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PSC Architects - Reception Re-Model
DIY re-model of our office #39;s reception area http://pscarchitects.com/

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PSC Architects - Reception Re-Model - Video

ROCKFORD (WREX) -

The final pieces are coming together in a new strategy aimed at fighting crime in the Rockford region.

Rockford City Council approved the architects needed to design the final district building--district one.

They had been toying with different locations and finally agreed West State and Avon was the best location.

Rockford City Administrator, Jim Ryan, say this is an important step in the geo-policing initiative, but there is still work to be done.

"We think its going to be very stabilizing institutional anchor for west state street and that neighborhood," Ryan said.

The goal was to find a location to better fight crime but also help build a relationship between west side residents and police.

City officials believe they found it.

The district one police headquarters will sit on a nine acre plot of land along West State Street and Avon.

The project is expected to cost about $8.5 million.

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Architects for district one police station approved

Officials examine Johannesburg Native Townships plan. Apartheid Museum Photograph: ApartheidMuseum

It is the mid-1950s. The precise location is not clear. Five officials aboard a van are looking intently at a hand-drawn map titled Native Townships, signed off by Johannesburgs city engineer. Presumably they are visiting the area the map depicts, southwest of Johannesburg, planned for the imminent resettlement of tens of thousands of non-white residents from the citys western areas.

The intention and effect of maps such as this was to assert control over space as part of the process of achieving racial apartheid. Such plans, and the records of their use, were instruments that helped to realise and maintain the National Partys Group Areas Act (1950) legislation, which segregated populations racialised as black, Indian and coloured into residential areas away from those allocated to the white population.

In Johannesburg, the Natives Resettlement Act, Act No 19 (1954) and central government pressure resulted in an acceleration of the city councils earlier piecemeal slum clearances, facilitating the removal of Africans from Johannesburgs western areas, such as Sophiatown, to new gridded suburbs south-west of the city, such as Soweto, shown on the map. This resulted in the forced removal of around 60,000 people over a period of five years from February 1955. From 1960 to 1983 a further 3.5 million non-white South Africans would also be displaced and forced into segregated neighbourhoods.

The plan is a careful scale drawing, draughted at a size that could easily be rolled up and rolled out on location. In situ interactions with maps and technical drawings are common practice in urbanisation. In the staged publicity photograph, these middle-aged white men performed their expertise through their visual and physical interaction with the plan they loom over, as they point at, hold and master it. Posing as if unaware of the photographer, their engagement with the plan is gestural, rather than technical, during a conversation. The fact that the men are in a van reinforces their separation from and liberty to move around the territory they are discussing; and emphasises the mobility of the image, a tool within the drastic reconfiguration of the social character of the city.

The professional identities, image-making practices, forms of image and visual languages used within this process were not new or specific to South Africa, even if they were operating in new institutional contexts. Rather they emerged through the exports and impositions of planning expertise through European colonialism and post-second world war modernist reconstruction. We can trace in this map, for example, echoes of garden cities and the postwar British planning system.

The documentary photograph illuminates how maps operated both as practical and rhetorical tools in imagining and imposing the scientific spatial segregation of peoples according to racial constructs. It effectively captured the power of government officials, professionals and the apartheid system. Unintentionally, as an historical artefact, it now serves to communicate this troubled past and the violence city plans can enact.

Ben Campkin is the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (IB Tauris, 2013), director of UCLs Urban Laboratory, senior lecturer in the Bartlett School of Architecture and co-editor of Urban Pamphleteer.

Mariana Mogilevich is a historian of architecture and urbanism and Mellon Fellow in architecture, urbanism and the humanities at Princeton University.

Rebecca Ross is a graphic and interaction designer and urban historian, senior lecturer at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design and co-editor of Urban Pamphleteer.

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The architects of apartheid

Sure, we can all take some slabs of gingerbread, stick icing in between them, and create a makeshift (and delicious) house. But some B.C. architects are taking things to the next level and for a good cause, to boot.

Architects with Iredale Group Architecture built creative gingerbread houses for children staying at two B.C. transition homes. North Vancouver's Sage Transition House and Victoria's The Cridge Transition House for Women offer safe places for women and their children fleeing domestic violence.

The gingerbread project started off as a design challenge to do something non-traditional with the cookie kits, Irendale marketing director Katheleen Dixon told The Huffington Post B.C. in a phone interview. From there, the architects ran with it.

Basically we just wanted to do something that was related to architecture but that would help the kids make their Christmas a little bit better [since] theyre going through a lot of change," she said. "And having worked with the two homes this past year [on other projects] we felt like we wanted to do something that was very nice.

One of the gingerbread houses was made to look like the Sith Temple from "Star Wars," which was inspired by all of the current hype for "Episode VII." The team used marshmallows to make storm troopers and topped them off with Santa hats made out of icing. Red guards were made out of fondant, fountains were made out of blue candy canes, and the reflecting pool was filled with Jujubes. A second scene depicts "The Simpsons," while a third shows the streets and canals of Amsterdam.

This is the first time the firm, which has offices in both Vancouver and Victoria, has made the gingerbread houses for the children. But Dixon says the team plans on making this an annual event.

It feels so good," she says. "I think it really built up our internal morale.

See some of their creations:

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B.C. Architects Build Unreal Gingerbread Houses For Kids In Transition Homes (PHOTOS)

The owners of the Oak Bluffs building that once housed Seasons Eatery and Pub have plans to convert it to retail space.

The Circuit avenue establishment has been a restaurant for many decades, but interior renovations this winter will create three separate retail shops. Seasons, a year-round bar, closed its doors in February of 2013 after 27 years.

At the time, owner Bob Murphy cited fatigue with the many demands of running a restaurant. He had hoped that it would continue as a restaurant, under new ownership, but he couldnt find the right fit.

A restaurant is an intense use and there is a lot to it, so it had to be the right combination or the right person coming on, Mr. Murphy said by phone this week.

About a year after the bar closed, Mr. Murphy and his partner, Jim Ryan, began to discuss other possibilities for the building. They settled on retail; three stores of 1,000 square feet, each with a street-facing storefront.

It was the easier of the options, simply because its less maintenance and less traffic, and its an easier thing to live with, Mr. Murphy said. He said he has received a lot of inquiries about the space, he said, including from people who still see it as an eatery. Not that many people came forward when we were looking for restaurants, and now that we are doing this [renovation], people are coming out of the woodwork, saying, can we still have it as a restaurant?

The project is expected to be completed in early February. Mr. Murphy said he and his partner are just beginning to whittle down the inquiries they have received from prospective tenants.

Construction did not begin until late fall because of buildings prominent location on the towns business thoroughfare, and proximity to the Camp Ground.

We think its quality retail we are putting in, he said. We are hoping these will be up to date and nice-looking properties.

Architect Chuck Sullivan designed the buildings makeover. Mr. Murphy said he did not yet know how much it will cost to rent each unit. Before Seasons, 19 Circuit avenue was home to the Boston House, which occupied both the Seasons building and the adjacent structure.

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Pub No More, Seasons to Become Retail Space

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For job seekers, an employment agency offers options to pursue career opportunities that range from contract to permanent jobs. Temporary staffing is increasing in popularity because of its flexibility and variety of jobs across many industries. Job seekers rely on Aeroteks professional recruiters every day to guide them through the employment process. For the latest tips and advice be sure to check out Aeroteks career advice blog to prepare for your job search.

As the temporary staffing industry continues to grow, more companies are working with staffing agencies to support their hiring needs. Aerotek partners with our customers to deliver staffing services that offer access to qualified employees through a comprehensive screening, selection and performance monitoring process. Organizations that require a more comprehensive contingent workforce program rely on Aerotek to provide all levels of talent and program management support.

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Aerotek Staffing Agency: Industry Leading Recruiting and ...

CARMEL, Ind. (WISH) The terms fixer-upper and flipping a house have become part of the vocabulary for people who do the fixing.

Once in awhile, that work is done on local landmarks. Theres one you may have seen on a suburban drive in Carmel over the years. It had deteriorated enough that demolition became a possibility. But, thats no longer true for a place called the McShane House.

Emily Ehrgott and her family found what they wanted at the house, but at a time it didnt look so great.

It was falling down, Ehrgott said.

The house is the heart of a picture a photographer called Fear. Thats how run down it was when the Ehrgotts bought it.

It was kind of twice as much as what we expected, Ehrgott said.

After more than a year of rebuilding and blogging about it they restored the McShane House along Rangeline Road in Carmel.

It was a house that really wasnt touched very much, Ehrgott said. A lot of people just moved in and kind of painted. And so this was a house that we felt like we could bring back to life pretty easily.

And they did buying it in August of 2013, fixing it, then moving in this past August.

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Family fixes up historic Carmel home saved from demolition

Shatterheart SMP: E9 - Roofing with Dibz
Dibz and I give some updates on our respective channels and lives, and all the while we work on his house and discuss a few other things. - - - Shatterhear...

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Jarrow Roofing 4 Newton Aycliffe 2 - 29/11/2014
Highlights from the Ebac Northern League Division one clash between Jarrow Roofing and Newton Aycliffe.

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Jarrow Roofing 4 Newton Aycliffe 2 - 29/11/2014 - Video

Flat Roofing St. Albert AB|(780) 800-7295|Flat Roofing Contractors East Edmonton
http://edmontonflatroofer.com/ (780) 800-7295 Edmonton Flat Roofer - Give us a call to find out the cost for flat roof replacement. Residential or smaller Commercial or Industrial, we...

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Flat Roofing St. Albert AB|(780) 800-7295|Flat Roofing Contractors East Edmonton - Video