Build a Better House - With Dirt

Build a Better House - With Dirt Tomorrows homes may be made of glass and steel- or they may resemble the shelters built by our prehistoric ancestors. Architects and engineers are taking a new look at ancient building techniques, including building with earth products. Imagine a magical building material. Its cheap, perhaps even free. Its plentiful everywhere, worldwide. Its strong enough to hold up under extreme weather conditions. Its inexpensive to heat and cool. And its so easy to use that workers can learn the necessary skills in a few hours. This miraculous substance isnt only cheap as dirt, it is dirt, and its winning new respect from architects, engineers, and designers. One look at the Great Wall of China will tell you how durable earthen construction can be. And, concerns for the environment and energy conservation make ordinary dirt look downright appealing. What does an earth house look like? Perhaps it will resemble the 400-year-old Taos Pueblo. Or, tomorrows earth homes may take on surprising new forms. Types of Earth Construction An earth house can be made in a variety of ways: AdobeRammed EarthCob (mud with straw)Compressed Earth BlocksStraw Bale (not really earth, but very organic) Or, the house may be made with concrete but earth sheltered underground . Learning the Craft How many people live or work in buildings constructed of earth? The folks at eartharchitecture.org estimate that 50% of the worlds population spend much of their time in earthen architecture. In a global market economy, its time that more developed nations take note of this statistic. Traditional adobe homes in the American Southwest have wooden beams and flat roofs, but Simone Swan and her students at the Adobe Alliance have discovered the African mode of construction, with arches and domes. The result? Beautiful, ultra-strong, and energy-efficient homes, echoing the adobe domes built along the Nile centuries ago and being built today like earth igloos in places like Namibie and Ghana in Africa. No one can argue with the environmental benefits of using mud and straw. But the ecological building movement does have critics. In an interview with The Independent, Patrick Hannay, from the Welsh School of Architecture, attacked the straw bale structures at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. There would appear to be little aesthetic leadership here, Hannay said. But, you be the judge. Does responsible architecture have to be unsightly? Can a cob, straw bale, or earth sheltered home be attractive and comfortable? Would you like to live in one? Designing a More Beautiful Mud Hut The African earth igloos, however, come with a stigma. Because of primitive construction methods, mud huts have been associated with housing for the poor, even if building with mud is a proven architecture. The Nka Foundation is trying to change the mud hut image with an international competition. Nka, an African word for artistry, challenges designers to give these ancient building practices a modern aesthetic that is missing. The challenge outlined by the Nka Foundation is this: The challenge is to design a single-family unit of about 30 x 40 feet on a plot of 60 x 60 feet to be built by maximum use of earth and local labor in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The client of your design is the middle-income family in any township of your choice in the Ashanti Region. Total costs of constructing the design entry must not exceed $6,000; land value is excluded from this price point. The entry should serve as an example to the local people that mud architecture can be beautiful and durable. The need for this competition tells us several things: How something is built can have little to do with aesthetics. A home can be well-made but ugly.Attaining status through architecture is nothing new; creating an image transcends socio-economic class. Design and construction materials, the essential tools of architecture, have the power to make or break stigma. Architecture has a long history of design principles that often get lost through the years. Roman architect Vitruvius set a standard with 3 Rules of Architecture- Firmness, Commodity, and Delight. Heres hoping that earth igloo construction will rise to the level of being built with more beauty and delight. Learn More: Winners of the Mud House Design 2014 CompetitionTour a village of earth-walled homes in Loreto Bay, MexicoAdobe Mud: Building With Earth by Catherine Wanek, Mother Earth News, June/July 2009Earth Architecture by Ronald Rael, Princeton Architectural Press, 2010Earth Architecture in Iran: Earth Buildings, Mud Architecture, Sustainable Architecture, Rammed Earth, Mud Bricks by Hamed Niroumand, LAP, 2011Adobe and Rammed Earth Buildings: Design and Construction by Paul Graham McHenry, Jr., University of Arizona Press, 1989 Sources: Architecture: A house made of straw by Nonie Niesewand, The Independent, May 24, 1999; eartharchitecture.org; 2014 Mud House Design Competition [accessed June 6, 2015]

The Day I Lost Everything Essays

The Day I Lost Everything Essays The Day I Lost Everything Essay The Day I Lost Everything Essay ?Some people don’t believe in heroes, but they haven’t met my dad. I believed in my dad; he means the world to me. Seeing your parents once a year is a tough thing to deal with, but my dad made it easy for me. He did everything just to see me with a tremendous smile. I was one lucky girl having a father who was like a best friend. If I could have a chance to tell him this- tell him how much Im sorry for being a coward. Well, everything that makes me happy seems to come to an end. REST IN PEACE DAD, I shouted while tears rolled down my face. I had everything and all of a sudden I lost everything in a blink of an eye. What have you done dad? It all started out when I saw my dad standing in the middle of the airport while a herd of people filled the place. Seeing my father made me drop a tear of joy. Suddenly I had this weird feeling -a feeling of fear as if something wrong was going to happen, but I didn’t take it into consideration and ignored it. Most people have a special place they visit with their friend, a member of in his family, or even he/she visits alone to sit and think. My father and I directly went to our favorite place to have a treat. That feeling never seems to leave me alone, but then I saw an ominous shadow that made my fear grew to stifle me. I thought it was someone just entering to order something, but something was off. I was very curious to know whose shadow is this, but as I saw the person, I stood in my place trying to move, but the fear haunted me and didn’t allow me to move. All I can see was a gun pointed at my dad, and the man’s eyes were the eyes of a devil. They were eyes half defiant, half meek, black eye filled with innocent demons that are recklessly playing with matches. He pulled the trigger. While hearing the gunshot, I froze with fear allowing the bullet to reach my dad. As I deeply looked through the guys eye, I could see hatred in him. Its like he knew my dad. As the guy ran ou

Battle of the Bands Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Battle of the Bands Discussion - Essay Example Giovanni Gabrieli was the more outstanding in relation to his composition as compared to Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Giovanni Gabrieli was born in Venice in a family of five children. After listening to various tunes from the three composers, he stood out as the most entertaining: To begin with, his focused mostly on composition on a variety of sacred composition as well as sacred instrumental music. His unique style of composition which was Baroque was quickly emulated in other parts of Europe. Listening to one of his Baroque composition entails the use of dynamic and specifically noted instruments. His tunes, for example the sonata pian’ e forte; indicate a higher sense of sonority exploitation giving it a maximum effect as compared to Pierluigi’s tunes. In relation to classical musical composition, Antonio Vilvadi born in 1678 stands out in relation to entertaining tunes and the dynamics of composition as compared Johann Sebastian Bach. To begin with, he is a master of and sacred choral composition. Listening to one of his compositions, â€Å"La Primavera†, various musical dynamics are evident: The first dynamic is ascribed to that fact that this composition sounds innovative. Moreover, this composition also creates a sense of brightness and a unique rhythmic structure hence creating a feeling of harmonic contrast. These features are not evident in Bach’s composition. Romantic musical compositions also attracted large numbers of listeners throughout the world. During the renaissance period, there were two major Romantic musical composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig Van Beethoven. However, Mozart’s romantic musical composition stands out more than Beethoven. Listening to one of his symphonies, Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, a romantic composition, a variety of unique features, which are not evident in Beethoven’s romantic composition are: Existence of clarity of various musical instruments as well

Video Clip with Written Assignmen Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Video Clip with Written Assignmen - Essay Example Though the changes have not contributed much in changing the public figure of nursing, nurses have gained sovereignty, accountability in addition to increasing their duties in the health care. Contemporary nursing on the other hand is exclusive as it includes not just knowledge from a specialised body, but also making use of composite level of technology, vast actions and attained skills (Auerbach et al., 2007). This era faces nursing scarcity and therefore in order to meet the growing demand, nurses are required to continue with their contemporary roles and responsibilities. Incentives for maintenance ought to be developed in order to support these aging and experienced nurses as well as postponing their retirement. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics the clinical health care industry is currently made up of over 2 million strong nurses. Nurses are of different types with a broad capacity of responsibility and their profession is obtained differently. The first part will analyse the traditional roles of RNs in Australia and Internationally as well as identifying the factors leading to extensive scope of their roles and responsibilities. The second part will discuss the expanded roles and responsibilities of RNs drawn from related literature. The results of these changes to the clinical care will also be discussed. Most of these responsibilities go beyond the legal boundaries with the problems that come with compromising the safe care patients. Lorenzo et al. (2007) describes that this kind of situation may lead to a state of confusion, anxiety and conflict experienced by the registered nurses. The traditional role of RNs included accessing, planning, evaluating and implementing nursing care of the injured and the sick patients. Nurses have considerably improved on their scope of duties by offering education services as well as clinical training in contrast to that of licensed practical nurses (American Nurses Association, 2006). The first

French revolution, social revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

French revolution, social revolution - Essay Example As a result, the government could not levy enough tax to fill in the deficit as the citizen’s anger grew. While the nobles got exempted, peasant with big chunks of land was handed the heaviest tax weight of all. Secondly, there was food scarcity. Food failures in that time led to high prices of bread. The parliament was dominated by the nobility, so despite the efforts of Louis XV and Louis XVI to tax them, it only resulted to resistance from the law courts. When all attempts failed in 1788, the king summoned the estates general, who was the first since 1614 which would meet in 1789. The king wanted them to meet the modern way, but parliamentarians decided they would meet the same way as 1614. Society had changed in 200 years, and the bourgeoisie was the people with the money, now money was their power/ advantage to seize the power they so much wanted to have. Effects: In France, the bourgeois and the land owning classes emerged as the dominating power. Feudalism was dead; social order and relations were strengthened by the Coda Napoleon. The revolution unified France and improved the power of the national state. The revolution and the Napoleonic wars changed the structure of Europe and initiated the era of modern total warfare. Although few historians see the rule of terror as a hostile precursor of present-day totalitarianism, other argue that this ignores the vital role played by the revolution in establishing an example of such democratic institutions as elections and constitutions. The failed ventures of the urban lower middle class to secure economic and political gains foreshadowed the class conflicts of the 19th century. While major historical interpretations of the French revolution differ greatly, almost all agree it had an extraordinary influence of the modern world. This French revolution maybe seen as a prototype for modern social revolution in a way that has seen many similar circumstances of social revolutions. In her book, Theda Skocpol

Banana Sushi Outline Essay Example for Free

Banana Sushi Outline Essay How many of you have ever tried or eaten a peanut butter and banana sandwich? For those who have banana sushi is exactly that but much more fun and exciting to do at home. Transition: let’s start by getting ingredients BODY: I. The first step is to get all of the ingredients. A. There are certain ingredients needed to make banana sushi; the first step is to gather them. 1. You will need the peanut butter of your choice (smooth works better) 2. You will need two pieces of bread 3. And you will need a fresh banana Transition: now that we have the ingredients we can get the materials B. There are also certain materials necessary to make banana sushi; the second step is to gather those. 1. You will need a butter knife 2. You will need a rolling pin 3. And you will need some type of cutting board. Transition: Now that we have both the ingredients and the materials to make banana sushi we can start making it! C. Now you can start making it. 1. The first step is to cut all the crust off of the bread and dispose of it, then to lay the edges of the bread on top of each other and flatten it together with the rolling pin. 2. The second step is to then take the butter knife and spread the peanut butter over the bread. . The third step is to take your banana, peel it and cut it into coin size pieces and lay them neatly on the bread covered with peanut butter. 4. The final step is to roll the bread and then cut it into sections   The three steps in making banana sushi: A. The first step is gathering the ingredients B. The second step is gathering the materials C. The third step is making it. II. Now that I’ve shown you guys a fun new way to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich otherwise known as banana sushi, I hope you will try it at least once in your life because it’s always nice to try something new.

Fattening: The social implications on the Azawagh Arabs and the real me

Throughout the ethnography, â€Å"Feeding Desire† written by Rebecca Popenoe, we see one consistent theme that is brought up time and time again – women and the fattening of them to obtain a desired look. From the perspective of a Western third party, the idea of fattening to appear beautiful/appealing seems ridiculous. It simply makes little sense because fattening, is incredibly unhealthy, something that is recognized in Western culture and at the same time we prefer women to be as fit as possible. Looking through the ethnography we see that there are many reasons for fattening being a key factor in making women â€Å"an object of desire† (Page.. citation) as stated by Popenoe. We can examine these cases through the work of Popenoe and determine as to how she came to this conclusion. At the start of the ethnography we can see from Popenoe’s initial experience while working with the Peace Corps in Niger, that the idea of fattening and how the women she saw originally seemed as â€Å"unattractive lumbering† (Popenoe 2004: 20). It was however while working with the Peace Corps that Popenoe noticed that this rounded shape that was the norm among the women and was far more appreciated and desired. After having decided to live with the Azawagh Arabs, Popenoe expresses the obvious indication of her being the outcast when it came to female sexual competition shown through the statement, â€Å"With collar bones protruding and not a stretchmark to be found on my upper arms, I believe many women considered me a poor specimen of my sex.† (2004: 20). Even though it is shown that women and men are usually separate, Popenoe’s lack of physical beauty as per the Azawagh Arab women, allowed her to communicate with the men with no fear from the women that... ...dent that his job in gathering better subsistence is going very well, likely meaning he is wealthy. It is not something which is meant to show off, but just happens in cases of abundance (2004: 112). Most importantly is the control a woman can have over their husband, by waiting till the night to discuss what is on their mind as that is the point in the time where a man can’t refuse them, their lust and sexual desire forces them to listen pretty much. Popenoe does an excellent job in her ethnography giving us the perspective of the Azawagh Arab society. We see how the culture is in such a society where women are fattened for many reasons that are important such as sexual desire, marriage, and the passage towards womanhood. Such fattening has run societies in the area including the Azawagh Arabs since they were discovered and continue to do so today.