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How To Find Out About timber floor maintenance
timber floor maintenance . Call: 0409 243 189 http://www.innovativefloors.com.au/gallery/ At Ingenious Floors, we share your passion for timber floors. It #39;s a passion we have actually been...

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How To Find Out About solid timber flooring melbourne
solid timber flooring melbourne . Call: 0409 243 189 http://www.innovativefloors.com.au/gallery/ At Cutting-edge Floorings, we discuss your enthusiasm for timber floors. It #39;s a enthusiasm...

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Art and Design

Sleep as art: The Nap Gap installation uses pink noise to help induce sleep.

The Istanbul Design Biennial has thrown up plenty in the way of surprises, and one project in particular has been garnering its share of attention for questioningone of life's elemental states.

German architect and designer Jurgen Mayer-Hermann's Nap Gap installation creates a spacefor rest that is more in line with our increasingly "nomadic" work, social and sleep patterns.

The room features a constellation of pink lights with carpet and comfy cushions, and a pink noise (similar to white noise) soundtrack that blocks background noise and is designed to help induceshort stretches of sleep during the work day.

The installation challenges us to break out of solid sleep patterns and reconfigure the sleep cycle, so as to suit what has for many of us a more porous and dynamic work-life experience.

jmayerh.de

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Jurgen Mayer-Hermann's Nap Gap installation encourages short sleeps at Istanbul Design Biennial 2014

People look at the almost complete ceramic poppy art installation by artist Paul Cummins entitled 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' in the dry moat of the Tower of London in London, Sunday Nov. 2, 2014. The finished installation will be made up of 888,246 ceramic poppies, with the final poppy being placed on Armistice Day on November 11. Each poppy represents a British and Commonwealth military fatality from World War I. Thousands of visitors have come to see the installation over the last few days. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland)

Deborah Catchpole Thursday, November 6, 2014 6:05 AM

At this time of year, the leaves are all falling from the trees, and although I love the myriad of colours that carpet the floor, the colour that I most associate with November is red.

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For as long as I can remember, my mum has collected for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. It has always been a charity that I have supported, and after the loss in action of someone I knew at school, it is even more at the forefront of my mind. This year, with the centenary of the start of the First World War, the emblem of the poppy has been streamed across the media even more than usual, and The Poppies at The Tower of London have been a real phenomenon. The installation is the work of ceramic artist Paul Cummins, and setting by stage designer Tom Piper. Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red includes one ceramic poppy for every life lost during the First World War. The scale of it is quite astounding, and the tragedy that it representing is totally heartbreaking.

Poppies being a particularly hardy plant, being able to grow in the battle-torn fields of Belgium and France following the war, they soon became an enduring symbol of loss, and remembrance due initially to a poem written by Colonel John McRae, a Canadian doctor serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1915. The red of their petals was of course a stark reminder of the blood that had been shed on both sides.

The first time a poppy was worn as a symbol of remembrance was in fact on 9th November 1918 two days before the war ended; at a meeting of 25 YMCA workers one of the attendees (Moina Mitchell) sent out for 25 poppies so that all could wear one.

The first ever Poppy Day was held on 11th November 1921, when the poppies were obtained from a French organisation, and the proceeds from the sale of them were put towards helping children who lived in the areas that had been ravaged by the war. Since 1922, a factory employing disabled ex-servicemen has produced the poppies. Although there are many other emblems and tokens to show support for various charities, the Poppy seems to have been the most enduring, and the most easily recognised of them all. I cant imagine that this will ever change, with current wars raging across the world, the need to remember becomes greater, rather than fading.

Flowers have long been associated with remembrance, and not just the poppy. Lillies are often seen in churches at funerals, and at Easter time especially. The Victorians had a particular interest in the language of flowers, and the meaning behind the giving of different types of flowers. It is perhaps due to this that the generation who lived after The Great War were so quick to take on the symbolism of the poppy. Forget-me-nots are another flower commonly associated with remembering, but of course none have the widespread meaning that the poppy has.

Although I have always associated poppies with remembrance, the installation at the Tower of London has made me think about why we so often use flowers to mark occasions. Flowers are so often sent to funerals - various wreaths and floral tributes of all different kinds are given to show the loss or a certain memory that the mourner wants to depict with flowers - perhaps something that the deceased has particularly enjoyed during life. It is increasingly common practice for flowers to be left at sites of fatal accidents and other deaths

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In Flanders fields the poppies grow...

Asbestos, a known carcinogen, was found in a piece of plaster in the basement of the Washington University Cooperatives Quadrangle Housing-owned building, although samples taken by Quadrangle show that asbestos levels fall below Environmental Protection Agency limits.

The Washington University Cooperative is a building in which students divide chores and cooking to foster a collaborative community. It is housed at 6021 Pershing Ave., which was built in 1910 when asbestos was commonly used as a flame-resistant building material. A maintenance team responding to a flooring issue discovered the asbestos.

Co-op residents were concerned that they would lose their possessions, which were stored in the basement despite rules forbidding the use of the basement as a storage space. The basement also serves as a kitchen and gathering location for residents.

Steve Condrin, director of Off-Campus Real Estate for Quadrangle, believes that residents should not look at the issue of asbestos itself but instead the way that Quadrangle is solving it.

The important thing here is for them to know is we have a maintenance team that is well-trained to spot issues, Condrin said, that when it sees a potential issue of concern to health and safety of our residents, they jump on it, and we are also concerned about the property residents keep in our building.

On Oct. 31, dust and air samples were taken throughout the basement and came back below the EPA-approved threshold for asbestos. Samples from the rest of the basement also showed that the asbestos had not spread. Condrin noted there were pieces of similar-looking plaster in the basement that did not contain asbestos.

Quadrangle has hired a licensed team to lead the process of containing the mineral, which is expected to be completed within several weeks. The contaminated area will be sealed off and a machine will lower the pressure in the area to prevent the chemicals used to treat the asbestos from spreading.

Thats something we will not cut any corners on, Condrin said. It will be handled within the applicable guidelines and regulations that are well-known among the vendors that we work with.

He added that he understands the concerns of residents.

I dont think its unreasonable for people to have natural fear and curiosity around asbestos, Condrin said. We share that fear, and we want to make sure that when theres asbestos in these older buildings that it doesnt pose a health risk.

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Asbestos found in Co-op basement, limits access to student belongings

November 05, 2014 // Paul Buckley

Embedded systems solutions company Spansion Inc. has released a series of intelligent LED driver integrated circuits (IC) solutions.

Integrating the necessary components for intelligent lighting into a single chip solution, the S6AL211 series is designed to reduce development costs and speed time to market. The series support industry-leading communication standards including DALI, DMX and Bluetooth Smart. Spansion logo

The product series feature a 4-channel buck DC/DC LED driver IC and can dim brightness down to 0.1% with the ability to adjust up to 100%. The S6AL211 integrates all the peripheral components including pre-drivers, sensing amps, and LDOs needed to configure the LED driver circuits. The integrated solution minimizes printed circuit board (PCB) by up to 25% compared to competing solutions, reducing the bill of materials and delivering a cost-competitive offering.

"LEDs are clearly on a growth path to outpace legacy lights and will be used in everything from indoor lighting in office buildings, hospitals and displays in shops and museums to outdoor lighting," said Tom Sparkman, SVP of Spansion's Analog Business. "Our new integrated IC brings intelligence, power savings and ease-of-design for customers, allowing them to design solutions rapidly and with the ability to control and change dimness and colors via wired and wireless communications."

Spansion has an evaluation board and a GUI host tool that enables customers to evaluate the DALI board.

Spansion will be demonstrating the S6AL211 series at Electronica, Booth A4, 552.

Availability and Pricing

The first product of S6AL211A31, which supports the DALI standard, is sampling now at $5.80 per unit and will be in production in December 2014.

The second product of S6AL211A94, which supports the Bluetooth Smart module, will be sampling in December 2014.

Nic Clear / Educating Architects International Conference / Day 2
Nic Clear #39;s International Lecture Series Educating Architects International Conference [ 23.10.2014 - 25.10.2014, University of Greenwich ] Nic Clear Head of Department of Architecture and...

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The new Lakeside shopping centre, where WA's first new Myer buidling in 20 years will be built

With four years of approvals and planning behind them since caps on retail floor space were lifted, shopping centre owners in Perth are now in expansion mode.

Owners AMP Capital Shopping Centres and Lend Lease are the latest to cross the line.

Tomorrow, AMP Capital's Ocean Keys Shopping Centre in Clarkson opens its $108 million expansion and later this month Lend Lease's Lakeside Joondalup Shopping City finishes its two-stage $300 million expansion, which will include the first new Myer store in Perth for 20 years.

The $750 million development application for AMP's Garden City Booragoon is due early next year and the Scentre Group is moving through the planning process with the recent lodging of a development proposal for public comment for Carousel Shopping Centre with the City of Canning.

Last month Federation Centres completed an 8967sqm expansion at Warnbro Centre and the Perron Group opened its $100 million expansion at Cockburn Gateway Shopping City.

In 2010 the State Government removed floor caps, which had kept retail space at shopping centres under 80,000sqm, as part of its planning document Directions 2031 and Beyond.

The removal of the caps ended a frustrating barrier for shopping centre owners and set the scene for the wave of expansions under way or being planned.

AMP Capital Shopping Centres State development manager Scott Nugent said the cluster of expansions was unusual for an industry where expansions tended to be staggered.

"In Perth, because everyone was held back in the starter's gate until the policy was lifted, everyone is playing catch up, " Mr Nugent said. "We are just one of many operators who are trying to pull their socks up and get an exciting offer on the ground."

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Shopping centres grow across Perth