KAREN

The paragraph

2005-11-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

A paragraph is a distinct division of written or printed matter that begins on a new, usually indented line, consists of one or more sentences, and typically deals with a single thought or topic or quotes one speaker's continuous words.
There's no hard-and-fast rule for the length of a paragraph: it can be as short as a sentence or as long as it has to be. Just remember that each paragraph should contain only one developed idea. A paragraph often begins with a topic sentence which sets the tone of the paragraph; the rest amplifies, clarifies, or explores the topic sentence. When you change topics, start a new paragraph.
Be sure your paragraphs are organized to help your argument along. Each paragraph should build on what came before, and should lay the ground for whatever comes next. Mastering transitions can make a very big difference in your writing.

Chicagos Video Part II

2005-11-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

In this part of the video, I have learned the architechts of some of the important buildings that you can find in Chicago city...For example:
-Manhattan Bld. designed by William Le Baron Jenney
- Old Colony Bld. designed by Holabird & Roche
- Fisher Bld. designed by Burnham & Co.
- Monadnock Bld. designed by Burnham & Root, Holabird & Roche
- Federal Center designed by Mies Van Der Rohe
- And the Jail Bld, Marquette Bld, LaSalle Bld, Inland Steel Bld, First National Bank, Carson Pirie Scott Bld.
I think the video showed a lot of buidings really interesting for the architects students..

Chicagos Video Part1

2005-11-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the Chicago Video because it was made really interesting, it showed a lot of buildings really interesting...I didnt know about the Chicagos Fire and that the city, many years ago, was all made of wood.... Also, i didnt know that chicago has a really achitecture and greats buidings... I think, the history of the city is really interesting...I found the video really great!!

The Petronas Tower

2005-11-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

The Petronas Towers (also known as the Petronas Twin Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were once the world's tallest buildings when measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural or architectural top.
The towers, which were designed by architect César Pelli, were completed in 1998. The 88-floor towers constructed of largely reinforced concrete with a steel and glass facade were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim heritage.
Petronas, Malaysia's national oil company, set out to build the world's tallest building. Although other buildings such as the Sears Tower have higher occupied floors, a higher pinnacle, and a higher roof, the Petronas Towers' spires are classified as architectural details and rise to 452 m (1483 feet)--the highest feature classified as an architectural detail on a high rise until Taipei 101. Taking advantage of the quirks of the rules governing building measurements (counting spires but not antennas) has generated a large amount of controversy over the towers' claim to the title.

-Location:Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-Built:1998
-Use: office
-Height: Antenna / Spire 452 m
-Roof:n/a
-Top floor: 375 m
-Technical details:
Floor count: 88
Floor area: 395,000 m²
Elevator count: 78
-Architect:
César Pelli & Associates

WOOD

2005-11-22T15:53:00.000-08:00

Wood derives from woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs. Wood from the latter is only produced in small sizes, reducing the diversity of uses. Wood is a hygroscopic, cellular and anisotropic material.
Wood has been used by man for millenia for many purposes, being many things to many people. One of its primary uses is as fuel. It may also be used as a material, for making artworks, boats, buildings, furniture, ships, tools, weapons, etc. Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters, and remains in plentiful use today

BRICK

2005-11-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

A brick is a ceramic block made of kiln-fired material, usually clay or ground shale. Clay bricks are formed in a mould (the soft mud method), or more frequently in commercial mass production by extruding clay through a die and then wire-cutting them to the proper size (the stiff mud process). Brick made from dampened clay must be formed in molds with a great deal of pressure, usually applied by a hydraulic press. These bricks are known as hydraulic-pressed bricks, and have a dense surface which makes them highly resistant to weathering, and thus suitable for facing work. The shaped clay is then dried and fired to achieve the final, desired strength. In modern brickworks, this is usually done in a continuously fired kiln, in which the bricks move slowly through the kiln on conveyors, rails, or kiln cars to achieve consistent physical characteristics for all bricks. Bricks are also known in the building trades as compressed earth blocks
Bricks are typically for building. In the USA at one time, it was popular to pave roads with bricks, but they were found incapable of withstanding heavy traffic. Brick paving is again coming back into use as a method of traffic calming or as a decorative surface in pedestrian precincts.
Bricks are also used in the metallurgy and glass industries for lining furnaces. They have various uses, especially refractory bricks such as silica, magnesia and neutral (chromomagnesite) refractory bricks. This type of brick must have a series of properties such as good thermal shock resistance, refractoriness under load, high melting point, satisfactory porosity (which can influence several other properties), all of which are high-temperature properties. There is a large refractory brick industry, especially in the United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S.A.

CHICAGO II

2005-11-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Skyscraper
The skyscraper is a very tall, continuously habitable building. The word skyscraper was first applied to such buildings in the late 19th century, reflecting public amazement at the tall buildings being built in New York City. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multistory buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building. The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in New York and Chicago advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. It should be noted, however, that many of today's tallest skyscrapers are built more or less entirely in reinforced concrete. In the United States today, it is a loose convention to draw the lower limit on what is a skyscraper at 500 feet (153 meters). Elsewere, though, a shorter building will sometimes be refered to as a skyscraper, especially if it is said to "dominate" its surroundings. Thus, skyscraper may, in some settings, imply pride and achievement, but, in others, imply something less desirable..

The Sears Tower
is a skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. Commissioned by Sears, Roebuck and Company, it was designed by chief architect Bruce Graham and structural Engineer Fazlur Khan of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill. The designs for the Sears Tower is of nine steel unit tubes. The Sears Tower was the first building for which this design was used. Construction commenced in August 1970, and reached its maximum height on May 4, 1973. When completed, the Sears Tower had overtaken the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City as the world's tallest building. It was originally said to have 110 stories but this included the elevator penthouse and its roof; by normal counting methods it has 108. The height of the roof is 1,450 feet and 7 inches (442 m) measured from the east entrance. The total height of the structure including the two television antennas on top added in February 1982 was 1,707 feet (520 m), the western antenna was later extended to 1,729 feet (527 m) on June 5, 2000 to improve reception of local CBS station WBBM. In the process it outstripped the height of the antenna on 1 World Trade Center. The Sears Tower also has the most total floor space of any building in the U.S. next to The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. One story black bands appear around 30th-31st, 48th-49th, 64th-65th, and 106th-107th floors. It also has its own ZIP Code, 60606.
Contents

CHICAGO I

2005-11-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

HISTORY
During the mid 1700s, the Chicago area was inhabited primarily by Potawatomis, who took the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox who had controlled the area previously. The name Chicago originates from "Checagou" (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or "Checaguar" which in the Potawatomi language means 'wild onions' or 'skunk'. The area was so named because of the smell of rotting marshland onions that used to cover it. The first non-native settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a Haitian of African descent, who settled on the Chicago River in the 1770s and married a local Potawatomi woman. In 1795, following the War of the Wabash Confederacy, the area of Chicago was ceded by the Native Americans in the Treaty of Greenville to the United States for a military post. In 1803, Fort Dearborn was built and remained in use until 1837, except between 1812 and 1816 when it was destroyed in the Fort Dearborn Massacre during the War of 1812.

GREAT CHICAGO FIRE
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from October 8 to October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying several square miles in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S. disasters of the nineteenth century, the rebuilding that began almost immediately spurred Chicago's development into one of the United States's most populous and economically important cities.
In 1871, most of the city burned in the Great Chicago Fire. By this time the city had a population of over 300,000. Due to the fire much of the city needed to be rebuilt; this gave city planners a clean slate to fix the problems of the past. In the following years, Chicago architecture would become influential throughout the world. The first skyscraper in the world was constructed in 1885 using novel steel skeleton construction.