FIGURATIVE ARCHITECTURE:THE GRAVESIAN WORLD

Graves and Le CorbusierMichael Graves graviated towards Le Corbusier as a person. He probobly found greatsimilarities in Corbusier:the early-shown talent in painting, and a strong-willed motherwho shaped their future.Both had an elder brother who seemed to meet the expectations of the family better than each of them did at their early age. In Graves case, itwas his mother's request to choose a profession where he could use his talent in drawing. He was given two choices:engineer and architect. It was when his mother described "engineer" that he decided to be an architect(1).f     

A Couple's Love Nest

It is easy to pick up something we like in market but it is not so easy to put things together to achieve harmony in interior design. Fabrizio and Lori set up an example for flea market fanatics how they arranged pieces thery picked up individually in flea market. For them,the whole effect comes together in the end. It starts out as Fabrizio picked up something he liked, then he got other things to go with it. Being Italian in origin, Fabrizio's design is very much European.The living room area consists of a standing lamp,chair,sofa and etc.The lamp was bought in yard sale,The cross is a gift     

Out of the Not-in-My-Backyard Dilemma Between Community Development and Ecological Protection: A Case Study on the Implementation of Basic Ecological Control Line Planning in Shenzhen

This paper reviews the implementation of basic ecological control line planning in Shenzhen since 2005 and finds that the communities located in the ecological areas delimited by the basic ecological control lines demonstrate strong opposition to the relevant regulations, refl ecting a typical Not-in-My-Backyard effect. It then analyzes the inherent reasons for the Not-in-My-Backyard dilemma. Based on the advanced experience of other countries and regions, it proposes the strategies of mutual benefits for the communities to go out of the Not-in-My-Backyard dilemma, so as to effectively alleviate the social contradiction and economic cost resulting from ecological protection, which can serve as a reference for other Chinese cities to conduct the basic ecological control line planning.     

Analysis of drying and saturating natural gypsum samples for mechanical testing

The stability of underground abandoned gypsum mines is dependent on the gypsum pillar's strength,and most abandoned mines are in a fully saturated condition. Moisture affects the strength of gypsum and is therefore commonly measured when testing rock strength. For most rocks, this is a simple task of weighing the rock's mass before and after oven-heating at a specified temperature and duration. For natural gypsum, however, this is not a straightforward process. Heating natural gypsum can result in dehydration and transformation of gypsum to hemihydrate and anhydrite, thus changing the physical characteristics of the gypsum such as its particle density which in turn affects the moisture content and strength measurements. To prevent transformation when determining the moisture content of gypsum,the American Society for Testing Materials(ASTM) recommends lowering the drying temperature from 110℃ to 60℃ . To investigate the temperature at which gypsum transforms to hemihydrate, we used a helium pycnometer to measure the particle densities of gypsum, hemihydrate and anhydrite. In this research, we suggest that a higher drying temperature of 80℃ can be used for drying gypsum without transforming gypsum to hemihydrate. Further, preparing saturated samples for mechanical testing,which is required in stability analyses of abandoned mines, is challenging due to the dissolution of gypsum when placed in water. To address this problem, we investigated the following methods to saturate gypsum cores taking into account the solubility of gypsum:(1) water immersion,(2) vacuum saturation, and(3) improved vacuum saturation. The research indicates that all the three methods are acceptable but they should be conducted using a saturated gypsum-water solution to minimize dissolution. Further, the research found that the improved vacuum saturation method saturated the test samples within 24 h, while duration of 30 h was required for the other two methods.     

Urban Utopia and Building Experimentations： The Rural Villages of the Sicilian Latifundium

The colonization of Sicilian latifundium was an attempt of regeneration of the rural areas. It was carried out by Benito Mussolini, called II Duce, who governed Italy by a regime with an absolute and conservative approach for 20 years since 1922. According to this plan, there were some rural villages （with a school, a church, a police station and a doctor＇s surgery） and a number of rural homes, spread in the landscape, that formed one of the most important achievements of the agrarian reform in Italy. The author has been conducting scientific research on this topic for several years. He started with the archive ＂Ente per la Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano＂ （now called Ente Sviluppo Agricolo） to review the original designs and contracts with companies, ledgers and other administrative documents. Lately, he has been reviewing the personal archives of designers involved in the building program, where he has found original drawings, letters, sketches, etc.. He has also conducted some architectonic and technical surveys of the sites. We have to consider that nowadays the mentioned rural villages are a strategic resource for the development of the neighboring areas, as it may become a network for the sustainable tourism and the promotion of the local agro food specialties. On this purpose, the local authority is going to promote some plans for the requalification of these sites. The particular achievement of this article is to show a number of possibilities for the reuse of these places.     

Ground reaction curves for circular excavations in non-homogeneous,axisymmetric strain-softening rock masses

Fast methods to solve the unloading problem of a cylindrical cavity or tunnel excavated in elasto-perfectly plastic, elasto-brittle or strain-softening materials under a hydrostatic stress feld can be derived based on the self-similarity of the solution. As a consequence, they only apply when the rock mass is homogeneous and so exclude many cases of practical interest. We describe a robust and fast numerical technique that solves the tunnel unloading problem and estimates the ground reaction curve for a cylindrical cavity excavated in a rock mass with properties depending on the radial coordinate, where the solution is no longer self-similar. The solution is based on a continuation-like approach(associated with the unloading and with the incremental formulation of the elasto-plastic behavior), fnite element spatial discretization and a combination of explicit sub-stepping schemes and implicit techniques to integrate the constitutive law, so as to tackle the diffculties associated with both strong strain-softening and elasto-brittle behaviors. The developed algorithm is used for two practical ground reaction curve computation applications. The frst application refers to a tunnel surrounded by an aureole of material damaged by blasting and the second to a tunnel surrounded by a ring-like zone of reinforced(rock-bolted) material.     

Renewal of Older Housing Areas in Shanghai:Some Recent Small-Scale Projects

Mr.Douglas McCallum is a good specialist con-necting both Netherlands and China,through the hous-ing renewal pilot project in Zhang Jia Zaineighbourhood in Shanghai,He has visited Shanghaiseveral times since 1986.He made the investigations ofall these four pilot projects and had better understandingof these projects.In his report he clearly and integrativelyintroduced the problem of older housing areas inShanghai and the pilot projects as well,Also he summa-rized and analysed all these projects specifically.     

旅游业缩小城乡差距

UN-Habitat is embarking on an exciting programme to implement an often-overlooked part of its mandate-to promote city tourism around the world. The idea is that visitors to famous and not so famous towns and cities see how other people live, especially the poorest of the poor so that they can benefit from tourism as a source of income and enable them to meet their shelter needs. The Istanbul Declaration and Habitat Agenda gives UN-Habitat a mandate that takes in not just cities and towns per se, but the peri-urban zones that skirt them, and urban-rural linkages that can be of considerable benefit to countries proud to draw on the development potentials of tourism. Well-managed tourism can certainly help strengthen the positive links between urban and rural areas. This article gives some examples of traditional and newly developed tourism.     

Planning Information

On the 22nd of Aug.Premier Li Pengmet with mayors attending the inaugurationmeeting of the Association of Mayors ofChina in Zhong Nan Hai and had talks withthem when he spoke on directives and poli-cies of urban development and urban man-agement and such important issues.Li Peng pointed out that the inaugura-tion of the Association of Mayors of Chinawas a significant event in the annals of ur-ban development in China. On behalf of the     

Prof.Shucai Li

Ph.D.,Professor Director of Geotechnical and Structural Engineering Research Center,Dean of Civil Engineering School,Shandong University,No.17923,Jingshi Rd.,Jinan,Shandong,China Tel:+86-531-88395428(0);Fax:+86-531-88395428E-mail:lishucai@sdu.edu.cn Education background Li Shucai,born in 1965,received Ph.D.from the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics(IRSM),Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)in1996.At present,he is the dean of Civil Engineering School and the director of Geotechnical and Structural Engineering Research Center.Shandong University.He was elected as the president of Underground Engineering Association(UEA)affiliated to Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering(CSRME).He has been engaging in the stability of surrounding rock masses in underground projects and the reinforcement effect of rock bolts for a long time.He is a well-known international youth expert in the field of rock mechanics.He has published more than 100 journal and conference papers and 2 monographs.He has been a professor of IRSM,CAS.His research interests cover stability assessment of fractural rock mass and anchor effect,minimum thickness of rock cover in cross-harbour tunnel,and unfavorable geological forecast technology and disaster control.