University of Malta to offer European master's degree in heat treatment and surface engineering

Abstract

Following research into needs, a E560 000 project – MinSE, largely funded by the EU under the Socrates programme – has been launched to design and test a course leading to a European master's qualification in heat treatment and surface engineering. The part online, part face-to-face course will be offered initially by the University of Malta starting 2009.     

Detached Kitchens in Eastern Sussex A Re-assessment of the Evidence

Abstract

It can be demonstrated that, after houses and barns, detached kitchens were once the most common building type present in the landscape of south-east England, yet today very few examples survive. Those which do mainly date from the period 1450-1550 and are surprisingly large and complex. They range in length from two to four bays and usually have more than one ground floor room and at least one, and often two or more upper chambers. Although all incorporate non-standard features, in general appearance the surviving examples closely resemble small houses. It is often only their location, close to the rear of a main house of more standard layout, which indicates their true function. Documentary evidence suggests that, in addition to the kitchen itself, the buildings housed such service rooms as bakehouses, and milkhouses. The upper chambers gave extra storage and accommodation.

It should be stressed that those kitchens which survive are likely to represent the larger, more elaborate examples. Many of those which have been lost may have been nothing more than single-roomed, single-storeyed outhouses. Yet the fact cannot be ignored that there would have been a considerable difference in status between those households with, and those without detached kitchens, despite the surviving houses being of similar size and layout. The importance of the detached kitchen in relation to vernacular studies should not be underestimated.     

Service Space in Savannah

Abstract

Preliminary investigation of service areas in nineteenth-century Savannah houses shows significant differences to those in other eastboard cities. Circulation routes for black slaves and white residents were not segregated, in startling contrast to houses in the north where free, mainly white, servants invariably used back-stage routes around the buildings.