From parallel descriptions to parallel grammars: unravelling the complexity of Lutyen's country house folio

Based on an analysis of a corpus of forty of Sir Edwin Lutyens's country house designs (Rollo 1997) a procedure for developing Parallel Descriptions will be discussed. This procedure will attempt to facilitate an integrated approach to the analysis of complex architectural forms and will provide a framework for investigating the development of parallel grammars. This is an approach which acknowledges that design does not necessarily involve the importance of one aspect, but rather a number of coextensive issues with emphasis on the ordering and priority of these issues periodically shifting.

Dwelling in the landscape: from Blairgowrie House to Portsea Palace

Ackerman begins his book "The Villa" (1995) with these words: 'A villa is a building in the country designed for its owner's enjoyment and relaxation .... [it] accommodates a fantasy which is impervious to reality.' He concludes: , ... the country, in exacting confrontations with the immanent brute forces and sensuous enchantments of nature, prompts inspired responses.' Blairgowrie House - the villa in the landscape - was built in the 1870s and the 'Portsea Palace' - a personal club med resort - in the late 1990s. The notion of an inspired response and the concept of dwelling poetically are manifestly absent in the Portsea Palace. Why?

This paper explores architecture and landscape - particularly 'domestic' architecture and coastal landscapes in Victoria's Nepean Peninsula. It looks closely at what architects mean when they say their design reflects place, relates to site, is climate specific, is close to nature, responds to the landscape, and/or is sensitive to the environment. Exemplars from different centuries are examined in their philosophical contexts and frames of reference. The complexities of the notion of place and identity, belonging, and dwelling (in the Heideggerian sense) are examined to identify the shift that has occurred over time as science and technology have ostensibly freed 'modern man' from 'a direct dependence on places' (Norberg Schultz). The alienation and loss that has eventuated - for humans and for the environment - will be critically analysed and assessed.

Granger causality among house price and macroeconomic variables in Victoria

This study analyses the dynamic causality of four macroeconomic variables on house prices. The four macroeconomic variables have interrelationships with house prices in certain lagged terms, but these relationships are not always the same as the notions put forward in prior research. The relationships are detected to be unstable in the three observation periods. The instability of these relationships would cause difficulty in predicting house prices in the market, especially for policy makers and market participants.

Candidate Quality and Voter Response in U.S. House Elections

We propose and test the implications of a two-dimensional concept of candidate quality in U.S. House elections. Strategic quality is composed of the skills and resources necessary to wage an effective campaign; personal quality is composed of the characteristics most ordinary citizens value in their leaders and representatives, such as personal integrity and dedication to public service. We employ district informants in studies of the 1998 and 2002 congressional elections to measure these qualities in candidates, and we merge mass survey data with the district informant indicators to assess constituents’ awareness and evaluation of House candidates, and voting choice. We find that awareness tends to be responsive to candidates’ strategic quality, and that incumbent evaluation is remarkably responsive to variation in personal quality, even taking into account the quality of challenger emergence. These and other findings appear to support a more positive view of citizen capacity than is common in the congressional elections literature, especially in light of the electoral security of House incumbents.

Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Entry, and Incumbent Quality in U.S. House Elections

Efforts to estimate the magnitude of the incumbency effect in U.S. House elections and assess its political meaning have been complicated by two omitted-variables problems. First, in the absence of an adequate measure of incumbent prospects, estimates of the magnitude of the incumbency effect fail to control for selection effects associated with the decision incumbents make about whether to run for reelection. Strategic incumbents enter races they think they can win and withdraw when they expect to lose. The consequence is an upward bias in estimates of incumbents’ electoral advantages. Second, the normative implications of high reelection rates cannot be assessed without measuring incumbent quality, since a possible explanation for their electoral success is that incumbents are of high quality and doing a good job. We propose a strategy for measuring incumbent prospects and quality, demonstrate the strategic nature of incumbent and challenger entry, re-estimate the incumbency effect, and show that incumbent quality has an impact on electoral outcomes. Our conclusion is that incumbents’ advantages in House elections have been over estimated while the positive basis of incumbent safety is typically under appreciated.

Big House Scrapbook

This scrapbook contains photographs and family memories of the big Levine family house on Ticonic Street, of the Levine family "camp," of going to temple, and of various members of the family.

Full house theory: A new theory for assessing demand for arts centers

In this article I will establish an underpinning theory to apply in measuring demand for a new arts center (theater, museum, gallery, multipurpose space, tourism destination, or cultural precinct). The new theory is called "Full House Theory"-so called because it aims to provide an equation among the factors that result in maximum occupancy and use of an arts center or cultural facility. Existing theories used in the retail sector offer a distance-and-time analysis of expected customer demand but do not include differentiated product-demand analysis. Cultural planning literature examines community need in relation to cultural development but fails to provide a formula to predict sustainable demand. In addition, I will analyze the theories and methodologies in current use as well as their weaknesses in assessing cultural facility demand.

Decisionmaking in a glass house : mass media, public opinion, and American and European foreign policy in the 21st century

"Decisionmaking in a Glass House: Mass Media, Public Opinion, and American and European Foreign Policy in the 21st Century" edited by Brigitte L. Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro and Pierangelo Isernia is reviewed.