W HERE_CORRIspondenze
: number two :
The limit as an element
The works carried out by the architectural firm CF measure themselves against the conditions of the context in economic and cultural terms. The double meaning contained in the word limit is attributed to this context.
Limit understood as an extreme point of flexibility in the dialogue with the client, limit as a possibility in the use of materials, considered more qualified to express the design intentions; limit in the designer / builder relationship; limit as a measure of the ability to complete a process which, starting from the idea / intention, involving their own wealth of knowledge of architecture, passing through the many drawings, manages to give a single and simple answer in the completed work.
Michele Cannatá and Fatima Fernandes consider architecture as that work that comes to be the closure of a cycle that from the idea, through the project, is transformed into space and matter, prepared to endure over time more than a single function, becoming for some or even better for many: memory.
W02 ° E'AL "
Reports a ferry and a half wide
CultArch was born in Cagliari in 2007 as a university association with the initial aim of bringing students closer to the world of architecture, in fact often too distant from university teaching. Over the years it has evolved by developing several main lines of activity. On the one hand, the constant help to students to deepen the themes analyzed in the various university courses, on the other hand the promotion of the culture of architecture in society, convinced that only through this operation can we proceed towards a progressive improvement of urban quality and landscaping; for example, by carrying out projects of knowledge of the territory, but also collaborations with professionals, public bodies and other associations of various kinds for specific events, including the simultaneous opening of all the monuments of the city.
Through CultArch there is the intent to rediscover that due link between architecture and reality, which is often lost between university and formal commitments. It is therefore necessary to rediscover the foundation and foundations of architecture that cannot exist without a link with the widely understood culture and with the people who use it.
W02 ° E'MM "
Cedar of Lebanon
Noor International Holding (NIH), developer located in Beirut, has announced its intention to build an artificial island destined to become the main attraction of the Lebanese coast: it will include villas, apartments, shops, restaurants, beaches and parks. More than 20 civil engineers, architects, environmentalists and financial consultants are working on the project, which emulates that of the artificial palm-shaped island built off the coast of Dubai. The Beirut-based construction company has also already received letters of interest from numerous Gulf investors, from Lebanon itself but also from Mexico, Holland and Panama. The goal is to attract tourists despite the instability of the small Levantine country and above all to bring back thousands of Lebanese expatriates due to national and regional conflicts. With them, Mohammed Saleh is sure, millions of investments would return. The Lebanese businessman, president of the NIH, has an ambitious project inspired by the quirks and exaggerations of Dubai: the construction of an artificial island of 3.3 square kilometers, costing 8 billion dollars, in the shape of cedar, the conifer symbol of Lebanon. The model is that of the Jumeira Palm Island, an artificial island in the shape of a palm in the emirate of the Gulf. On the coasts of Cedar Island, in the vision of Mohammed Saleh, residential neighborhoods of extreme luxury will be built, tourist facilities with all the comforts, parks, schools, swimming pools, villas, beaches with white sand. "The idea came to me in 2005 when I was on a Middle East Airlines (Mea) flight whose logo is a stylized cedar", recalls the engineer Muhammad Saleh, managing director of Nih, who adds: "When I arrived in Lebanon, saw the coast and thought that we could create an island there. It will be the largest artificial tree in history. '' However, due to the need for approval from the Lebanese government, the Saleh project remains an idea. The project is being studied by the authorities. Meanwhile, the businessman's intentions have raised a lot of criticism in the country, despite public attention being totally monopolized by the important vote in June. The electoral battle could end with the Shia group Hezbollah's victory at the polls. Any success of the Party of God, associated with its armed militias, conflicts such as that of 2006 against Israel and the clashes of June 2008 with Sunni factions, risks creating a period of instability. And political uncertainty is no guarantee for those who think of investing in tourism on the Lebanese coasts or are thinking of returning abroad after years. Furthermore, the credentials of the businessman Saleh, who also designed the Rose Tower in Dubai, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, are not enough to protect him: 25 Lebanese environmental associations have already declared war on the project; local businessmen are very skeptical, especially because of the times of crisis: «How will he do it? - they wonder - if even the rich Qatar and Saudi Arabia have frozen many of their projects in the country ». A group of professors from the American University of Beirut has already created a protest group against the cedar island, calling it an "urban, economic and environmental disaster". It arises spontaneously, then, to ask ourselves if it is appropriate to progress in favor of a welfare that is sometimes not real, or to understand that we have to stop at the fundamentals, so that the serving role of engineering does not consequently become the discipline served?
W02 ° E'LG "
Tuesday
Dear readers,
my name is Francesco Salese and I am in my second year of PhD in Planetary Geology at the D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara.
I am writing to you from Nantes (France), where I am for a period of study abroad at the "Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique".
In particular I deal with the study of Mars through the study of terrestrial analogues.
Few are aware of it, but in Pescara at the INGEO Department there is the International Research School Of Planetary Sciences (IRSPS), a true Italian and European flagship in the field of Planetary Geology, which in the last 15 years has graduated more than 20 students, who today hold positions of considerable value in the most important research centers in the world.
But let's get to know this environment a little better.
Planetary Geology was born in the early 1960s.
It is a scientific discipline that deals with the study of the geology of some celestial bodies such as planets, moons, asteroids, comets and meteorites. As an exotic discipline of Earth Sciences, it does not benefit from the experimental and observational methods that can be used on Earth. The study of Mars focuses on major themes such as climate evolution, internal evolution, etc., taking into account the different types of data (geophysical, visible band, geochemical analysis) and using analogues, morphological and otherwise, with other planets, or, for example, the dunes on Mars are searched and compared with those present in the terrestrial deserts. The approach of our work is consequently global and interdisciplinary.
Global because the study does not stop on a specific geographic region and does not embrace a single study theme. The method we use consists of a systematic back and forth between observation data, experimental data and working hypotheses.
Interdisciplinary since planetary geologists interface with physicists, engineers, astronomers, exobiologists as the issues addressed are many, as are their implications.
Mars is the planet most similar to Earth among those in the solar system, and it is also the most hospitable planet for astronauts, even more than the Earth's satellite, the Moon, thanks to a duration of the day similar to that of the Earth, to a greater gravity and greater radiation protection.
Its surface has some similarities with the Earth, such as volcanic formations, valleys, polar caps and sandy deserts, as well as geological formations that suggest the presence, in the distant past, of a hydrosphere and not one but two moons (Phobos and Deimos).
It also has some differences such as, for example, a greater distance from the Sun, a smaller diameter, a rarefied atmosphere, and a longer duration of the period of revolution.
Furthermore, Mars is just beyond the outer edge of the habitable zone, which is very important, as in four and a half billion years, when the Sun increases in size and becomes a "white dwarf", the Earth will be too hot to live there, while Mars could host life as we know it today by entering the habitable belt.
Knowing and exploring Mars can help us improve our knowledge of our solar system, its formation and evolution over time. In the increasingly real hypothesis that Mars was covered with water (it was probably covered by rivers, lakes and oceans) there is a high probability that it also hosted life, this would have important repercussions both from a scientific and philosophical point of view.
The study of the red planet could reveal important information to understand how the Earth will evolve.
W02 ° E'FS "
