The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin in the United States Essay

The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin in the United States - Essay Example They formed organization among Mexican Americans in the Southwest of United States. A number of local southwest social and political clubs were mainly comprised of both Mexican Americans and Mexicans that united and formed the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). LULAC played a significant in establishing how Mexicans racial identity was derived from their class status and how whiteness played a role in racial and class construction in the Southwest. The leaders voted to limit membership in the organization to U.S. citizens, but half of the members left the conference in protest. However, the LULAC had significant success helping the Mexicans Americans fight for their identity. Carrigan and Webb (412) indicate that the LULAC was the regional equivalent of the national association for the advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It financed a couple of anti segregation and antidiscrimination cases that were brought on behalf of Mexicans Americans in California, Texas and Ne w Mexico. It derived victories in education and jury selection identity. Meanwhile, parents of migrant children won a suit against a California school district for segregating Mexican American and Mexican children from whites. These children travelled miles by bus to attend Mexicans schools in other school districts because it was illegal to attend white neighborhood schools. The origins of this case were due to inconsistency of the binary racial logic of the United States and the racial complexity of the Mexicans based on their unique claims to white identity. Meanwhile, Americans Mexicans fought for their identity by presenting their claims in jury hearings because they were discriminated against as a class. Discrimination indicated there was a lack of their jury rolls in United States. Although they fought for their rights, the discrimination cases indicated that abstract identity was itself internally fractured by class difference. Carrigan and Webb (415) indicate that the fight for identity revealed what is referred to as whiteness and the social construction of Mexicans in Southwest. Mexican Americans were legally referred to as Whites due to the treaty obligations with Mexico that allowed Mexicans to become United States Citizens. The federal laws practiced at that period required that an alien to be White he or she was supposed to become United States Citizen. Thus, the government of Mexico and the U.S department of state forced the United States census Bureau to reclassify Mexican as white. In the Texas school desegregation case, the Jury ruled that Mexican children could not be segregated on the racial basis but it allowed segregation based on linguistic issues or migrant status. Institutions that are controlled by dominant groups have established the legal definitions of a racial group and force them to adhere to their status quo. Thus, the law in United States considered racial group identity when such identity was based on exclusion and subordinat ion of Mexicans. For instance, the Texas court ruling that imposed a definition of Whites on Mexicans Americans and caused them to protest against segregation as a district group in the Southwest. Meanwhile, the court rejected the Mexican American claims for class representation in a class action suit demanding for equal education opportunities. Despite Mexican Americans being legally constructed as white, this status had only marginal

Organizational behavior ( UAE company ) Research Paper

Organizational behavior ( UAE company ) - Research Paper Example In the first year of operation, Emirates Airline started its flights in Karachi. It started its European operations to London in 1987. After 3 years, the company was able to double its operations thereby allowing it to grow at annual rate of 25%. The revenue of the company today is approximately $11.8 billion annually. It employs approximately 36,000 employees. Moreover, the number of international passengers between 2009 and 2010 was approximately 25.9 million (Reportlinker, 2012). The number of flights that the company is able to reach per week is approximately 2400. The goal of this paper therefore is to discuss the behavior of Emirates airlines by studying its PETS and SWOT analysis. These will help to identify the various problems that are facing the organization today. Moreover, they will help to explain why the events are happening today. It will analyses the challenges by adopting the OB theory of X and Y. It will also discuss the leadership personality traits and the conflic ts within the industry. SWOT analysis Strengths Emirates Airline flies to six continents in the world. In this perspective, it is able to cover approximately 100 cities. In the Asian continent, the company has a market share of approximately 39 percent (Free Swot Analysis, 2012). Moreover, it is a state owned corporation thereby boosting its financial base. Moreover, it lies in between east and west Asia thereby allowing the company to boost its market share significantly. Weaknesses There is open competition in the country which has allowed other competing businesses to venture in the market. Moreover, the company is faced with a dire need to improve its performance in all the regions around the world in order to increase its market share. In addition, the company does not pay its labor sufficiently thereby limiting its productivity. Opportunities Since Emirates Airline has joined the global airline alliance, it should focus on areas such as Disney Land which is attracting internat ional communities to use Emirates Airline as their first choice. This has strengthened the company’s operations globally. Threats Since Emirates Airline is owned by the state, it is heavily affected by the policies that the government implements. Moreover, since different types of labor are required to cope with different types of aircrafts, it becomes difficult for the company to meet the demands of the employees without any conflicts. PEST Analysis Political The political scene in the Asian pacific has been favorable in 2000s. As a result, most of the countries are making agreements which have facilitated trade within the region. These agreements have opened up opportunities for the company (Articlesbase, 2012). Economic The United Arab Emirates economy has been advancing at a consistent pace thereby increasing the overall income of the country. As a result, the revenue per capita has grown significantly thereby allowing the people in the region to make use of air transport . As a result, Emirates Airline has noted a steady growth in the recent years (Articlesbase, 2012). Social Emirates Airline conducts its operations in an area that has a large number of employees. Most of these employees do not demand high compensation. In this case, there is a huge difference in labor costs with countries such as the US. In this case, the company has been able to boost its profits significantly. However, many employees are becoming aware of their

Case study Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Case study - Assignment Example The nursing assessment tools relevant for the situation of David Kings are Crichton Royal behavior scale and the Barthel Index. Barthel Index encompasses ten items for measuring daily functioning of patients and particularly mobility and daily living (Gallao 2006, pg. 201). The tool helps in investigating items such as moving, feeding, transferring to toilet and back, bathing, walking, dressing, grooming, up and downstairs movement and continence of bladder. The Barthel Index is important here considering that the situation of avid King disenables him practicing self-care or operating independent of a caretaker. His hands are weak, he cannot communicate and has incontinent bladder that makes the tool the best for offering comprehensive care. Crichton Royal behavior scale measures patient’s ability in ten dimensions or items that include mobility, memory, self-care, social disturbances, communication and orientation (Schachter 2011, pg. 181). This toll is relevant considering t hat it guides in accurate assessment on issues that directly affect David Kings. For instance, the tool cab help a nurse assess and scale communication, coordination and memory capability of the patient. From the description of the case study, David Kings seems to be suffering from three health problems that include heart attack, body injuries and impaired memory. Body injuries resulting from the slump that necessitated admission of David Kings in the hospital is the most urgent health care problem that nurses need to attend. Impaired memory and cognition is the second most urgent healthcare need about David Kings and which requires quick attention. Heart attack that could be due blood pressure requires the least urgent medical care. The reason for making manifest and hidden body injuries as urgent healthcare problems facing David Kings relates to the magnitude of the pain that the problem is likely to cause to the patient. Managing and

Analysis of Walmart leadership Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Analysis of Walmart leadership - Research Paper Example Further, he convinces them to change their perceptions, and expectations in the process of achieving a common goal. According to Bass, the transformational leadership is made up of several elements such as; focusing on vital priorities, promoting harmony and unity, motivating followers/workers to focus on a common organization goal, and being consistent in decision making. Thus, transformational leadership moves the subject/follower beyond their immediate self interests via inspiration, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation. Also, transactional leadership tends to refer to the mutual relationship between the follower and the leader to exchange ideas so as to meet their self interests (Bass, 1985; Yammarino et al., 1993). Transformational leadership tends to produce greater positive effects than other leadership styles. The leaders at Walmart utilize this leadership style while running the organization. The transformational theory is made up of four critical elements; inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence and individualized consideration. Transformational leadership often leads to excellent performance that tends to go beyond the expected outcomes. Lowe et al. (1996) in his analysis of more than 39 studies done to evaluate transformational theory and leadership found out that leaders who exhibited transformational characteristics proved to be more effective leaders than those who did not. Further he stated that these findings were applicable to both higher and lower level leaders as well as to mangers/leaders working in private and public settings. Tracey and Hinkin (1994, 1996) sought to analyze the nature and formation of transformational leadership in the hospitality industry. Their findings indicated that organizational success in the hospitality business industry required leaders who were able to utilize their vision and recognize the relevant environmental changes and how to manage them

Definitions of HRM Essay Example for Free

Definitions of HRM Essay Introduction and Overview Definitions of HRM. The employment relationship. Commitment and control. Internal fit. Textbook: Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright (2012) Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. Chapter 1, pp. 2-68. Examples of exam questions: How and why has the role of the HR department been changing in Western firms since the 1980s? How far and for what reasons would you agree that the debate over the differences between HRM and personnel management is all hot air? Lecture 2 Analysis and Design of Work Job analysis; Job design; employee involvement; quality circles; team working Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapter 4, pp. 154-190. Examples of exam questions: Who benefits from employee involvement? Compare quality circles and team working with regards to their impact on the economic outcomes of a company. Lecture 3 Personnel Selection Selection criteria, Big-5 personality dimensions, selection methods, predictive validity, reliability Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapter 6, pp. 230-267. Examples of past exam questions: Critically discuss the use of interviews as a primary basis for selection decisions. What criteria should be considered in selecting new employees to support firm performance? How do interviews fare in evaluating these criteria? Lecture 4 Performance appraisal Competitive Advantage. Chapter 8, 338-393. Examples of past exam questions: Critically evaluate performance appraisal at work. What are the purposes of conducting performance appraisals? How might appraisals differ depending on the purpose? Lecture 5 Pay Systems Content of pay systems; selecting pay systems; pay and firm performance; pay outcomes for employees. Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapter 1 1, pp. 0-519. Examples of exam questions: Which factors should HR managers take into account in designing a fair pay system? Evaluate options for the design of pay systems for different employee groups. Lecture 6 Human Resource Planning, Flexibility and Turnover Human resource planning; the model of the flexible firm; contingent employment; temporary work; employee turnover Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapt er 5, pp. 191-211 and Chapter 10, pp. 440-478. Examples ot exam questions: Temporary agency workers are hired to protect the employment security of the core workforce. Discuss critically. Contingent workers facilitate the use of high commitment management systems. Discuss. Lecture 7 Strategic Human Resource Management: Best Practices vs. Best Fit Strategic HRM; models of HRM; best practice and business strategy models Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapter 2, pp. 70-105. Examples of exam questions: Evaluate the relationship between the business and the human resource management strategy of a firm. Contrast and evaluate the concepts of horizontal and vertical fit in human resource management. Lecture 8 Strategic HRM: The Resource- ased View and Stakeholder Models Continuation of lecture 7: strategic HRM; resource-based view; institutional / stakeholder perspectives on HRM Textbook: To what extent do managers have a strategic choice with regards to human resource management? Critically discuss the implications of the resource-based view of the firm for designing HRM strategies. Lecture 9 Equal Employment Opportunities Competitive Advantage. Chapter 3, pp. 106-153. Examples of past exam questions: Do women have equal opportunities at work? What actions might employers take to address any inequalities? Evaluate human capital theoretical explanations of the gender earnings gap. Lecture 10 Industrial Relations Introduction to industrial relations; purposes of collective organization; effects of unions; recent trends in industrial relations Textbook: Competitive Advantage. Chapter 14, pp. 598-647. Examples of exam questions: What are the consequences of a lack of effective worker representation, be it through trade unions or some other form of worker representation at the workplace? Why do workers Join trade unions and what are the effects of union activity? How has this changed in liberal market economies in recent years?

The New Brutalist Architecture Anthropology Essay

The New Brutalist Architecture Anthropology Essay New Brutalist architecture is the outcome of a British architectural ethic named New Brutalism. According to Peter and Alice Smithson, the term was coined from a newspaper paragraph heading which, by poor translation of French, called the Marseilles Unità © by Le Corbusier Brutalism in architecture[1]. The Smithsons anointed their own British brand of Modernism by adding New both because they came after Le Corbusier and also in response to the style of the Architectural Review which at the start of the 1950s sunned many articles on the New Monumentality, the New Empiricism, the New Sentimentality etc.[2] Thus, New Brutalism was set to up be the direct line development of the Modern Movement. According to Banham (1966), whilst the terms Brutalism and New Brutalism are often used interchangeably, it is important to distinguish the meanings of the two terms as this paper will be focusing on the latter. Brutalism, though a British term, refers to an architectural aesthetic that is characterised by sticking repetitive angular geometries, and where concrete is used. A building without concrete can achieve a Brutalist character through a rough blocky appearance, and the expression of its structural materials, forms and services on its exterior. Another common theme is the exposure of the buildings functions in the exterior of the building. Banham (1966) summarises the key characteristics of Brutalist architecture as formal legibility of plan, clear exhibition of structure, direct and honest use of materials and clear exhibition of services. Thus, Brutalism casts back in time to include Le Corbusier as one of its important contributors. On the other hand, New Brutalism was coined before any New Brutalist architecture was built. It is an ethic, not aesthetic and is associated with socialist utopian ideology supported by Peter and Alison Smithson and the Team 10 group of architects amongst which they belonged. It is more related to the theoretical reform in urban theory proposed by CIAM than to bà ©ton brut. Thus, having originated from entirely different, organic theoretical doctrines, the British brand of Brutalism has considerable differences to Brutalist architecture from the continent. New Brutalism was born in the post-war era, almost exclusively in the Architects Department of the London County Council (LCC) the only place where young graduated architects such as Peter and Alison Smithson and many   from the Architectural Association school (AA) could find work in London. Many architects who have returned from the world had fought to make the world safe but the economic terms of the price of victory was heavy and the country faced long periods of austerity resulting in shortages, a shortfall in housing and social services. It was a time of benevolent socialism and commitment to the welfare state following the election of the Labour Government in 1945. The government had assumed responsibility for the welfare of the people in a way that would have been unthinkable in the 1930s.[3] Many houses of the working class poor that were in the centre of large industrial cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham have been destroyed. In London, Abercromb ie and Forshaw published the County of London Plan which described the challenge faced by the government. The report recognised that there is abundant evidence that for families with children, houses are preferred to flats. They provide a private garden and yard at the same level as the main rooms of the dwelling, and fit the English temperament.[4] But, to put everyone in houses would result in the displacement of two-thirds to three-quarters of the people. The planners wished to minimise the out-movement of jobs. They settled on 136 persons per acre which based on the research they did put one third of the people in houses, and some 60 per cent in eight- and ten- storey flats; about half of families with two children will go into flats, but even this density meant the overspill of 4 in 10 of all people living in this zone in 1939. Furthermore, there was the sense of lesprit nouveau of making a fresh start after the cleansing effect of the war. The London architectural debate was fractionized; largely between the student generation and practicing establishment architects. The Establishment architects tended towards Socialist political alignment, with the welfare state architecture of Sweden as the architectural paradigm. For the whole generation of graduating architects from the AA were strongly influenced by the ideas of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; the Ville Radieuse and the Unità © dHabitation suggested a model to be applied by good hard socialist principles in good hard modernist materials.[5] They felt the Establishment architects were tending towards what they saw as a softer and more humanist Modernism, a retreat from the pre-war, heroic form of Modernism[6]. The Architects Department at the LCC provided a model in the early years; it had an unusually free hand, because the Ministrys ordinary co st sanctions did not apply to it[7]. It first produced the great Corbusian slabs which culminated in the only true realisation of the Radiant City in the world the Alton West estate in Roehampton[8]. The New Brutalists concept of order is not classical but topological: its implementation on a site could have involved judging the case on its merits (i.e. land form, accommodation required, finance available) rather than in accordance with a pre-established classical or picturesque schema.[9] Thus, they distinguish themselves from the earlier Brutalists such as Le Corbusier who proposed in his 1925 Plan Voisin to bulldoze most of central Paris north of the Seine in order to replace it with a hard of identical sixty-story towers. The Swiss architect was working in an inter-war Paris of exuberant, chaotic and often sordid everyday life[10] when the city was racked by disease and slums. He believed in centralising order (The design of cities was too important to be left to citizens[11]). His plans always relied on his famous paradox: we must decongest the centres of our cities by increasing their density; in addition, we must improve circulation and increase the amount of open space. T he paradox could be resolved by building high on a small part of total ground area[12]. This vision required clearing entire sites (WE MUST BUILD ON A CLEAR SITE! The city of today is dying because it is not constructed geometrically[13]). In war-torn London, the New Brutalists had the luxury of bomb-cleared sites but they also had a greater awareness for the historical fabric of the place-the designers of the Barbican estate built around St Giles church which survived the bombing and designers of Park Hill in Sheffield preserved old street names from the slum for their elevated walkways. Le Corbusier developed his principles of planning most fully in La Ville Contemporaine (1922) and La Ville Radieuse(1932). The plans differed in their recommendation for social distribution. The Contemporary Citys clearly differentiated spatial structure was designed to reflect a specific, segregated social structure: ones dwelling depended on ones job[14]. The residential areas would be of two types: six-storey luxury apartments for professional white collar workers (e.g. industrialists, scientists and artisits), and more modest accommodation for workers, built around courtyards, with less open space. These apartments would be mass-produced for mass-living. The apartments would all be uniform, contain standard furniture and be collectively serviced much like a hotel. Le Corbusier also designed entertainment and cultural complexes close to the middle-class in the centre of the city. The blue collar workers would not live like this. They would live in garden apartments within satellit e units. A different and appropriate sort of green space, sports facilities and entertainments would be available for these residents. Many aspects of New Brutalist architecture echo ideas from the Contemporary City. Income segregation has been practiced to different extents; the Barbican estates apartments vary between elaborate and fashionable layouts on the affluent south side (where the tenants were mainly city workers) and simpler layouts and designs on north side where social housing is concentrated[15]. Furthermore, whole out of town social housing estates such as Thamesmead have been built to resemble Le Corbusiers satellite units. By the time of the Radiant City, though the tenets of the Corbusian religion remained unchanged, there were important theological variations.   Everyone will be equally collectivised and live in giant apartments called Unità ©s. Every family will get an apartment not according to the breadwinners job, but according to rigid space norms: no one will get anything more or less than the minimum necessary for efficient existence. Everyone will enjoy collective services such as cooking, cleaning and childcare. Similarly, New Brutalist architects have tried to logically work from basic human needs in order to distinguish the necessary from the unnecessary and thereby simplifying existing architectural conventions to create an efficient living or working space[16]. However, rarely have they attempted to create truly mixed-income neighbourhoods, having concentrated on social housing estates. Although the recent redevelopment of Park Hill estate in Sheffied is mixing affordable and commerci al residential housing in the Brutalist estate, it cannot be said that mixed-income communities were a tenet of New Brutalism. Brutalist architecture quickly became the official architecture of the Welfare State. Criticisms of its severe problems took a very long time to come. In order to see why, it is important to appreciate how bad were the original dense rows of smoke-blackened slums that the towers replaced. Six years of war had reduced those parts of London and the great provincial cities to a sinister squalor. For two decades, any social disbenefits of modernist planning and its transformation of the town passed largely unremarked[17]. Criticisms rapidly became deafening in the 1970s after the subsidy system had been recast and local authorities were already phasing out their high-rise blocks. Though the outburst was triggered by the collapse of a building in a gas explosion, the majority of the complaints were eloquently summarised by Kenneth Campbell, who was in charge of housing design at the LCC and GLC from 1959 to 1974, to be the lifts (too few, too small, too slow), the children (too many), and the management (too little)[18]. Most importantly, critics like to point out that the true cause of all such problems, of which Corbusier is a fully culpable as any of his followers, was that the middle-class designers had no real feeling for the way a working-class family lived[19]; in their world [children] are not hanging around the landing or playing with the dustbin lids[20]. Chapter Two Dreams v Reality Inside the Minds of Brutalist Architects The sin of Corbusier and the Corbusians thus lay not in their designs, but in the mindless arrogance whereby they were imposed on people who could not take them and could never, given a modicum of thought, ever have been expected to take them[21] Corbusian Brutalism and New Brutalism suffered very much similar design failures, and the two have often been combined or confused in ridicule. However, this chapter points out that New Brutalism should not be indiscriminately blamed for deigning solely for the ideals of the middle-class, or that the designers similarly imposed the designs upon such unwitting residents without considering their social-economic needs and lifestyle. With ambition for a new approach to modernist architecture, the New Brutalists sought to exploit the low cost and pragmatism of mass produced materials and pre-fabricated components[22], mixing uses instead of segregation (as in Le Corbusiers design of La Ville Radieuse), designing specific to location and purpose and to use their signature elevated walkways which they named streets in the air. A satisfactory analysis of the architecture would evaluate the performance of such design features one by one, in essence performing an autopsy and separating the healthy organs, from the moderately healthy and the failed. After the procedure is over the pathologist may wonder why certain failed organs were designed in a way that may have been responsible for putting them in the line of trouble. To understand this we will look at what the architects were trying to achieve and the sources that influenced them. Peter and Alice Smithson wished to achieve the Virgilian dream the peace of the countryside enjoyed with the self-consciousness of the city dweller into the notion of the city itself[23]. Thus, unlike Ebenezer Howard who created the garden cities to combine the benefits of the countryside with the utility of city services, the Smithsons wished to take the garden city back into the city. They sought control and calm as key qualities in the modern city. They were also inspired by the flood of new consumer technologies and advertising. The Smithsons felt Le Corbusier was the first to put together the world of popular and fine arts towards the end of his life in Unità © dHabitation in Marseilles. They felt he viewed historic art possibly the classical origins of heroic architectural principles not as a stylistic source but as a pattern of organisation, and a source of social reform and technological revolution[24]. The Smithsons themselves recognised that advertising was making a bigger contribution to the visual climate of the 1950s than any of the fine arts. Advertising was selling products as a natural accessory to life and is packed with information for the average man it had taken over from fine art as the definition of what is fine and desirable by society. They recognised that the mass produced consumer goods had revolutionised the house without the intervention of the architect. However, they also felt that pre-fabricated buildings built for utility and not aesthetics (e.g. schools and garages) have adapted to the built environment a lot better to the existing built environment than buildings designed by fine art architects. Thus, in context of the desire to create calm and safe dwellings for the city dweller, architectural should be developed for the machine-served city. As with the majority of architects of their age, the Smithsons were profoundly influenced by the architecture of Mies van der Rohe. The Smithsons in particular stated that they were profoundly changed by two of Rohes themes: 1. To make a thing well is not only a moral imperative, but it is also the absolute base of the pleasure of use 2. The machine-calm city. No rhetoric, just ordering of elements to effect a gentle, live, equipoise ordinary quality. Neoclassicism.[25] The first point touches on the material aspect of Rohes love for perfection of detail and the use of the finest quality of materials, with the greatest care. The Smithsons felt Rohe had a special feeling for materials as luxury the observer is made aware of the essence of each material[26] Interestingly, this focus on the existential qualities of concrete and the keenness to use the material for its physical characteristic has enjoyed a recent revival in architecture. Conversely, there is debate with regards to the reason why the Smithsons and the Modernist architects before 1980s used the material so liberally. Sarah Williams Goldhagen believed that the Smithson did employ concrete for its physical properties whereas Adrian Forty argues that such conclusions are misguided in part because the Smithsons themselves tried to appeal to a later audience by discussing their earlier works in a new light in their publications. Forty believes that the Modernist architects of per-1980s were p rimarily interested in the form of their structures; further that in the ordinariness of their forms and the unremarkable, smooth and grey expanse of concrete they sought to achieve an abstract formlessness, as if literally urging the structure to disappear with irrelevance. Thus, concrete was not chosen because it was concrete, but rather because it had the properties the architects desired. The latter explanation seems to be the case of the Smithsons in 1974 when they wrote that many old cities the feeling of control is derived from the repetition of the use of materials on every roof, the roofs having been built at the same pitch, with similar roof lights etc. This suggests that perhaps the repeated use of concrete in so many parts of the building was not motivated by its suitability but by the need to repeat and extend control. The Smithsons were keen for their repetition of elements to seem to derive from the intention of the whole, rather than seeming to have been designed as one separate entity which is then repeated. They found that a repetition with subtle differences used by Rohe in creating a large at-the-whole-community-scale central open space was life-including[27]. They also felt that a building is more interesting if it is more than itself if it changes the space around it with connective possibilities but by a quietness that until now our sensibilities could not recognise as architecture at all. They felt a sense of wellbeing can be found if the built-form and the counterpart space are locked together[28]. The recognition that a building is not alone, that it exerts an influence on its surroundings and needs to interact with it to be successful seems now far off from the emphasis of todays planning policies for high quality, inclusive design which should integrate into existing urban form and the natural and built environments[29]. However, what sounded similar is very different in practice as we can see in Robin Hood Gardens, a project by the Smithsons where they consciously incorporated their vision of inclusive design. We can see that the buildings were definitely designed with the central space in mind they are even curved according to the landscape features. However, the estate does not integrate with buildings of the surrounding areas very well in terms of scale or layout. Critics state that it failed to come to terms that existing spatial fabrics held memory and value[30]. People adapt slowly to change a building that nods to the original fabric will aid the adaptation process . This design fails to be inclusive for the surrounding areas that are outside the architects control and thus does not fall into the broader scope of todays standard of good design. However, an earlier project by the Smithsons was a widely held success for integrating well within and introducing variations to the City of London. This was the Economist Plaza which was completed in 1964. A group of three office towers built on a picturesque piazza to allow pedestrian movement independent of the road system with street level access to services and shops, it broke the London tradition of the closed block, and may be considered the precursor of later office developments such as Broadgate[31]. However, its success was also attributed to restraint that was sensitive to context, by the use of stone instead of concrete to assimilate choice of material of older buildings nearby, and designing on the basis of an ancient Greek acropolis plan to maintain with the scale and governing lines of tr adition-bound St Jeremys Street. The successful features of this project also marked a retreat from Brutalism to the restrained Classicism of Mies van der Rohe[32]. The Economist Plaza is an example of how the Smithsons usually go about the designing process they conducted length research into the working practices of the journalists of the Economist magazine in order to create the most efficient structure. Their aim was for their buildings to be specific to their location and purpose[33]. They also took inspiration from the works of others. At the time when the Smithsons were compiling their entry to the Golden Lane housing competition between 1951 and 1953, they had contact with the Hendersons who were conducting social studies in the East End of London. This steered their reading of the city towards a form which reflected the structure of human association. This led to their radical suggestion that the street and housing blocks might multiply in a random and biological way to form a network overlaid on the existing city in a way reminiscent of molecular patterns or fractals. Thus, the topography or the context of a specific site would mould the disposition of the project. The idea of a network is based on the Smithsons belief that a community cannot be created by geographic isolation which, they feel, was the mistake made by English neighbourhood planning (through grouping around an infant school, community centre or group of shops), and the Unità © concept of Le Corbusier[34]. They aspire to aid social cohesion through the looseness of grouping and ease of communication. They felt the quintessential role of the planner is to create a sense of place by encouraging the creation of non-arbitrary groupings and effective communication, making possible groupings based on the family, street, district, region and city apparent. To maintain the looseness of grouping and the ease of communication, density must increase as population increases. The Smithsons believed that we must build high to avoid eating up farmland and creating congestion and increasing travel time on the roads. The architects recognised that high-rise living led to problems such as deprivation of outdoor life, the ineffectiveness of vertical communication, and difficulty in forming friendships for the lack of horizontal communication at the same level[35]. And so they proposed an ambitions vision of a multi-layered, city, leaving on the ground the support networks such as freight and utilities. In large cities, such things as light industries, workshops, clinics, shopping centres and small hotels could easily be located on raised levels: integrated with the deck-dwelling pattern the hope is that the advantage of close physical proximity will draw people to the clearly different districts of the city cause an urban revival a new city in which the home will be very much the centre of all activities[36]. The council house in the UK should be capable of being put together with others in a similar sort, so as to form bigger and equally comprehensive elements which can be added to existing villages and towns in such a way as to revitalise the traditional hierarchies, and not destroy them. The architects felt that building imitation market towns both inside and outside cities deny them the right to be urban forms because they do not engage with the pre-existing community to which they have been attached. The architects were also interested in achieving clarity between private and public space, much like Le Corbusiers Unità © which preserved the individual in seclusion while giving expression to the communal life and faith of the Order with a double-height collective space, and links through the balconies with the world outside. The interior street provides an enclosed world of neighbours whilst the shopping arcade and the roof space belong to and give expression to the total community.[37] The Smithsons were keen to preserve this divide: From the moment the man or child steps outside his dwelling our responsibility starts for the individual has not got the control over his extended environment that he has over his house[38].     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Smithsons entry for Golden Lane failed but their design laid the foundations for the development of streets in the air. The streets in the air are a reinterpretation of East End bye-law streets because the Smithsons saw that such traditional streets in the East End function well as a main public forum for communication, as a playground for children and provide open space for public gatherings and large scale sociability in working class Britain. To fulfil these functions in a Brutalist apartment block, Le Corbusiers rue intà ©rieure-the double-loaded, long, dark corridor on the inside of the building will need to be moved to the exterior. They will be 12 foot wide, continuous and reach every part of the development. At Park Hill estate, Sheffied, the architects even made sure that original Victorian street names were kept and neighbours from the original slum area where the estate replaced were housed next to eachother. This contributed to the initial popularity of the estate b ut it could not stop problems of crime and dilapidation following. It is interesting to compare the fates of Robin Hood Gardens and Park Hill. The vertical circulation system and access from streets in the air were said to make the Robin Hood estate unpopular[39]. However, it was also blamed for disagreeing with the Smithsons idea at Golden Lane of housing elements forming networks or clusters and the Team 10 premise that a buildings first duty is to the fabric in which it stands by having been divided into two building blocks. They do not demonstrate, by combining into a longer entity the potential for a city wide pedestrian network[40]. On the other hand, Park Hill estate does join up into a large entity but its 12 foot decks were in turn blamed for providing quick getaways for burglars and other criminals. Neither building realised the dream of the elevated community utopia. Does this suggest that streets in the air in actuality never got off the ground? The Barbican estate offers safe and secluded elevated decks with beautiful views over the e state but it does not serve as a social gathering place for the residents nor a playground for the children. It seems somehow it is extremely difficult to recapture the East End feel in the Smithsons signature design feature. At the CIAM conference in 1953, they attacked the decades-old dogma propounded by Le Corbusier and others that cities should be zoned into specific areas for living, working, leisure and transport, and that urban housing should consist of tall, widely spaced towers[41]. The Smithsons ideal city would combine different activities within the same areas. However, the legacy of CIAM and of Le Corbusier was a significant burden and will take time to wear off[42]. By the close of 1960s, there was a shift from the raw Brutalism of the 50s to a gentler and more refined form of architectural language[43]. Team 10s urban productions were marked by a distinct retreat from the early mobility-driven solutions to solutions based on the metamorphosis of inherent qualities of existing urban structures where large open sites were concerned; or rehabilitation and reuse of existing structures combined with new small-scale interventions, were existing structures are concerned. In effect, many of the so called Post-Modern revolutions of 1970s, including participation, rehabilitation, restoration, preservation, and political reorganisation, had been pre-dated by Team 10s thinking during 1960s.[44] Does this suggest that the New Brutalists finally acknowledged the mistakes of their designs and retreated? Such an interpretation would have ignored the context of 1950s where a quick solution was needed to re-house many people from bombed out regions in the centre of industrial cities and putrid slums. However, haste is a lazy excuse for questionable design. It cannot be ignored that the hard concrete aesthetic and morphological autonomy in part alienated Brutalist works from their residents and ended up forming ghettos for housing for the lower classes. In fairness, many estates in Britain were brought off the peg by local authorities too lazy or unimaginative to hire architects and planners of their own[45] that resulted in appalling dimness and dullness[46]. But, the original designs from New Brutalist architects also proved to be design disasters. Despite their efforts to accommodate the working class into their towers, they designed buildings with features that were highly uns uitable for such residents and eventually drove them away. Chapter 3 Design Failures According to R. K. Jarvis[47], Le Corbusiers urban design principles belong to the artistic tradition in urban design, sharing the umbrella term with Camillo Sitte, Gordon Cullen, Roy Worskett and the Ministry for Housing and Local Government in London which designed the post-war British towns and villages. From first appearances, such principles could not be more different. Sittes emphasis artistic principles in city building is the direct aesthetic antithesis to modernists conception of Order by pure geometry; and neither would have tolerated the rows of front-and-back garden semi-detached houses of post-war England. Martin Kreigers Review of Large Scale Planning[48] sets out three binds the set of limitations of particular attitudes that are common with all urban designers of the artistic tradition. Firstly, the desire for a formal, general model which will provide a scientific foundation for planning analysis and proposals can be seen just as clearly beneath Sittes sensual and overwhelmingly visual impressions as Le Corbusiers utilitarian explanations of the benefits of international-style living. Guidelines, whether calling for That the centre of plazas be kept free or WE MUST BUILD ON A CLEAR SITE!

Physics and the Speed of Sound :: physics sound

The Speed of "Sound": is actually the speed of transmission of a small disturbance through a medium. The speed of sound (a) is equal to the square root of the ratio of specific heats (g) times the gas constant (R) times the absolute temperature (T). a = sqrt [g * R * T] Sonic Boom Sound generated by airflow has been around and reasearched for a long time. The increased use of fluid machines and engines has led to an increasing level of noise generation, and hence to an increasing interest in this area of research. A sonic boom is a loud noise caused by an aircraft travelling faster than the speed of sound which is mach one.. The sound propagates along the figure which is called the mach cone. The boom is due to a combination of volume and lift. While the boom due to volume can be virtually eliminated (Busemann, 1935), the boom due to lift can only be minimized. The minimum sonic boom generally does not correspond to the best aircraft. There is among others: sonic boom minimization at given drag; minimization at given volume, etc. (Seebass, 1998). Because the shock energy is nearly conserved as the shock radiates, its strength decays only slightly with the distance from the aircraft. Minimization is not straightforward, because it is constrained by structural, aerodynamic and design parameters, and not least by the variation of the thermo-dynamic properties of the atmosphere. The Speed of Sound, source: Air & Space/Smithsonian. The speed of sound varies with temperature. At sea level Mach 1 is around 742 mph. It decreases with altitude until it reaches about 661 mph at 36,000 feet, then remains at that speed in a band of steady temperature up to 60,000 feet. Because of the variation, it is possible for an airplane flying supersonic at high altitude to be slower than a subsonic flight at sea level.