102 research outputs found
New Street(s) Facades
No full textThe exhibition is by BA Architecture Year 1 students at the University of Huddersfield in association with 'Flying Start'. The exhibition is curated by Danilo Di Mascio with Jon Bush, Elham Delzendeh and Yreilyn Cartagena
The flexibility in social housing rehabilitation: the case of Preturo (Aq)
No full textThe present research is based on the study of three settlements situated in the neighbourhood of L’Aquila. L’Aquila extends over 466 squared km and its urban organization is nowadays constituted by the principal town and 68 hamlets; the ATER, that are the object of our research, are situated close to Monticchio, Preturo and Cansatessa; around them they have been constructed 19 post-earthquake CASE and MAP settlements which present the same problems of their hamlets: lack of essential services and isolation.
Our proposal of re-qualification is based on the city history and origin and on the outputs of present situation analysis, in order to re-establish a new identity of the city.
The main target is to define a development project able to give liveability back to the settlements considered, in accordance with a scattered territorial reality and with its evolving needs and problems. It is also necessary to reconstruct liveability of the settlements considering the historical origin of the city - L’Aquila foundation can be considered one of the most extraordinary urban event (Lavedan), due to the special link between the original castra and its part of city and thanks to the presence in every neighbourhood of a square, a church and a fountain - and the possibilities emerging from hidden realities.
The proposal is defined by a scalar process (from the urban to the building and component scale) and a circular process (from the urban re-qualification, with new centralities and standards, to the production of components able to fulfil with flexible building methods and to the regeneration of landscape and cultural and functional heritage thanks to the redefinition of territorial uses and resources).
The construction of a new city identity takes place combining the re-evaluation of historical heritage with the proposals of new centralities and aggregation points in order to heighten citizen life quality. We defined “accessibility ranges”, characterized by the presence of services, the environmental context, and the settlement framework, which can be connected in order to have a sustainable territorial functioning. Those ranges are the centralities to which can be connected infrastructures or network services, defining an adequate and efficient functional mix.
The strategies are related to the material and immaterial CONNEXION (mobility), that is the times and modes citizens can move all over the town and to ACCESSIBILITY and ENJOYABILITY (liveability), that is the possibility to take advantage not only of public and private services but also of green areas and aggregation and socialization points.
The final result is the transition from the presence of multiple centres to a polycentric structure, in which the different settlement levels, neighbourhood and town, can interact and dialogue each other.
The strategies for proposing a technical quality are basically focused on programs of energetic efficiency and adjustment of standards to user needs. The first one, thanks to adequate technical solutions, involves the analysis of urban microclimate, its implications in terms of outdoor comfort and the extent of its effects on indoor comfort.
The second one implies building reconstruction by means of re-qualification in reply to constantly mutable needs, largely conditioned by seismic risks. This program involves innovative building and component techniques able to project flexible housing in order to increase use possibilities of pre-existing houses.
The strategies to define a territorial re-generation and construction of a new landscape emerge from the necessity of a post-earthquake reconstruction; it was thought to promote local productive chains (industrial ecology) able to trigger locally social and economic development in accordance with sustainable criteria.
An analysis about local resources can define a possible future scenario: the primary and building sector necessarily integrated to transform local resources and waste into new resources, using new methods (urban metabolism) that consider the territorial image as functional and cultural landscape
Engaging with Landscape through Architecture
No full textThis paper examines architecture’s ability to adjust external and internal experiences of a landscape narrative transforming it from “ location to place” (Norberg-Schulz/1996). The recently-built Cove Park Artists’ Residency Centre in Argyll, by Cameron Webster is the vehicle for a critical reflection of its realised qualities and the soon-to-be-constructed Rossdhu Kennels remodelling in the Loch Lomond National Park, by Studio KAP is examined for its anticipated and intended qualities. Both case studies engage with a landscape of outstanding natural beauty in a valued cultural and geographic setting. Despite different briefs and scales, both are determined by domestic activities of living, cooking and dining. As the projects’ co-authors we examine how our perception of landscape is modified by contemporary architecture, harnessing its power through acts of protection, social interaction and control of view. Through the respective design processes, themes of newness, material culture, artistic production, phenomenology and innovation through tradition are explored. An artist’s recorded experience of CovePark adds further insight into the building in use. We consider the spatial configuration of each building’s openings and their physical impact on the landscape and the influence of traditional and contemporary precedents. Can newness act as a benevolent rather than a malevolent force on our ancient landscapes? Within the contemporary context of the climate emergency, what role can architecture and landscape play in creating an environmentally-enlightened future rather than a carefully-protected past
Telling Dark Cities: glimpsing the future through shared imagery
No full textSince the development of a sequential and panoramatic vision, and since the birth of the languages of the metropolis (cinema, photography and comics) the city has had an elective relationship with the narrative dimension that allows the opening of a negotiating environment with respect to the tactile experience of urban space (Walter Benjamin) and the intensification of nervous life (Georg Simmel). The essay investigates the influence between narration understood as an element of the creative process and the narratives that results from the architectural project with particular reference to the language of comics. In particular we focused on the narrative strategies relating to the representation of the city of tomorrow. Through visual references that include contributions from literature and science fiction movies, we will highlight modes of mise en page that codify themes such as vertigo, the leap of scale, the uncanny and the representation of catastrophe: from the Piranesi’s Prisons of Invention (1760) to Antonio Sant'Elia's work on the Città Nuova (1914), from Hugh Ferris' renderings for the book Metropolis fo Tomorrow (1916) to Erich Kettelhut's studies for Fritz Lang's Metropolis sets (1925), arriving at the group of artists (including Moebius and Druillet) who have gravitated around thw production of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). The aesthetics of vertigo is articulated in a reflection on the theme of scale, understood as the (dis)proportion between the human and the city, the sublime (according to Edmund Burke's reflection) and the uncanny in architecture (according to Sigmund Freud and Anthony Vidler's contributions). The last subject of this analysis is the story of the urban apocalypse, an obscure reflection of science fiction and technological imagery since the end of the 19th century. Fundamental in this part of the work will be the reflection developed by Alain Musset on the theme of urban apocalypse in science fiction narratives. This path is articulated in the light of the theses of Paul Ricoeur, Juhani Pallasmaa and Tim Ingold on the narrative dimension of space and design. This openness of the dialogue between space and narration makes it possible to understand a series of themes and keys to interpretation on the topicality of built space (such as the weird and the eerie) that repopulate the urban perception of phantasmagoria borrowed from literary and cinematographic production. The negotiating space between body and city thus becomes the place of sedimentation of the imaginary and at the same time of orientation of the trajectories of fruition and interaction with the urban fabric
Maternal outcomes of cesarean delivery performed at early gestational ages: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textOBJECTIVE: This study aimed to report maternal outcomes of preterm (<34 weeks of gestation) cesarean delivery. DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases were searched electronically on September 1, 2020, utilizing combinations of the relevant medical subject heading terms, key words, and word variants for "cesarean delivery" and "outcome." STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: We included only studies reporting maternal outcomes of cesarean delivery performed at <34 weeks of gestation. STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS: The primary outcome was a composite score of maternal surgical morbidity including maternal death, severe intrasurgical or postpartum hemorrhage, hysterectomy, need for blood transfusion, and damage to adjacent organs. Secondary outcomes were individual components of the primary outcome, need for reoperation, postsurgical infection, thromboembolism, and hysterectomy. We also performed 2 subgroup analyses considering cesarean delivery performed at <28 and <26 weeks of gestation. Meta-analyses of proportions using random effects model were used to combine data. RESULTS: A total of 15 studies involving 8378 women undergoing cesarean delivery at <34 weeks of gestation were included in the systematic review. Composite adverse maternal outcome was reported in 16.2% of women (95% confidence interval, 15.4-17.0) undergoing a cesarean delivery before 34 weeks of gestation. Hemorrhage, either intra- or postoperative, was observed in 6.9% of cases (95% confidence interval, 6.4-7.5), whereas 6.3% (95% confidence interval, 4.2-8.7) required blood transfusion. Damage to adjacent organs complicated the primary surgery in 2.0% of women (95% confidence interval, 0.1-6.4), whereas 1.2% (95% confidence interval, 0.3-3.4) required a reoperation after cesarean delivery. Maternal death occurred in 0.1% (95% confidence interval, 0.0-1.4). In women undergoing cesarean delivery at <28 weeks of gestation, composite adverse maternal outcome complicated 22.9% of cases (95% confidence interval, 16.7-33.8) and 14.0% (95% confidence interval, 5.8-24.9) experienced hemorrhage whereas 7.7% (95% confidence interval, 4.4-11.8) required blood transfusion. Finally, when considering women undergoing cesarean delivery at <26 weeks of gestation, composite adverse maternal outcome was reported in 24.8% (95% confidence interval, 10.1-43.4), whereas the corresponding figures for hemorrhage and need for blood transfusion were 9.2% (95% confidence interval, 1.7-21.6) and 6.1% (95% confidence interval, 0.3-10.0), respectively. CONCLUSION: Early cesarean delivery is affected by a high rate of maternal intra- and postoperative complications. The findings from systematic review can help clinicians in counseling parents when cesarean delivery is required in an early gestational age. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Types of stroke recurrence in patients with ischemic stroke: a substudy from the PRoFESS trial.
No full textBackground Risk profiles for stroke recurrence are poorly characterized.
Aims We determined the variation in the risk and type of recurrent stroke among index ischemic stroke subtypes, and whether index stroke subtype and conventional stroke risk factors were predictors of stroke recurrence.
Methods Patients enrolled in the Prevention Regimen for Effectively Avoiding Second Strokes trial were included in this study.
Results In 1794 patients' recurrent stroke subtypes were the same as the index stroke in: 48 center dot 3% of patients with large artery atherothrombosis stroke; 50% of patients with cardioembolic stroke; 48 center dot 7% of patients with small artery occlusion stroke; 8 center dot 1% of patients with stroke of other etiology, and 45 center dot 3% of patients with undetermined etiology stroke. Patients with cardioembolic stroke, who were unwilling or unable to take oral anticoagulants, had the greatest risk of stroke recurrence. Predictors of stroke recurrence in multivariable analysis were: older age and previous stroke among large artery atherothrombosis strokes; older age, male sex, previous stroke, previous transient ischemic attack, hypertension, diabetes, and tobacco use among small artery occlusion strokes; older age among cardioembolic strokes; atrial fibrillation and anti-diabetic medications among other etiology strokes; older age, previous stroke and atrial fibrillation among undetermined etiology strokes. Predictors of brain hemorrhage as recurrent stroke were index small artery occlusion stroke, older age, previous stroke, and antiplatelet treatment with aspirin plus extended-release dipyridamole.
Conclusions Risk predictors for stroke recurrence and for brain hemorrhage differ by index ischemic stroke subtype, information that is important when initiating secondary prevention therapy
Emotional clustered isovist. Representing the subjective urban experience
No full textThe contribution presents a method developed by the authors that associates psychological data to clustered isovists. Often, isovists of an urban environment are calculated on a 360° angle, i.e., reporting what is potentially visible from a specific point of view. If associated to a 360° isovist, these subjective reactions are related to the entire potentially visible panorama, losing the crucial relationship between the point of view and the relative angle of view generating the emotional reaction, that it is instead possible to highlight with partial isovists. Our method adopts partial isovists correlated to psychological data applied in the ‘Città Studi’ neighboorhood in Milan (Italy) using a set of 360° pannable panoramic photos coupled with a psychological questionnaire. In each observing session, the position of the observer and the direction of gaze were recorded. The data collected were clustered and analyzed using a machine learning method designed ad hoc. The results show that the emotional connotations of a place can diverge even by rotating the direction of gaze while standing in the same position. Moreover, it was possible to identify a relevant change in the emotional response between the landmark of the studied area and other neighbouring places
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