Moments of Recognition:The Four Semester Studio in QUB

It is a legitimate assertion that the common ground of work of worth in architecture, whether theoretical or built comes from a firmly held position on the part of the author. In addition to delivery key competencies architectural education should act to support the formation of such a position in the student, or to make students aware of the possibility of holding such a position.

It is with this in mind perhaps that intensive unit-based diploma and masters structures are increasingly becoming the standard structure for for schools of architecture across the UK. The strengths of such a structure are most evident when the school, either by virtue of financial strength or geographic location is able to attract a diverse range of contrasting positions to bear in the formation of these units. In effect the offering to the student is a short, intensive immersion into a clear line of thought based on the position of those running the unit. Research is channeled by those running the unit to the work of the students. A single cohort of students therefore is able to observe and understand a wide range of ways of thinking about the subject whether or not they are participants in a unit or not. It is axiomatic that where this structure is applied in the absence of these resources the result can be less helpful, individual units are differentiated not to reflect the interests of those running the unit but for the sake of difference as its own end.

In structuring the M.Arch programme in Queens University Belfast the reality of our somewhat peripheral location was placed at the forefront of our considerations. A single 4 semester studio is offered. The first three semesters are carefully structured to offer a range of directed and self directed projects to the students. By interrogation of these projects, and work undertaken at undergraduate level the aim is to assist the students to identify a personal position on architecture, which is then developed in the thesis in semester four. Research and design outputs are emergent from the interest of the student body, cultivated by staff who have the time over the four semesters to get to know all aspects of a students interests.

This paper will lay out this structure and some of the projects run within it. Now having delivered two graduating years the successes and challenges of the system will be laid out by reference to several case studies of individual student experiences of the structure.

Revolting Arts or Spatial Democracy: Performances of popular arts during the Egyptian Revolution?

This paper investigates how spatial practices of Public art performance had transformed public space from being a congested traffic hub into an active and animated space for resistance that was equally accessible to different factions, social strata, media outlets and urban society, determined by popular culture and social responsibility. Tahrir Square was reproduced, in a process of “space adaptation” using Henri Lefebvre’s term, to accommodate forms of social organization and administration.205 Among the spatial patterns of activities detected and analyzed this paper focus on particular forms of mass practices of art and freedom of expression that succeeded to transform Tahrir square into performative space and commemorate its spatial events. It attempts to interrogate how the power of artistic interventions has recalled socio-cultural memory through spatial forms that have negotiated middle grounds between deeply segregated political and social groups in moments of utopian democracy. Through analytical surveys and decoding of media recordings of the events, direct interviews with involved actors and witnesses, this paper offers insight into the ways protesters lent their artistry capacity to the performance of resistance to become an act of spatial festivity or commemoration of events. The paper presents series of analytical maps tracing how the role of art has shifted significantly from traditional freedom of expression modes as narrative of resistance into more sophisticated spatial performative ones that take on a new spatial vibrancy and purpose.

In the Shadows of the Old Town: Thomas Anna and 19th-century Glasgow

In 1858, a volume entitled Midnight Scenes and Social Photographs – being sketches of life in the streets, wynds and dens of the city of Glasgow was published under the pseudonym of ‘Shadow’ by Alexander Brown, a Glaswegian flâneur and reformer. Its frontispiece is an etching which depicts a theatre-like proscenium arch whose curtains have been withdrawn to reveal to the audience all the poverty, destitution and disorder that one was likely to find after dark in the insalubrious quarters of the city. At the extreme left-hand side, partly obscured by the curtain a silhouetted figure stands behind an unwieldy camera perched on a tripod. Distinctly unaffected by the mêlée, an arm is calmly raised and a finger precisely arched in the moment before the shutter is clicked and the scene committed to record. The volume, however, relies exclusively on textual descriptions to evoke the underside of the city and contains no photographs at all. Instead, the use of the word photograph in the title can be understood as a metaphor for detached scientific objectivity, a quality much celebrated by nineteenth-century reformers and investigators of social ills. As it happened, a decade after Shadow disappeared into the labyrinthine back-lands of Old Town Glasgow, he was followed there by a real photographer. In 1868, Thomas Annan was commissioned by the City Improvements Trust to take photographs of the Old Town in its last moments of existence before it was pulled down under a series of legislative acts. But perhaps paradoxically, given Shadow’s faith in the analytical properties of photography, Annan’s work seems to refute much of the material contained in Midnight Scenes and other similar tracts. Instead of the dens, shebeens, labyrinths and rowdy crowds described by Shadow, Annan’s depictions of the Old Town convey a static, calm environment, one which is often sparsely inhabited by a curious but apparently orderly population.

Taking account of the sensational tendencies of many reformists’ texts, this paper investigates the discrepancies between the two representations, focussing in particular on the constraints which operated on Annan during his commission. It argues that Annan’s compositions – which became very influential on other 19th century photographers of everyday life such as John Thomson or Jacob Riis – far from being dispassionate analytical works, emerged as a result of a matrix of factors which included: photographic and artistic precedents; Annan’s own predilections as a photographer; technological limitations; the nature of the commission from the City Improvements Trust and political climate in which it was given; the medieval urban fabric in which he had to operate; and, perhaps, most importantly, the identity of the Old Towns inhabitants themselves.

Cost Estimation of Machined Parts within an Aerospace Supply Chain

A generic, hierarchical, and multifidelity unit cost of acquisition estimating methodology for outside production machined parts is presented. The originality of the work lies with the method’s inherent capability of being able to generate multilevel and multifidelity cost relations for large volumes of parts utilizing process, supply chain costing data, and varying degrees of part design definition information. Estimates can be generated throughout the life cycle of a part using different grades of the combined information available. Considering design development for a given part, additional design definition may be used as it becomes available within the developed method to improve the quality of the resulting estimate. Via a process of analogous classification, parts are classified into groups of increasing similarity using design-based descriptors. A parametric estimating method is then applied to each subgroup of the machined part commodity in the direction of improved classification and using which, a relationship which links design variables to manufacturing cycle time may be generated. A rate cost reflective of the supply chain is then applied to the cycle time estimate for a given part to arrive at an estimate of make cost which is then totalled with the material and treatments cost components respectively to give an overall estimate of unit acquisition cost. Both the rate charge applied and the treatments cost calculated for a given procured part is derived via the use of ratio analysis.

Green function for the diffusion limit of one-dimensional continuous time random walks

It is shown how the fractional probability density diffusion equation for the diffusion limit of one-dimensional continuous time random walks may be derived from a generalized Markovian Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. The non-Markovian behaviour is incorporated into the Markovian Chapman-Kolmogorov equation by postulating a Levy like distribution of waiting times as a kernel. The Chapman-Kolmogorov equation so generalised then takes on the form of a convolution integral. The dependence on the initial conditions typical of a non-Markovian process is treated by adding a time dependent term involving the survival probability to the convolution integral. In the diffusion limit these two assumptions about the past history of the process are sufficient to reproduce anomalous diffusion and relaxation behaviour of the Cole-Cole type. The Green function in the diffusion limit is calculated using the fact that the characteristic function is the Mittag-Leffler function. Fourier inversion of the characteristic function yields the Green function in terms of a Wright function. The moments of the distribution function are evaluated from the Mittag-Leffler function using the properties of characteristic functions and a relation between the powers of the second moment and higher order even moments is derived. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Molecular electrostatic properties of ions in an ionic liquid

We have analysed the electronic wave functions from an ab initio simulation of the ionic liquid (room temperature molten salt) dimethyl imidazolium chloride ([dmim][Cl] or [C1mim][Cl]) using localized Wannier orbitals. This allows us to assign electron density to individual ions. The probability distributions of the ionic dipole moments for an isolated ion and for ions in solution are compared. The liquid environment is found to polarize the cation by about 0.7 D and to increase the amplitude of the fluctuations in the dipole moments of both cation and anion. The relative changes in nuclear and electronic contributions are shown. The implications for classical force fields are discussed.