Stress and Green

By Yuko Aoki

For Master of Architecture at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, students are required to take two elective courses within the core curriculum. We have several choices for electives. The one I am taking is Plant, Soil, and Agricultural System 480- 851 Outdoor Design. This class is an online course and you will have readings as lectures. One of the assignments for this class was to write a seven page research paper. Students can choose their own topics and get approval from the professor of the course. My topic was “Human Stress and Landscape”. I found interesting facts when I was researching for it.


There is a study by Kaufman, and Lohr (2008), which states that people tend to ease their stress just by seeing a picture of green mountains and trees. They said a green canopy makes people calmer, which meant for a less stressful mood. They used other colors like yellow, red, light green, dark green, and orange. The measurement of the research was to observe skin conductance response when viewing trees with different canopy colors. The most effective colors for the stress reduction were in the following order: green, dark green, red, light green, orange, and yellow.

The results could be used as a guide for choosing the color in a room and planning in your yard. When I will design a landscape, I will think about this result and design a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees because deciduous trees will give a sense of life all through the seasons and coniferous trees will keep remaining green or dark green all year long.

Image: http://www.avisionofbritain.org/Favourite%20trees.html

Citation: Kaufman, A.J. and Lohr, V.I. 2008. DOES IT MATTER WHAT COLOR TREE YOU PLANT? . Acta Hort. (ISHS) 790:179-184

http://www.actahort.org.proxy.lib.siu.edu/books/790/790_25.htm

Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge

By Micah Jacobson


You have probably seen or heard about the new bridge that has been constructed as a bypass to the Hoover dam. When I saw this bridge I was very impressed by its structure, construction and magnitude. The bridge is made up of over 1,000 ft twin concrete arches. They are concrete piers that connects the arch to the concrete piers cap that holds up the steel box girders.

The arches are 14’ x 20’ and spaced 45’ on center. They are connected by concrete panels containing steel struts for bracing. The longest span of the bridge (the span under the arch) is 1,060 ft. The total length is 1,900 ft. This is the longest concrete arch in the western hemisphere and the first concrete-steel arch composite bridge in the US.


The bridge uses 10 ksi of concrete. Typical structural concrete used for pre-stressed highway bridge is around 7 ksi of concrete. The concrete is high strength, but not as high strength as can be made. There is methods today that a produce concrete that exceeds 21 ksi. Half of a decade ago high strength concrete was considered to be 5 ksi. The problem when you use high strength or ultra-high strength concrete is that there is an increase in fragility. Concrete itself is fragile, unlike steel that can yield, warp and bend before failure. Concrete has a low strain tolerance before it fails. There is no yield plateau or strain hardening like you see in steel. As the strength of the concrete increases, the stress strain relationship increases (young’s modules). This is important for structures when it comes to seismic events. When an earthquake happens there is a lot of contorting by the structure. This causes a lot of strain on the structural elements. The area under the stress strain curves its material and of toughness. This is a measure of the energy the material can absorb before failing. High strength concrete starts diminishing under the curve as the strength increases and the stress strain relationship becomes steeper. As you gain strength, you lose toughness or the ability to absorb energy into the structure (such as shaking).

This bridge is certainly a marvel and fascinating piece of engineering to study, as is the design and consideration behind it.

Pictures from: http://faculty.wiu.edu/JR-Olsen/wiu/

Media:scape

By Jessica Grafton


New from Steelcase is Media:scape, an innovative new collaboration station. This product line offers multiple meeting environment options, in which all of those present can participate by sharing their media electronically. These hubs, if you’ll call them, have taken today’s technology and inter-weaved it with the functions of inner-office conferencing in a way that is modern and efficient for its users.

According to Steelcase, this is how it works:


“media:scape was designed for a “walk-up and connect” experience. Open. Connect. Share.

Open the media well and remove a Puck™
Connect the Puck to your laptop
Share what’s on your laptop by pressing the Puck™

Your team members can do the same. Sharing made simple, quick and seamless … to increase productivity and innovation.”
This product definitely encourages and incorporates group interaction, changing the face of what the normal meeting looks like. It also is a great tool for video and global conferencing as well, making sharing convenient and easy.


All information and photos from www.steelcase.com

Sketching 101

By Russ Baker


As children, a lot of us began experimenting with pens, pencils, or crayons to sketch, draw, or color our ideas onto paper. Professionally, sketching may seem in some instances to be a lost art, especially since computer technology is exponentially improving. On the contrary, in the field of architecture, even with advanced rendering programs, sketching remains a very important ability. The ability to sketch, or draw quickly is extremely beneficial and generally expected by architectural clients. It is by no means uncommon to be required to draw a representational idea quickly in front of a client. Translating one's thoughts onto paper can sometimes prove to be a challenging task, so if you are an architecture student, I recommend practicing sketching as often as possible. Ideas don't always present themselves during your spare time, so often I find myself sketching on napkins at restaurants, post-its in bed, and anything thing else that is readily available. It is a good idea to carry a small notepad and pen or pencil with you at all times. After I finish a sketch, I have a tendency to go back and add detail in my free time just for fun and for practice, as you can see in the first four sketches (each was completed in under an hour).


It is always interesting to see initial sketches of ideas or concepts translate into the finished, built product. An excellent example of this is the Hydra Pier designed by Hani Rashid & Lise Anne Couture, built in 2002 in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands [Two images courtesy of the book Sketch∙Plan∙Build: World Class Architects Show How It's Done, by Alejandro Bahamon].


If you are just beginning to experiment with sketching, here are some tips and rules that I learned years ago in a freehand drawing class:

1. It's almost as important to know when to stop as it is to know how to start.

2. Good beginnings, good ends

3. Never stop short of a guide line.

4. Keep elbows on the table.

5. 50% light, 50% dark

6. Cut the paper out of sketchbook.

7. Leave something to the imagination.

8. Get the proportions correct.

9. Remember the basics.

10. Get up and move around; look at others work.

11. Keep the radio on.

12. Attract the eye to the middle of the page.

13. Keep pencils sharp.

14. Draw the horizon first.

15. Find your vanishing points.

16. Make sure your lines don't go off the edge of the paper.

17. Look at what you're drawing.

18. Know what you're drawing before you put anything down; don't go over anything twice.

19. Good line work - no hen or chicken scratching

20. Don't let anything get in your working arms way.

21. Have fun!!!

Bald Knob Cross

By Ben Temperley


This past June I had a chance to visit Bald Knob Cross for the first time at a Calvary Campus Church Chi Alpha event. The cross is located on a hill in the Shawnee National Forest west of Alto Pass, IL. The idea for the cross came in 1937 when Wayman Presley was chatting with Reverend W.H. Lirely. The two talked about the need for a place for people of different denominations to worship. This led to the first Easter Sunrise service in 1937 on Bald Knob. An enthusiastic crowd of 250 attended. In the following years attendance grew to thousands .


The Cross was completed in 1963. It contained 900 heavy gauge steel panels with a white porcelain veneer that was illuminated from within by 40,000 watts of lighting. The Cross could be seen for 7,500 square miles. The structure is 111 feet tall. The base of the Cross is made of Illinois marble. The Cross can withstand winds of up to 150 miles per hour. The inside is hollow. Visitors were originally able to take stairs to the top. This has been discontinued since 1982.


When I visited the Cross, the porcelain veneer had been removed as part of a restoration process. The website, baldknobcross.com, has a nice rendering of the finished restoration which is projected for fall 2010. Even without the exterior veneer, the Cross is worth the trip to see. If you like seeing the structure behind a form, this would be particularly interesting to you. You can see the steel angles, beams, columns and cross bracing. You can also see the stairs that the public used to take to the top. The view from Bald Knob is spectacular! You can see miles of beautiful Southern Illinois forest. Bald Knob is a neat place to watch the sunset. As the day turned to night, the lights of the Cross were turned on making for a picturesque scene.

To learn more, there is a visitor’s center on the site. There is also a pavilion that makes a good place for a picnic or church gathering. Hopefully soon the Cross will be restored. Not many places are blessed to have a cross over 100 feet tall!

Spatial Perception

By Rhonda C Daugherty


How one interprets space is a phenomenological experience that goes beyond the limitations of psychological confinement. Smell and taste are consequentially linked to a sense of place by understanding how the brain works and remembers past. To smell and to taste are past, spatial perceptions linking to present; rather visuals, touch, and sounds are descriptive characteristics that exist in the present. Spatial explorations while utilizing one’s senses are indeed manipulated by human behavior which is controlled by social, physiological and his or her physical inadequacy.


Site, location, and intent are the primary concern when designing a project that examines phenomenological perception. Everything plays a key role; for example, in “Invisible Architecture”, the author discusses phenomenological in terms of a physical association to space while; in “Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?” the author challenges the thought of physical association and states that space is subjective. In conclusion, how one perceives something and what it perceived would be impossible without the five senses.

Motorcycles Represent The Major Type of Transportation in Taiwan

By Kang-Hsin Fan


Taiwan’s population was estimated at 23 million in 2010. With its high population density and many factories, some areas in Taiwan, especially the capital city of Taipei, suffer from heavy pollution. Motor scooters are a very common means of transportation in Taiwan and contribute to urban air pollution. According to official public transportation report, there are approximately 13 million motor scooters and 5 million cars in 2010. With the data of transportation, the biggest problem in Taiwan is the omni-presence of scooters. Without the pedestrianization policy by the government, motorcyclists always park haphazardly at the side of the street or in front of shops as close to their destination as they can. The problem is that pedestrians and motorcyclists are in conflict for the use of public spaces. From the view of retailers, shoppers are not able to visit their shops with these hazardous scooters in front of there doors. This behavior clutters up the public spaces, and the development of urban design.

Moreover, some restaurants hope to create an outdoor atmosphere like the cafes of European countries to attract customers, so that they can admire the outside sunshine and the street views. With these businesses reasons, these restaurants extend their service range by arranging furniture on the pedestrian street to shape the outside atmosphere. In Taiwan, the arcade in a building is a public space for pedestrians to walk freely. As a result, who will benefit from the environmental improvement; the pedestrians, retailers, visitors, shoppers, or investors? From the view of urban design, how can they improve the growth of using motor scooters as primary transportation in Taiwan? Can public spaces improvement revive the city center? Hall (2000), states that environmental improvement is considered to be a catalyst, as the essential drivers in the city’s center try and form again.

Reference: http://www.gio.gov.tw/