Construction Matters
Construction Matters

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Business and Enterprise Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780215521804

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The construction industry provides employment for more than 2.8 million people, contributed 8.7 per cent of the UK economy's gross value-added (GVA) in 2006. The built environment is estimated to account for some 70 per cent of UK manufactured wealth. The industry's ability to deliver projects successfully in terms of time, cost and design quality has a major impact on the economy's wider performance. Construction is vital for the provision of good quality public services, and plays a role in the delivery of just over half of the Government's 30 public service agreements. It is also key to the long-term objective of making the UK a low-carbon society: buildings account for around half of greenhouse gas emissions. The health of the construction industry is a matter of public concern. The industry is complex and fragmented; it operates on low profit margins. There are difficulties in ensuring that lessons from experience are shared; that the workforce is sufficiently trained; and that appropriate contractual relationships are in place between different parts of the supply chain. The industry has set new targets for itself, and, in conjunction with government, established a Strategy for Sustainable Construction. The Government, because of its roles as both client and regulator, can and must be at the forefront of the drive to embed best practice. The sector also needs strategic leadership, and the Committee recommends the creation of the post of Chief Construction Officer, which both government and the industry should accept as having overall responsibility for construction.

Construction Matters
Construction Matters

Author: Georg Windeck

Publisher: powerHouse Books

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781576877784

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Construction Matters examines the way that architects understand and respond to technological innovation through the creation of new types of spaces, and the materials through which an architectural idea finds its physical realization. Understanding the properties of different materials is indispensable for the creation of architecture that is original, powerful, and meaningful. Organized into chapters on the major methods of construction-masonry, concrete, steel, and wood – Construction Matters examines specific technologies that experienced major transformations in the last century, or were newly invented: a new material, jointing technique, or fabrication procedure for example. The architectural application of this invention is then analyzed with building case studies that are selected based on an obvious formal relationship between the building's form and the new type of construction that it incorporates – ranging from prewar designs in the United States and Europe to recent projects in Asia, and includes built projects as well as significant design proposals. Construction Matters develops a way of thinking about architecture in relation to technology that transcends a particular building method or design task. The architect and educator Georg Windeck conducted independent research that ranges from scientific advancements to philosophical contemplations. The multi-facetted discussion that emerges from this work is developed in close collaboration with artist and journalist Lisa Larson Walker, with mathematician and architect Will Shapiro, and with artist and architect Sean Gaffney. If we are to rescue the physical substance of architecture–the Matter of Construction–and create a practice that celebrates both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of building, we must understand how and why construction matters.

Lévy Matters III
Lévy Matters III

Author: Björn Böttcher

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-01-16

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 3319026844

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This volume presents recent developments in the area of Lévy-type processes and more general stochastic processes that behave locally like a Lévy process. Although written in a survey style, quite a few results are extensions of known theorems, and others are completely new. The focus is on the symbol of a Lévy-type process: a non-random function which is a counterpart of the characteristic exponent of a Lévy process. The class of stochastic processes which can be associated with a symbol is characterized, various schemes constructing a stochastic process from a given symbol are discussed, and it is shown how one can use the symbol in order to describe the sample path properties of the underlying process. Lastly, the symbol is used to approximate and simulate Levy-type processes. This is the third volume in a subseries of the Lecture Notes in Mathematics called Lévy Matters. Each volume describes a number of important topics in the theory or applications of Lévy processes and pays tribute to the state of the art of this rapidly evolving subject with special emphasis on the non-Brownian world.

How Users Matter
How Users Matter

Author: Nelly Oudshoorn

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2005-08-12

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0262651092

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Users have become an integral part of technology studies. The essays in this volume look at the creative capacity of users to shape technology in all phases, from design to implementation. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including a feminist focus on users and use (in place of the traditional emphasis on men and machines), concepts from semiotics, and the cultural studies view of consumption as a cultural activity, these essays examine what users do with technology and, in turn, what technology does to users. The contributors consider how users consume, modify, domesticate, design, reconfigure, and resist technological development—and how users are defined and transformed by technology. The essays in part I show that resistance to and non-use of a technology can be a crucial factor in the eventual modification and improvement of that technology; examples considered include the introduction of the telephone into rural America and the influence of non-users of the Internet. The essays in part II look at advocacy groups and the many kinds of users they represent, particularly in the context of health care and clinical testing. The essays in part III examine the role of users in different phases of the design, testing, and selling of technology. Included here is an enlightening account of one company's design process for men's and women's shavers, which resulted in a "Ladyshave" for users assumed to be technophobes. Taken together, the essays in How Users Matter show that any understanding of users must take into consideration the multiplicity of roles they play—and that the conventional distinction between users and producers is largely artificial.

The Guided Construction of Knowledge
The Guided Construction of Knowledge

Author: Neil Mercer

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9781853592621

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Through analyzing talk which goes on in primary school classrooms and some other locations, this text explains the process of teaching and learning as a social, communicative activity. It contains transcribed episodes of speech between learners and teachers, and learners to learners. The concepts described should be useful for teachers concerned with the quality of education in their classrooms.

The New Carbon Architecture
The New Carbon Architecture

Author: Bruce King

Publisher: New Society Publishers

Published: 2017-12-05

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1550926616

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Soak up carbon into beautiful, healthy buildings that heal the climate "Green buildings" that slash energy use and carbon emissions are all the rage, but they aren't enough. The hidden culprit is embodied carbon — the carbon emitted when materials are mined, manufactured, and transported — comprising some 10% of global emissions. With the built environment doubling by 2030, buildings are a carbon juggernaut threatening to overwhelm the climate. It doesn't have to be this way. Like never before in history, buildings can become part of the climate solution. With biomimicry and innovation, we can pull huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it up as walls, roofs, foundations, and insulation. We can literally make buildings out of the sky with a massive positive impact. The New Carbon Architecture is a paradigm-shifting tour of the innovations in architecture and construction that are making this happen. Office towers built from advanced wood products; affordable, low-carbon concrete alternatives; plastic cleaned from the oceans and turned into building blocks. We can even grow insulation from mycelium. A tour de force by the leaders in the field, The New Carbon Architecture will fire the imagination of architects, engineers, builders, policy makers, and everyone else captivated by the possibility of architecture to heal the climate and produce safer, healthier, and more beautiful buildings.

Residential Surveying Matters and Building Terminology
Residential Surveying Matters and Building Terminology

Author: Les Goring

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-09-27

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1000614875

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This is an ideal reference book for students (undergraduates and postgraduates) studying Building Surveying, Quantity Surveying, or Architecture, etc. It should also be of use to the Construction-related legal profession, Property Managers and Letting Agents. Builders (and homeowners, interested in identifying faults in their property), should also benefit from this book. Residential Surveying Matters and Building Terminology covers a wide range of new and old building terms, techniques, technologies and materials, but much more extensively than the average dictionary. The alphabetical format makes it easy to check up on terms and subject-areas quickly – and the detailed coverage (including helpful drawings by the author) provides clear guidance to the reader. This book covers a multitude of subject-areas, including condensation problems, cellar rot, wet rot and dry rot, thermal cracks, settlement cracks, metal wall-tie corrosion-and-expansion cracks, subsidence cracks, roof-spread recognition, bulging- and/or leaning-walls, etc. Further subject areas include inspecting and analysing residential building-structures, both internally and externally; appraising underground drainage systems; and personal commentary on survey report writing.

Construction Law
Construction Law

Author: Julian Bailey

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-07-22

Total Pages: 1555

ISBN-13: 1317213416

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Now in its second edition, Construction Law is the standard work of reference for busy construction law practitioners, and it will support lawyers in their contentious and non-contentious practices worldwide. Published in three volumes, it is the most comprehensive text on this subject, and provides a unique and invaluable comparative, multi-jurisdictional approach. This book has been described by Lord Justice Jackson as a "tour de force", and by His Honour Humphrey LLoyd QC as "seminal" and "definitive". This new edition builds on that strong foundation and has been fully updated to include extensive references to very latest case law, as well as changes to statutes and regulations. The laws of Hong Kong and Singapore are also now covered in detail, in addition to those of England and Australia. Practitioners, as well as interested academics and post-graduate students, will all find this book to be an invaluable guide to the many facets of construction law.

Why Race Still Matters
Why Race Still Matters

Author: Alana Lentin

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-04-22

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1509535721

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'Why are you making this about race?' This question is repeated daily in public and in the media. Calling someone racist in these times of mounting white supremacy seems to be a worse insult than racism itself. In our supposedly post-racial society, surely it’s time to stop talking about race? This powerful refutation is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of 'race realism', bursts the 'I’m not racist, but' justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism. Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less.