#021 - CONSTELLATIONS: SCORPIO

This month we are under the sign of Scorpio, the eighth sign in the Zodiac that represents those born between October 23rd and November 22nd.

The curiosity of Scorpio is immeasurable, which may be why Mr D. Tail would like to get to the bottom of things, but he should be careful as the scorpion at the bottom inside the orcio jug in not joking at all.

#020 - DOMESTIC HUMAN MIGRATION FLOWS

Human contradictory views towards immigration on these days are a perplexing blend of myth and reality. The migration flow, from one land to another, is actually a natural phenomenon that started well before the Homo sapiens. Some countries own their strong economies and dynamic financial sectors thanks to their open approach to immigration. But despite of all, today we still find difficult to fully accept each other even in a domestic reality as Mr D. Tail is experiencing.

#019 - CONSTELLATIONS - LIBRA

This month we are under the sign of Libra, the seventh sign in the Zodiac that represents those born between September 23rd and October 22nd.
Mr D. Tail has the difficult task to guess the weight of a feather.

#018 - INCLINED SURFACES

An inclined surface provides access between two different levels. It is named differently depending on how steep is its surface.

Building regulations (more or less) state:

• It is assumed that an inclined surface with gradient of 1:60 (or 1deg) or less steep is level (or rather flat);
• It is assumed that an inclined surface with gradient steeper than 1:60 (or 1deg) but less steeper than 1:20 (or 1.6deg) is gently sloping;
• It is assumed that an inclined surface with gradient steeper than 1:20 (or 1.6deg) but less steeper than 1:12 (or 2.8deg) is a ramp;
• It is assumed that an inclined surface with gradient steeper of 1:12 (or 2.8deg) is too steep (or rather steep ramp) and should be avoided. In these cases stairs are desirable. 

Please thank Mr D. Tail that kindly made himself available for a practical demonstration.

#017 - EGRESS WINDOWS

Is Mr D. Tail ended up to prison? No at all, he is just sitting in a room with a window designed in accordance with the English Building Regulation.

The Building Regulations (B1 – 2.8/A ) states that any window which is provided for emergency egress should have an unobstructed clear opening area that is at least 0.33m2 and must have a minimum dimension of 450mm high and 450mm wide. The same size of an average cushion.

Is it small windows? Yes it is. At least the London Housing Design Guide requires all habitable rooms to have a window area equivalent to at least 20% of the floor area, which is a sensible approach to the design. This should be a national rule as there are many individuals happy to speculate on it.

#016 - YELLOW

Today Mr D. Tail is going through the yellow colour.

Yellow is probably the vaguest colours. It is the colour of sunlight, happiness, optimism, creativity and intelligence but it is also the colour of disgrace, egoism, jealousy, fear and cowardice.

Yellow is the most luminous of all the colours of the spectrum and captures everyone’s attention more than any other colour. This is why yellow is used in signs that alert us to danger or caution.

Mr D. Tail likes yellow and sees it only in its positive aspect. It is a sunny day and Mr D.Tail is happily whistling and observing three gorgeous yellow butterflies. Lucky for Mr D.Tail, there is a caution sign alerting him of the imminent step. He would have tumble down and ruin his smiling bag or knock over the beautiful flower arrangement inside an old handcart.

Does yellow convey you positive or negative attitude?

#015 - CHEESEGRATER

The Leadenhall Building, or Cheesegrater, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, has just been completed. It is a superb and elegant skyscraper that has been added to the highly regarded London’s skyline.

This week all architectural magazines, blogs and websites are celebrating the opening of the Leadenhall Building. Some of them made a frank, honest and well deserved positive critic to the design. Other, instead, have been excessively generous and pathetic.

Mr D. Tail loves the building but he is puzzled; what is the writer's true intent to play with such fervent adjectives? Maybe he wants made readers laugh or capture the attention of Sir Richard Rogers or both.

If you are interested on the Leadenhall Building topic and you would like to read WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_Leadenhall_Street

UPDATE: The falling bolt on Mr D. Tail is a reference to the recent events where some bolts fractured and felt at the Leadenhall Building. Investigations undertaken by contractor and structural engineers confirmed that the problem was limited to certain bolts. The tests concluded that the bolts had failed due to Hydrogen Embrittlement !? As the writer said “HONESTY IN CONSTRUCTION”

#014 - ALUMINIUM WINDOWS – REVELATIONS

According to a recent survey*, nearly 95% of architects think that working on aluminium window details is the most boring experience ever faced in their profession.

Having taken seriously this upsetting revelation, we asked Mr. D Tail what he thinks about it. What is surprising is that, on the contrary, he found the subject pleasantly puzzling and challenging.

Have your say.

*the survey was never undertaken

#013 - CONSTELLATIONS - VIRGO

We decided to start a monthly topic about constellations. As we all know in astronomy* a constellation is a group of stars on the celestial sphere perceived as a figure that gives the name of the constellation.

According to IAU (International Astronomical Union) there are 88 official constellations but for now we will begin to look at the 12 signs of the Zodiac constellations used by astrologers**.

We initiate with Virgo, the sixth sign in the Zodiac that represents those born between Aug. 23rd and Sept. 22nd.
While Mr D. Tail is hanging the washing he is also looking at the Virgo constellation which is said to be a woman holding a spike of corn.

*Astronomy is a science; it studies everything outside the earth's atmosphere such as planets, stars, galaxies, black hole, comets etc.

**Astrology is not a science; it studies the movements and positions of celestial bodies and its influence on humans.

#012 - FIBONACCI NUMBERS

Leonardo Bonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1250) or simply Fibonacci is a mathematician best known to the world for a number sequence named the Fibonacci numbers.

In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers form the following sequence:

 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, . . .

This sequence has many properties but the feature characteristic which defines it is that the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1 and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. Ie: the third number is 0+1=1, the fourth number is 1+1=2, the fifth number is 1+2=3, the sixth number is 3+2=5 and so on.

The Fibonacci sequence is widely found in nature. As an example, the number of spirals in both directions formed from the sunflowers seeds are two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, usually 34 in one direction and 55 in the other. This interesting behaviour is not just found in sunflower seeds but also of the individual scales arrangement of pinecones, in the flowering of artichokes, branching of trees and in the number of petals of many flowers.

Having said that, not surprisingly architects used the Fibonacci numbers to design many buildings, furthermore this series on numbers is also found in films, poetry and music.

Back to us, somewhere in a suburban metropolitan area, on a balcony of a modern building Mr D. Tail is drinking a cocktail while observing the seeds arrangement of a sunflower head. The Fibonacci sequence it seems to be a bit everywhere.

More Info about Fibonacci numbers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number

http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/nature-golden-ratio-fibonacci.html

#011 - RED

What’s your favourite colour? Let’s discover it with Mr D. Tail and his new topic about the meaning of colours.

Today’s first colour is Red. Red is the colour of fire and blood and for this reason researchers tell us that red is associated with love, virility, stimulation, danger, passion and sexual excitement. Clearly, red is an intense colour that evokes strong emotions. That is why Mr D. Tail disguises himself as devil (fire/danger) holding a red heart balloon (blood/love). Does red convey any of the feeling listed above or it just moves you in a different way?

#010 - SPACE IS TODAY’S LUXURY

Recently the London Development Agency made some efforts in publishing the new London Housing Design Guide. Surprisingly the new homes built by the largest residential property development companies in London are meeting these standards, hence we cannot complain. Unfortunately outside London, where there are not such design standards, the housing developers keep building tiny properties. The good news is that the government is working on this matter (Here more info).

According to the London Housing Design Guide the minimum standard space for one bed room flat for two people is 50 square meters; outside London unfortunately you can easily find much smaller spaces.

Mr D. Tail is living in one of this tiny apartment, and he is demonstrating how minute the apartment can be once you start to unpack stuff. There's nowhere to store things and the apartment has soon become a hurdling track.



Space is today’s luxury.

#009 - MR D. TAIL IS ALMOST ARRIVED!!! ...OR NOT

That wonderful sensation you feel close to your destination but in reality you still have a long way to go.

#008 - MR D. TAIL IS WATERING URBAN TRESS

Everybody loves trees in urban spaces. Urban trees have plenty of benefits:
· Mitigate our carbon emissions;
· Support biodiversity in cities;
· Trees have a positive impact on health, providing oxygen and improve air quality;
· Trees catch dust and pollutants on its leaves;
· Big saving on annual heating and cool with the natural winter insulation and summer shade provided by trees;
· It is said that trees and green spaces help to reduce crime levels;
· Etc…

However, trees in urban environment often have stressful existence. Urban area rarely provides a favourable environment for trees to grow and flourish as water has difficulty penetrating the deeper root zone then roots tend to propagate to underneath the surface and damaging the pavement.

Nowadays this problem is resolved with a soil structure system. This system comprises a plurality of cells in which roots can propagate and grow.

On the image above Mr D. Tail is delivering the water directly to the cells structure that accept, store and transmit water and nutrients to the tree. The roots find all they need within this soil structure system and do not need to go anywhere else damaging pavements or even worse threatening building foundations.


More info:
http://www.treesforcities.org/
http://greenblueurban.com/

#007 - TODAY THINGS WILL COME TOGETHER

Today, let’s be positive. Nobody will be hurt. Let’s believe that all the disharmonious things will now work harmoniously together like the puzzle that Mr D. Tail is just about to complete.

If you want to set it as desktop background here the link to download the 1920x1200 pixels images.

#006 - MR D. TAIL IS LOOKING AT THE SUNSET - ROMANTIC VIEWS

Probably here we need some explanation to all of those are not familiar with the science of construction.

The second graphic is called “free body diagram”. It represents a cantilever beam with fixed support like the one where Mr D. Tail is standing on enjoying the sunset but strip out from all insignificant and irrelevant detail (insignificant for an engineer).

Any geometric structure is effected by loads, in our case by Mr D. Tail. These loads are manifested as external forces and represented to the free body diagram with arrows (F).

This simple diagram is used by the structural engineers as method of calculation to analyse how a force effecting the structure in order to dimension each element.

More info on Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_body_diagram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statically_determinate

#005 - THINKING IN A CERTAIN WAY

Mr D. Tail must have a clear and definite mental picture of where he is. 

#004 - HOME SWEET HOME

Mr D. Tail is enjoying his brand new air conditioning system while reading today’s newspaper. 

How the air conditioning system works: 
The indoor unit, the split air conditioner, converts warm indoor air to chill indoor air, during this phase the liquid is converted to a gas that absorbs heat. The outdoor unit, the condenser unit, is rejecting the unwanted heat to outside, during this phase the gas cools, it changes back to a liquid, and the process starts again.

#003 - MINIMUM CEILING HEIGHT

The finest city in the world deserves the finest housing.
However UK building regulations currently do not specified minimum ceiling height. If your ceiling is 2.4m high consider yourself a lucky person.

#002 - MR D. TAIL AT THE PARK AND WHAT HE CANNOT SEE

Soil pollution is the presence of man-made waste to the natural soil environment. Accidentally or intentionally, everyday materials and substances are intentionally left in the environment and sadly we cannot really see most of them.