JOURNAL - CANADIAN ARCHITECT

http://www.canadianarchitect.com/

The Canadian Architect magazine is Canada’s only monthly design publication designed for architects and professionals practicing in Canada. The magazine includes articles on current practice, building technology, and social issues affecting architecture.

The images along the article ‘Watching it Unfold’ grabbed my attention. The article reviews the design of film-editing studio in Toronto, designed by Giannone Associates Architects Inc. The space of the design was treated very well.

The energetic skeletal like structure serves as a strategic transition within the interior between the studio and the kitchen. The sculptural descending celling offers a dynamic enclosure. The design overall generates an attractive visual flutter of new and old, structure and image, load-bearing modernity and postmodern lightness.

The use of material in Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat building in Ottawa interested me. The building was designed by a veteran Japanese architect, Fumihiko Maki. The design must contain a material palette that would range from clear to translucent in order for the architect to capture the Islamic spirit. The combination of Woven glass-fibre mesh and aluminium screens modulated the interiors quality of light. Right underneath the glass roof, the lattice screens constructed of lightweight aluminium add another dimension to the visual clarity and translucency. The placement of these materials generates a dynamic array of shadows on the maple floor.

JOURNAL - JOURNAL OF FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=1472-5967

Journal of Facilities management is specially designed for Heads of Facilities and Corporate Real Estate. The journal contains detailed investigation and case studies on how can facilities play a vital part in helping deliver corporate strategy. It features a combination of theoretical and practical articles. The articles also inform the latest cost reduction and process improvement initiatives.
There was an article called ‘Evaluation on indoor environment quality of dense urban residential buildings’. In the article the relationship between health issues and the author’s built facilities in Hong Kong is reviewed after the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Environmental examinations were carried out including thermal comfort, noise, daylight and interior ventilation quality. After long process of research and data analysis the result showed that most of the occupants (over 70% of 125 households) were tolerating higher air temperatures and dimmer daylight inside their residence.

The other article I read, ‘The Impact of Office Layout on Productivity’, talks about how office occupiers’ productivity can be affected by the layout and design of the office. Office layouts include open-plan and cellular. Research was carried out to find out which office layout has better influence on occupiers’ productivity. Results shows that an open-plan and shared offices have negative impacts such as lack of privacy – people have difficulty concentrating, dealing with personal matters and colleagues’ annoying habits, while an non open-plan office is free of clutter and have more positive impact on the productivity of the occupiers’.

JOURNAL - URBAN DESIGN INTERNATIONAL

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/udi/index.html

Urban Design International is an essential forum for the exchange of information and debate concerning issues of urban design and management.

The article ‘More green space in a denser city: Critical relations between user experience and urban form’ interests me. This article informs about new approach on how urban design affects green space accessibility, how urban structure distributes open space to people and how it creates users and stakeholders. Green and open space is a vital part of sustainable urbanism. In the article green and open space ratio to the building structures are calculated and analysed scientifically from surveys and the results are presented by maps, graphs and tables. Green space has many positive benefits such as health benefit, environmental, ecological benefit and social benefit. Green space can remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which are beneficial to human health and the environment.