modernist aesthetics. The lightness and transparency of buildings remain manifestly contemporary and the walls of our cities continue to open up, as the default material of choice is glass. From London to Los Angeles, from the Shard to the Crystal Mall, the potency and immateriality of the crystal image is a liberation of the modern imagination. This paper concerns the crystal imagination as represented in the architectural interiors and poetry of Belgian symbolism. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, aesthetic theory and output in Brussels was, remarkably, more developed than that of other European capitals. For the Symbolist artists, coloured and patterned glass, mirrors and rare stones were deeply fascinating as they were at once transparent (see-through) and also contained an interior mysteriously closed to the world outside. As a reflection on the dominance of the visible in contemporary architecture, this paper explores the dual aspects of the crystal image – as both open and closed - and the notion of interior as it matures in the work of the architect Victor Horta. Here, a highly subjective taste for the artificial is combined with themes that surround the crystal and which continue into the materialism of modernist movement through German expressionism. Bruno Taut's Cologne Werkbund Exhibition Glashaus (1914) embodied Scheerbart's crystal visions, and went on to inspire the activist movement that was to deliver such dreams into political action. The paper comments on the development of Taut's ideas in modernism, and the correlation of glass and crystal to the singular experience of vision. It suggests that the crystal imagination of the late nineteenth century, and the potential for those crystal metaphors to disclose worlds not available to sight, still may provide rich inspiration for tomorrow's architectural visions

Preventable deaths related to thromboembolism in England and Wales, 2013-2022: A systematic case series of coroners’ reports

Objectives To identify preventable thromboembolism-related deaths, classify coroner concerns, and explore organisational responses. Study design Retrospective systematic case series of coroners’ Prevention of Future Deaths reports (PFDs) from 1 July 2013 to 16 November 2022, in England and Wales. Methods Reports were acquired from the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website and screened for thromboembolism-related deaths using a reproducible automated computer code. Demographic information, coroners’ concerns, and organisational responses to PFDs were extracted and analysed, including risk factors predisposing to thromboembolism. Results 112 PFDs (2.7 % of all PFDs) involved a thromboembolism event contributing to death. The average age of death was 59 years, corresponding to an estimated median of 25 years of life lost per death. Just over half of deaths occurred in women (52 %). The most common cause of death was pulmonary embolism (85.7 %). Issues with thromboprophylaxis were common, including incorrect risk assessments (27.7 %). Coroners’ concerns most often related to failures in providing adequate care, including communication failures (15.7 %), issues with following protocols and guidelines (11.8 %), and risk assessments (10.8 %). Only 56 % of organisations who were sent a PFD had a published response. When they did respond, the majority of responses reported initiating changes related to improvements to guidelines and protocols, or education and training. Conclusions PFDs offer unique insights into the systems and processes leading to preventable thromboembolism-related deaths. Improved awareness and dissemination of PFDs among clinicians and policy-makers, alongside routine monitoring of PFDs, has the potential to improve patient safety and reduce preventable harms from thromboembolic events

Drawing and the material conditions of space

The visualization of architectural experience is complex and resists description in a single drawing or indeed a set of drawings. As analytical tools, architectural drawings convey information but fall short of representing architectural experience because our perception of a place can only be partially communicated through conventional drawing types. Our experience of architecture is always situated and mediated through our bodies, and so our memories, associations and the broader physical and cultural context of a setting affect how we eventually interpret space. We understand places through movement and physical engagement and so it is not surprising that the richness and subtleties of architectural experience cannot be easily articulated through traditional drawing types. These tend to reduce experience to annotation as a means of conveying information. In contrast this paper will focus on drawing as a way of thinking, at the initial stages of the design process. It will explore issues of creativity and spontaneity in architectural design in order to engage the material imagination through drawing, for architecture is always a material thing1. As such, reading architectural drawings involves the material imagination, as linear relationships are interpreted in terms of physical space. This approach will contribute to our understanding of the continuity of the architectural design process between the realm of ideas and their material embodiment. Currently we tend to take an uncertain leap when crossing between theory and material articulation. Material effects, fashionable surfaces, novelty or material codification (glass=teransparency=democracy for example) all too often substitute deeper questions of content. As the Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti observed, such superficial approaches to materials can result in "an unpleasant sense of an enlarged model, a lack of articulation of the parts at different scales: walls which seem to be made of cardboard, unfinished windows and openings: in sum a general relaxing of tension from the drawing to the building.

Building Envelope Over-Cladding: Impact on Energy Balance and Microclimate

A considerable part of recent EU policies is currently addressed at developing effective measures to support the transition towards a low carbon society according to the principles and goals of Roadmap to 2050. In this general framework the links between the development of low-emission strategies and climate-resilient approaches to buildings play a key role. As most part of the existing building stock was built before the 1980s, retrofit and renovation actions are widely investigated. Despite progress in this field, relatively little attention has been given to the connections between the achievable energy savings and the energy investment needed to pursue the renovation process and to how technological choices can impact on the energy balance according to a multi-criteria perspective. The paper will explore how different technologies and design solutions to building envelopes cladding contribute to the reduction of the heat gains in urban environments and how appropriate adaptive strategies can further mitigate against accelerated greenhouse emissions. It will discuss the relationship between individual building performance and consequent effect on external environment. The effects of technological and material choices are evaluated for some design scenarios and conditions in order to develop an indicative impact mode

Anthropogenic disturbance of deep-sea megabenthic assemblages: a study with Remotely-Operated Vehicles in the Faroe-Shetland Channel, NE Atlantic

The effects of local-scale anthropogenic disturbance from active drilling platforms on epibenthic megafaunal abundance, diversity and assemblage pattern were examined in two West of Shetland hydrocarbon fields at 420 m and 508 m water depth. These areas were selected to include a range of disturbance regimes and contrasting faunal assemblages associated with different temperature regimes. Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) video provided high-resolution megafaunal abundance and diversity data, which were related to the extent of visible disturbance from drilling spoil. These data, in conjunction with a study deeper in the Faroe-Shetland Channel, have allowed comparison of the effects of disturbance on megabenthos across a range of sites. Disturbance to megafaunal assemblages was found to be high within 50 m of the source of drill spoil and in areas where spoil was clearly visible on the seabed, with depressed abundances (Foinaven 1900 individuals ha-1; Schiehallion 2178 individuals ha-1) and diversity (H´ = 1.75 Foinaven; 1.12 Schiehallion) as a result of smothering effects. These effects extended to around 100 m from the source of disturbance, although this was variable, particularly with current regime and nature of drilling activity. Further from the source of disturbance, megafaunal assemblages became more typical of the background area with increased diversity (H´ = 2.02 Foinaven; 1.77 Schiehallion) and abundance (Foinaven 16484 individuals ha-1; Schiehallion 5477 individuals ha-1). Visible effects on megafaunal assemblages as a result of seabed drilling were limited in extent although assemblage responses were complex, being controlled by differing effects to individual species often based on their motility