The importance of lightning rods or conductors

Some time ago, I posted this shot I´ve taken from the movie The Bride of Frankenstein, and I saw it as an artistic manifestation. Today, I´m thinking about the technical importance of the lightning rods, after reading about the children dead inside a classroom in Uganda. From Wikipedia.org:

¨A lightning rod (US, AUS) or lightning conductor (UK) is a metal rod or conductor mounted on top of a building and electrically connected to the ground through a wire, to protect the building in the event of lightning. If lightning strikes the building it will preferentially strike the rod, and be conducted harmlessly to ground through the wire, instead of passing through the building, where it could start a fire or cause electrocution. A lightning rod is a single component in a lightning protection system. In addition to rods placed at regular intervals on the highest portions of a structure, a lightning protection system typically includes a rooftop network of conductors, multiple conductive paths from the roof to the ground, bonding connections to metallic objects within the structure and a grounding network. The rooftop lightning rod is a metal strip or rod, usually of copper or aluminum. Lightning protection systems are installed on structures, trees, monuments, bridges or water vessels to protect from lightning damage. Individual lightning rods are sometimes called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices. The lightning rod was invented by Benjamin Franklin in the Americas in 1749 and, perhaps independently, by Prokop Diviš in Europe in 1754.¨

"Machina meteorologica" invented byVáclav Prokop Diviš worked like a lightning rod. Wikipedia.org

Wooden church with lightning rods and grounding cables. Wikipedia.org

Now, the sad news, excerpt from Guardian.co.UK:

¨Eighteen schoolchildren and their teacher have been killed in a lightning strike in Uganda, police said.

The country has one of the highest rates of lightning deaths in the world and its capital, Kampala, has more days of lightning per year than any other city, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

The lightning hit the victims in a classroom at a school in Kiryandongo, 130 miles north of Kampala. Another 38 children were admitted to hospital.

The east African country has suffered several fatal lightning strikes in recent weeks during unseasonably heavy rains.

The deaths were debated in parliament on Monday, with MPs calling on the government to come up with strategy to deal with what several termed "a crisis". (...) Local meteorologists have criticised the government for not providing enough lightning conductors for buildings in storm hotspots.¨

Read the article in full:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/29/uganda-schoolchildren-killed-lightning

The importance of a roof. In the words of John Ruskin

Picture from www2.warwick.ac.uk

¨16. I am sure that all of you must readily acknowledge the charm which is imparted to any landscape by the presence of cottages; and you must over and over again have paused at the wicket gate of some cottage garden, delighted by the simple beauty of the honeysuckle porch and latticed window. Has it ever occurred to you to ask the question, what effect the cottage would have upon your feelings if it had no roof? no visible roof, I mean;—if instead of the thatched slope, in which the little upper windows are buried deep, as in a nest of straw—or the rough shelter of its mountain shales—or warm coloring of russet tiles—there were nothing but a flat leaden top to it, making it look like a large packing-case with windows in it? I don't think the rarity of such a sight would make you feel it to be beautiful; on the contrary, if you think over the matter, you will find that you actually do owe, and ought to owe, a great part of your pleasure in all cottage scenery, and in all the inexhaustible imagery of literature which is founded upon it, to the conspicuousness of the cottage roof—to the subordination of the cottage itself to its covering, which leaves, in nine cases out of ten, really more roof than anything else. It is, indeed, not so much the whitewashed walls—nor the flowery garden—nor the rude fragments of stones set for steps at the door—nor any other picturesqueness of the building which interest you, so much as the gray bank of its heavy eaves, deep-cushioned with green moss and golden stone-crop. And there is a profound, yet evident, reason for this feeling. The very soul of the cottage—the essence and meaning of it—are in its roof; it is that, mainly, wherein consists its shelter; that, wherein it differs most completely from a cleft in rocks or bower in woods. It is in its thick impenetrable coverlet of close thatch that its whole heart and hospitality are concentrated. [18] Consider the difference, in sound, of the expressions "beneath my roof" and "within my walls,"—consider whether you would be best sheltered, in a shed, with a stout roof sustained on corner posts, or in an inclosure of four walls without a roof at all,—and you will quickly see how important a part of the cottage the roof must always be to the mind as well as to the eye, and how, from seeing it, the greatest part of our pleasure must continually arise.

Image from picturesofengland.com

17. Now, do you suppose that which is so all-important in a cottage, can be of small importance in your own dwelling-house? Do you think that by any splendor of architecture—any height of stories—you can atone to the mind for the loss of the aspect of the roof? It is vain to say you take the roof for granted. You may as well say you take a man's kindness for granted, though he neither looks nor speaks kindly. You may know him to be kind in reality, but you will not like him so well as if he spoke and looked kindly also. And whatever external splendor you may give your houses, you will always feel there is something wanting, unless you see their roofs plainly. And this especially in the north. In southern architecture the roof is of far less importance; but here the soul of domestic building is in the largeness and conspicuousness of the protection against the ponderous snow and driving sleet. You may make the façade of the square pile, if the roof be not seen, as handsome as you please,—you may cover it with decoration,—but there will always be a heartlessness about it, which you will not know how to conquer; above all, a perpetual difficulty in finishing the wall at top, which will require all kinds of strange inventions in parapets and pinnacles for its decoration, and yet will never look right.¨

From Lectures on Architecture and Painting. By John Ruskin. Delivered at Edinburgh, November 1853

Read the full book:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23593/23593-h/23593-h.htm

President's Park South Design Competition (Whashington DC)

Project by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) invited five talented design firms to develop concepts to beautify the security components and improve the visitor experience at President’s Park South. This popular destination is located between the White House Grounds and Constitution Avenue, NW. Beginning Tuesday, June 21 and running through Monday, June 27, the public is invited to view the project teams’ designs online and at the White House Visitor Center (1450 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC). The center is open daily from 7:30 am – 4:00 pm. The public will be able to share their opinions online and at the visitor center.

Project by Reed Hilderbrand Associates

The firms developing proposals are:

Hood Design Studio, Oakland, CA

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn, NY

Reed Hilderbrand Associates, Watertown, MA

Rogers Marvel Architects, New York, NY

SASAKI, Watertown, MA

On Tuesday, June 28 NCPC will host a public showcase where representatives from the five design firms will present their concepts for President’s Park South. All public opinions submitted by 4:00 p.m. on Monday, June 27 will be shared with NCPC’s Interagency Security Task Force, which will announce the competition winner on June 30, 2011.

Read more:

http://www.ncpc.gov/ppdc/

Ornament in Dorian Greek buildings

Temple of the Delians, Delos; 19th century pen-and-wash restoration. Image from Wikipedia.org

¨In the buildings erected by the Dorian Greeks, painting was always employed as a means of ornamentation, internal and external. In the best period of Classic Art, the Greeks did not use coloured marbles in their large buildings. They built them of stone or white marble, coating the monochrome stone with a fine stucco and colouring it; when they used marble they selected white, and coloured its entire surface. Colour, therefore, was one of the most effective means of ornamentation; it served to distinguish the architectural members, and to give the several planes of the structure their due relief. But, -and in this particular the delicacy of Greek genius is manifest, -as it is necessary, especially in such a climate as theirs, to consider the effect of the sun’s light, the Greek artists felt that in a building whose dimensions were never very considerable, greater relative importance should be given either to the vertical or to the horizontal lines: all their mouldings therefore are made in the horizontal members; here they are strongly marked; they are even deeply sunk, in order to obtain sharp shades like strong ink-lines in a drawing; while the vertical members are left bare, or only very slightly moulded. The shafts of the columns are but faintly streaked with shallow flutings, whose only effect is to render their cylindro-conical surface more distinctly apparent. If we examine a Doric Greek temple of the best period, we shall not find a single vertical moulding; all the mouldings are horizontal and very sharply cut. The result of this system was that the surfaces were distinguished by different shades, and that in the general effect the building was banded with strongly marked horizontal shadows, quieting the eye, and clearly separating the various tones of colour. In these temples are very little sculpture; it only appears in the metopes and the tympanums of the pediments; moreover, it is not ornamental sculpture, but represents independent subjects.¨

From Lectures on Architecture. By E. Viollet Le Duc. Translated by arch. Benjamin Buckanall. Boston, 1881

Unity and indivisibility of the work of art

A depiction of Vitruvius presenting De Architectura to Augustus. 1684. From Wikipedia.org

There´s always this discussion about what is better in a project: firmitas, utilitas, venustas, based on Vitruvius´ definitions. In other words, some architects emphasize the structure, some the functionality, others the beauty.

Though, the three qualities cannot be separated in their resolution, this will give as a result, an ideal building. Here, some words by the philosopher Benedetto Croce, from his book AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC, 1909:

Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the indivisibility of the work of art. Every expression is a unique expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic whole. A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation that the world of art should have unity, or, what amounts to the same thing, unity in variety. Expression is a synthesis of the various, the multiple, in the one.

The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to this affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the living being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in which the division gives place to more living things, but in such a case, and if we transfer the analogy to the aesthetic fact, we must conclude for a multiplicity of germs of life, that is to say, for a speedy re-elaboration of the single parts into new single expressions.

It will be observed that expression is sometimes based on other expressions. There are simple and there are compound expressions. One must admit some difference between the eureka, with which Archimedes expressed all his joy after his discovery, and the expressive act (indeed all the five acts) of a regular tragedy. Not in the least: expression is always directly based on impressions. He who conceives a tragedy puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of impressions: the expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression.

Read the book on line:

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9306/pg9306.html

Critics at Thom Mayne’s San Francisco Federal Building

The four-story barlike annex terminates with a sculptural end elevation on Mission Street. Photo by Roland Halbe. Architectural Record Construction

I love the plasticity of Thom Mayne´s designs and I used to show his buildings´ pictures to my students. I also had the opportunity to meet him and have a nice conversation about one of our projects, in the 90´s.

Then, I visited his Cal Trans building in Los Angeles Downtown a few years ago, and thought maybe Thom is designing out of scale, maybe he doesn´t think about people, but the building itself. You cant´ sit outside under the sun, it´s better to cross the street and go to the park, sit on a beach chair, eat fruits at the Mexican fair.

And now, I´ve found this article by John King, just a brief reproduction of it:

¨During any given week, I’m told, 100 or more design buffs take self-guided tours of the San Francisco Federal Building (SFFB) by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Thom Mayne. The tour’s flyer gushes over the “world-famous architect” and his creation, focusing on such details as green design features that aim to cut lighting costs by 26 percent and the Sky Garden, a “three-story open space [that] provides spectacular views for tenants and visitors.”

Not included in the tour: the Social Security office where, more often than not, at least half of the 94 black metal chairs are filled by regular citizens waiting for their numbers to be called. And the supplicants aren’t feasting on postcard-worthy views. They’re in a windowless room with only a (slightly) canted ceiling to set it apart from thousands of other bureaucratic holding pens, in a squat four-story annex that rarely appears in architectural photographs of the 2.1-acre complex.

I mention the latter space because it’s the portion of this public building that gets the most use by the public, yet it received zero scrutiny from critics — me included — when the SFFB debuted in the summer of 2007. We reviewed the newcomer as though it were a sculpture and then moved on. Standard practice, perhaps, but in the process we ignored what sets architecture apart from other arts. Buildings are created to function as part of their physical and cultural surroundings, and they reveal themselves with the slow passage of time.¨

The Federal Building’s 240-foot-tall tower is the architectural showstopper: connecting it is the annex that does a lot of work.  Photo: Roland Halbe, Architectural Record.  I´ve seen the tower myself from a couple of blocks away, and there is no doubt that´s Morphosis´ design. I´m sorry I hadn´t time to walk over there, next time.....

Keep on reading:

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/critique/2011/1106commentary.asp

Intuition and Expression

Expression of a red eye. Digital painting by Myriam B. Mahiques

Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of concepts.

In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by intuition than by reason.

But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion, namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion, yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is blind; Intellect lends her eyes.

AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO CROCE

BY DOUGLAS AINSLIE B.A. (OXON.)1909

Chapter I. Theory. Intuition and Expression. (excerpt)

An old atomic plant in Germany converted into an amusing park

A couple of weeks ago, I had the joy  of knowing Germay would be closing its nuclear plants. And now, I've read this great article at Spiegel, one old atomic plant converted into an amusing park.

From Spiegel on line, an excerpt and pictures:

In the early 1970s, construction began in Germany on what was supposed to be the world's most technologically advanced nuclear power plant. But public protests and nuclear disasters elsewhere kept the plant from ever going online -- and then a Dutch developer with a dream arrived on the scene.

As far as the Germans are concerned, only a Dutchman could buy a nuclear power plant and transform it into an amusement park.

The complex in Kalkar wasn't just any old nuclear power plant, but rather a multi-billion-deutsche mark national symbol-turned-boondoggle. After initially being touted as proof of the ingenuity of German engineers, it then went on to symbolize the power of youthful resistance and, finally, the absurdity of political decision-making. Indeed, after being built for 8 billion deutsche marks (€4.1 billion; $5.9 billion), the complex known locally as "der Brüter" ("the breeder") was destined never to go online. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, it stood idle for years because nobody wanted to have anything to do with the enormous mountain of concrete. The plant went into partial operation in 1985, but it never received nuclear materials.

Dreams from Abroad

Then everything changed. Karl-Heinz Rottman, 57, a former employee, recounts how he and his colleagues were just about to eat lunch together in 1995 when Dutch developer Hennie van der Most drove up. At the time, Rottman says, morale among the workers was low and they were full of disappointment. But then this white-haired man got out of his black Mercedes and said: "Hi, I'm Hennie. I'm gonna buy everything here." Rottman says his first thought was: "Sure, go for it."

And that's just what Hennie did. The son of a farmer and junk dealer from rural Holland borrowed a couple of million deutsche marks to buy the nuclear power plant that had been heralded as a source of infinite energy for the industrial age. Its uranium core was supposed to produce more plutonium than the reactor needed, meaning that it could forever produce energy that was as clean and safe as possible.

But instead of getting the reactor up and running, Hennie began to gut the place. Massive amounts of circuitry, pumps, turbine and other equipment landed on the trash heap. The engineers who had settled in the area could hardly bear to watch as their creation was destroyed. And the job was massive -- in order to be able to respond to worst-case scenarios involving multiple failures, nuclear power plants have three and sometimes even five sets of duplicate back-up systems. Even now, 15 years later, only a third of the reactor has been converted into amusement park.

Read the article by Jorg Diehl:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,766424,00.html