Deeply entwined with its cultural heritage, the mountainous territory carries a historic tradition of craft metalwork – as a center for the production of hand-crafted ornaments, teapots and spiritual artefacts, destined for temples, and held in high regard by India’s king dynasties.
But the craft has entered a point of decline, continued by just a handful of artisanal metalworkers who fight for its preservation.…
He reflects upon the incredible animals and habitats he has seen, and what the future could hold – for both us and them.
Between the imposing mountains and the calm surface of the ocean, the municipality of Porto Moniz also dazzles with the charm of its picturesque parishes, which overflow with rich customs.
Monocle on Saturday, December 11, 2023: Emma Nelson and Yassmin Abdel-Magied review the week’s news and culture. Also, Monocle’s Oslo correspondent, Lars Bevanger, visits Ambassaden – the former US embassy, which has been transformed into a food-and-drink hub. Arts and culture specialist Issabella Orlando also joins the panel to talk about other heritage-inspired spaces around the world.
Ian McEwan is considered one of the most important British novelists alive today. When he writes, characters and plot are difficult to separate because “often characters arise out of plots, often plots drive characters into existence”, he says. What is crucial to McEwan when writing is that “circumstances make the character and the characters generate possibilities. That sense of possibility is always so important. So characters can create their own waves.” The novel Lessons (2022) is McEwan’s most personal novel. It was written in lockdown when he was entering his 70s and beginning to take a look back at his existence. People who know him well can always connect what he is writing with things in his own life, he says.
In Lessons, McEwan wanted to create “the emotional truth of certain rather sad, tragic, disturbing things that happened in my family”, he says. “And the reflective element was also the movement towards trying to understand the circumstances, not only of my life but my generation’s life.” Ian McEwan enjoys reading biographies, but “if you want to know everything it’s possible to know about a great poet, you’ll need to read three or four biographies written over maybe a century or two centuries”, he says. He admits that fiction does not influence him like it did when he was younger.
“We have very little sense of how to generate on the page an open-ended character until the writing of Jane Austen” and he adds that it was the great Russian writers who taught us how to write characters as if they were real people. By the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, there was a great artistic revolution; McEwan points out and emphasizes that it was especially James Joyce who taught us “to understand characters from the flow of consciousness, right from the very inside”.
Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Dream Home 00:42 – A Beachside Location 01:05 – Meeting the Greenfield Housing Code 02:01 – A Walkthrough of the Interior Space 03:15 – The Exterior and Interior Material Palette 04:41 – Different Site Capabilities
Designed within the Greenfield Housing Code, the residence speaks to its subtropical setting by emphasising outdoor living spaces and allowing a private sanctuary for the family who reside there. The architect has moved the main building to the back of the site and added garden spaces at the front, maximising the way the family can use the property and, therefore, making it more liveable. Adding to the abode’s character is the addition of an entry feature; the architect designs a dream home with a two-storey tower that overlooks the courtyard.
Featured at the beginning of the house tour are the material design elements and architectural aspects that are later carried throughout the rest of the interior spaces. As seen in the house tour, an undercover colonnade with steel columns reveals itself as one journeys down to the courtyard, where outdoor areas have been defined into smaller spaces. Then, as one enters the front door, the house tour reveals a vaulted design, with architecture that reflects the open volume within. Moreover, the architect designs a dream home featuring arched elements both inside and out to help reflect light and foster a bespoke atmosphere as one moves deeper into the residence.
Graphic design Patte&Besset, stamp “Fêtes du cinquantenaire de la tour Eiffel”, 1939, creation by Henri Cheffer (c) adagp Paris ; Stamp “Gustave Eiffel 1832 – 1923” creation by Marie-Noëlle Goffin.
Replacing an existing home in an alleyway in Tottenham, the plant and light-filled residence is modelled on a riad – a type of traditional Moroccan house built around a central courtyard. It was hailed by the jury of this year’s RIBA House of the Year prize as “a true oasis within the city”.
Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=2009884
Video timeline: 0:00 Autonomous systems 0:40 The need for next-generation drones 1:49 Scaling up 4:07 Keeping up with China
It’s a race against the clock, as Beijing has militarized islands in the South China Sea, and President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Some experts are skeptical the U.S. military can work fast enough to meet its goals.
Boomers Daily 