Inspiration? Wednesday, Jun 11 2008

Every “artist” has his or her own inspiration.  Whether they’re the “originator” of their work or not, something within them drives them towards perfection.  Although I despise these things (blogs), I feel that it is necessary to look back on some of the architecture that we treasure so much, primarily the buildings in our capital.  In April, I visited Washington DC with a group of my fellow classmates for our AP US History class to further study American history and how our country is ran today.  Other than learning how much a politician can dance around a question or related subject, we pointed out that there were a lot of the similarities between the architectural designs of the buildings and a lot of Europe’s older buildings.  To give you some examples, here are some of the pictures that were taken on the trip.

The Post Office

The Central Metro Station

Now if you compare this to something like this:

 You can see that it bears a close resemblance to old English architecture in the sense that they have a lot of pillars, many elaborate arches, statues, towers, etc.  Perhaps because of the difficult appearance, it gives off the impression that we are capable of building something great.  We’re able to take something that Europe had tossed around (which in reality they created from scratch and perfected) and incorporate that into the building of our nation’s capital.  Not only that, but all of it shows our acceptance of and how we’ve embraced other country’s cultures and history, all shown through their buildings.  But it probably mostly shows that just because we’re Americans doesn’t mean that we’re either intolerant of other people’s cultures or that we’re better than anybody else (although it seems like a good amount of the people in our country carry the “i’m better than you just because I can be” attitude).  And that we’re more than capable of making our buildings look just as beautiful and just as old minus the ghetto part (not to say that there are no buildings in Europe that would “wow” me; the Eiffel Tower, the Apostolic Palace, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa are obviously must sees. )

Take the Lincoln Memorial, for example. This monument was modeled after the Parthenon in Greece, only it was built with 35 pillars which symbolized the 35 states that were part of the union at the time of Lincoln.

We, the United States do work.

That’s what we do.

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Is landscaping all that important? Wednesday, Jun 11 2008

Landscape Architecture has been proven to be a very helpful job when it comes to improving the value of people’s homes.  The American Society of Landscape Architects say that “the general rule of thumb is that you get back 100 percent to 200 percent of what you invest in landscaping when you sell your home.”  With this in mind, and with “Eighty-four percent of the real estate agents interviewed for the study said a house with trees would be as much as 20 percent more salable than a house without trees,” even people with average homes have good reasons to invest in improvements such as outdoor pools, ponds and waterfalls, plants and trees, and outdoor furniture.  Not only is it a wise investment, it is also a great hobby for retirees and has been proven to relieve a great deal of stress for people of all ages.

But for those who are not interested in simply raising the value of their home and property, improving your everyday outdoor environment helps relieve stress, thus preventing as well as helping deal with disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder, incontinence (“the inability to control urination or bowel movements.” control due to either an outstanding amount of weight gain and/or lack of activity), and acne.  This is also a type of therapy used for rehabilitation (drugs, alcohol, violence, etc.).  Having some kind of activity to focus on and to be proud of gets their mind off of any troubling thoughts and gets them to begin thinking positively (or so experiments say).

Some of the most common additions to people’s “back yards” include a lot of Japanese based ideas, such as koi ponds, as well as many other Japanese fish, plants and/or culturally linking models or objects.  Although it’s expensive and time consuming, it is believed to give you inner peace and to increase your activity as well as certainty of bowel movements.  

What a landscape architect does is simply find what it is you want to do with your yard/outdoor area, and based on your initial ideas, they’ll give you a number of options that you can go with, as well as list off a few suggestions based on what other people have tried, similar projects that they may have personally worked on or not, or guide you to the most affordable yet cost effective way to go about “pimping out your yard,” dawgg.  Whether you’re concerned about the value of your home or relieving the stress that’s set on your shoulders every day, revisions of your current landscaping situation is definitely beneficial.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.asla.org/RESIDENTIALINFO/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22221230/

http://www.igoweb.org/~wms/personal/photos/2001/jGarden/koiPond-med.jpg

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Essence. Tuesday, Jun 3 2008

-What is the purpose of Architecture, really?

-Where would we be without it?

-Would we even have built up instead of just out?

-Would we have any kind of variation in the production of homes without it?

-and if so would the different houses be a measure of one’s wealth?

<img src=”http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-02/origamic-architecture-willem.jpg”>

The reason why we have advancement in Architecture is obviously to benefit the people.  The designs for the businesses/homes that are being produced wouldn’t have even been considered back in the day.  But because of how much more powerful America and its people are, we’re able to put want before need in the production of the homes.  Instead of just needing a bathroom, people “<a href=”http://elitechoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/pimped-out-high-tech-john-s.jpg”>pimp their bathrooms</a>” simply because they can.  And WHYY???  Because money talks, and no matter how crazy the idea is or how excessive the want is, people do it anyway.  This brings the idea of harming the world as little as possible into the mix for present architects.  They know that they need to meet the needs luxury-wise, but they do their best to produce homes or businesses that are as eco friendly as possible.

In fact, it’s become so important to present day architects that the companies such as <a href=”http://www.brio54.com/”>Brio54</a>, who I’ve mentioned earlier, feel like they should make the eco friendly homes as affordable as possible in hopes of encouraging as many people as possible to buy more of them.  They’re able to put in the amount of luxury people want or expect without harming the planet as much as before.

With the use of solar power as an alternative power source, the present day architecture meets the expectations of pretty much everybody, from the environmentalists who ride their bikes to work everyday because they’re afraid of the emittion of CO2 from cars to the multi-millionaires who care more about their cars than the planet.  The future homes and/or businesses are sure to not only harm the planet less, but possibly reverse some of the damage done.

With the progression of today’s architecture, it’s easy to see that the possibility of having not only the essentials, but the luxury you want is possible without harming the environment.  They make it possible for not only the rich to afford it either, they WANT you to make the world better and are showing it by making them so affordable.  They want EVERYONE to hop on the band wagon and work towards emitting much less but not sacrifice the things they want.

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Who needs more help? Us or the Environment? Tuesday, May 27 2008

In my introduction I talked about how a good amount of Architectural designs and plans have begun to be geared towards harming the environment as little as possible. With the United States ommitting the second most amount of pollution in the world, and with the help of movies such as “An Inconvenient Truth,” it has been made clear that we need to slow down and try to keep from releasing as much harmful chemicals into the air as possible. Some of you reading this may think that mentioning “An Inconvenient Truth” and using it as an example might be a bad idea, because almost all of the facts, even the claim that “Global Warming” is taking place have been proven wrong. But that doesn’t discredit the fact that we’re facing a climate change, whether it’s serious or not. And all our pollution may be the cause of it.

Knowing this, people think that it’s very important to learn to use and live on renewable resources such as solar power and perhaps even wind power. Solar power is a great idea, but there are some problems with wind power. I was amazed when I saw that the percentage of the US’s power in 2007 generated by wind was just under .0026%, because of how inefficient it sounds. The amount of wind and the dependability of the wind is completely unpredictable and the amount of land needed to properly harness the use of wind power makes the idea seem like a lost cause. However, the Department of Energy (DOE) and industry concludes that “wind could generate 20 percent of U.S. power needs by 2030.”  Can you imagine the amount of land that would be needed to get that much power out of it?

The building of dams to generate the power currently used by most households kills a ton of wildlife and could be replaced by nuclear power and other more effective resources.  Many companies believe that using other sources which will not harm the environment as much is so important that they’re beginning to make them more affordable so that more people can join in helping the world (not that it’ll really do anything, because of China’s 90% use of coal as a resource…).

This blog might have been very off topic, but for those of you reading this, just know that i’m going to probably switch my topic to something relating to the pollution problem and the US’s involvement in it compared to the rest of the world.

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Introduction Friday, May 23 2008

In my blogs, I will be addressing the components of present day architecture, more specifically the new technology going into it and the plans for it to evolve in the future.  With the idea of going green and making modern houses as eco friendly as possible, the plans and point of direction within companies has changed dramatically, with construction companies such as brio54 making these innovative homes/businesses as affordable as possible.  With this in mind, the primary focus of my blogs will entail the improvements and/or changes in the construction of these homes/businesses. 

Due to a dramatic increase of attention towards pollution, this is a very important subject and needs to be further studied and brought to the people.  Although it won’t exactly “save the world,” it could help with bringing the United States down on the list of the highest polluters in the world (we sit at #2 in the world, we were recently surpassed by China).  From homes/businesses to airlines/vehicles, the new, innovative technology to save our planet have been steadily studied and been applied to products that we see every day.  Now what about the technology that we haven’t seen yet?

The blogs that I will be posting will include both a brief description of the topic being addressed, an analysis and pictures/videos/articles to aid the presentation of those topics. I’ll make my posts both informational as well as interesting/eye catching, so you won’t have to worry about reading pages and pages of material to find out what really happened.

Well I can’t wait to begin blogging, I hope that those of you reading this now will be interested in a few of the blogs that I’ll post in the future.

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Hello world! Thursday, May 22 2008

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

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