The Employment of Reason

Rationalism in the Netherlands is characterised by pragmatism. As Charles Rattray explains it is a practical bent that was driven in the 20th century by the exigencies of building cheaply and quickly a large amount of social housing on a relatively small amount of land. It is a strand that has been underscored by a belief in reason across time and a confidence in an analytical approach. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simultaneous transmission and absorption photometry of carbon-black absorption from drop-cast particle-laden filters

Simultaneous transmissivity and absorptivity measurements were carried out in the visible at a laser wavelength of 532?nm on drop-cast, carbon-black-laden filters under ambient (laboratory) conditions. The focus of this investigation was to establish the feasibility of this approach to estimate the mass absorption coefficient of the isolated particles and compare results to earlier work with the same carbon-black source. Transmissivity measurements were carried out with a laser probe beam positioned normal to the particle-laden filter surface. Absorptivity measurements were carried out using a laser-heating approach to record in time the sample temperature rise to steady-state and decay back to the ambient temperature. The sample temperature was recorded using a fine-wire thermocouple that was integrated into the transmission arrangement by placing the thermocouple flush with the filter back surface. The advantage of this approach is that the sample absorptivity can be determined directly (using laser heating) instead of resolving the difference between reflectivity (filter surface scattering) and transmissivity. The current approach also provides the filter optical characteristics, as well as an estimate of filter effects on the absorption coefficient due to particle absorption enhancement or shadowing. The approach may also be incorporated into other filter-based techniques, like the particle/soot absorption photometer, with the simple addition of a thermocouple to the commercial instrument. For this investigation, measurements were carried out with several blank uncoated quartz filters. A range of solution concentrations was prepared with a well-characterized carbon black in deionized water (i.e., a water-soluble carbonaceous material referred to as a surrogate black carbon or ‘carbon black’). The solution was then drop cast using a calibrated syringe onto blank filters to vary particle loading. After evaporation of the water, the measurements were repeated with the coated filters. The measurement repeatability (95% confidence level) was better than 0.3?K for temperature and 3?×?10^?5 mW for laser power. From the measurements with both the blank and coated filters, the absorption coefficient was determined for the isolated particles. The results were then compared with an earlier investigation by You et al. and Zangmeister and Radney, who used the same carbon-black material. The measurements were also compared with Lorenz–Mie computations for a polydispersion of spherical particles dispersed throughout a volume representative of the actual particles. The mass absorption coefficient for the polydispersion of carbon-black particles was estimated to be about 7.7?±?1.4?m² g^?1, which was consistent with the results expected for these carbon black particles.     

Hans Hugo Selye (1907-1982).

Presents an obituary for Hans Hugo Selye (1907-1982). Hans Selye died on October 16, 1982, in Montreal, where he had worked for 50 years. Despite illness in his last years, he continued his writing and lecturing. Selye was unforgettable, even to people who heard him give only one of his superb lectures. Endowed with enormous energy, charm, intelligence, imagination, and a fierce determination to succeed in the course that he had set for himself, by the 1950s Selye was recognized as one of the driving forces in modern endocrinology, and he established what has become known as the field of stress research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

发现隐藏的秩序,构建心灵的诗语——德国艺术家汉斯·迪特·夏尔的作品及其创作思想

如何建构富有个性诗意的设计语言,如何拥有不断自主创新的思想?试以德国艺术家汉斯·迪特·夏尔为例,阐述其创作理念:积极生活,挖掘其中隐藏的结构秩序;借鉴文学戏剧的创作手法,整合建筑、景观、装置艺术,建构自己的设计风格。着重剖析了夏尔先生的三个景观建筑作品来诠释其具体的设计策略。     

Organicist concepts of city landscape in German planning after the second world war

The debates surrounding post-war reconstruction of Germany centred around three planning strategies as described in: the books Organische Stadtbaukunst (The Organic Art of Building Towns) (1948) by Hans Bernhard Reichow and Die Raumstadt (The Spatial City) (1949) by Walter Schwagenscheidt, as well as the 1946 exhibition Berlin plant—Erster Bericht (Berlin Plans—First Report) organized under the direction of Hans Scharoun. Despite the different political attitudes of their authors, these three planning strategies seem to be connected by the same goal: the big city was to be radically broken apart and a new green city landscape created. In order to plan and build this new city as a complex system integrated with the native landscape, the planners conceived the city to be like an organism in relation to its environment. Their shared organic conception reveals traces of natural science and nature-oriented philosophies. This investigation traces the origin of this new city landscape concept back to the intellectual-historical context at the beginning of the 20th century.     

来自中国的启迪——浅析汉斯·瓦格纳的椅子设计

家具设计大师汉斯.瓦格纳(Hans.Wegner)透过一种崭新的演绎手法,创造了许多极具中国传统家具特色的设计作品。文章浅析了瓦格纳的系列作品,结合相关的创作背景及其蕴涵的设计精神,以期研究中国式家具风格的设计方式,为我国传统家具的创新设计提供一个永恒的切入点。     

Berlin's empty heart

In the early 1990s, all the energy and enthusiasm for the newly unified western and eastern Europe seemed to centre on Berlin, and the reconstruction of the city's Potsdamer Platz in particular. Now, well over a decade later, with the completion of the Beisheim Center, the final piece in the redevelopment of the Platz is in place. Howard Watson asks why, at a time when Berlin is being hailed as one of the most vibrant and artistic cities in Europe, there should be a vacuum at its very heart. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

After BitTorrent: Darknets to Native Data

What are the implications of the inherent reflexivity of the Internet for the design professions? Anthony Burke argues that radically innovative and distributed forms of information exchange such as BitTorrent suggest a general shift away from the traditional conception of the architect as master builder to one more in line with the collaborative remixing and patching tactics of the hacker. BitTorrent is a communications protocol that allows massive information exchange across infinite users with minimum resources. Through its sheer force of collectively pooled imagination, it provides a potent example of the sorts of platforms of information exchange that foster the new forms of communal organisation that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri term the ‘Multitude’, and which productively challenge conventional models of cultural invention and production. In this context, Burke raises questions about the implications of this broader shift for the design professions' business organisation, as well as their more general methodologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.