The Poetry Foundation’s new home in Chicago uses an innovative zinc screen to celebrate the ephemeral beauty of poetry.
On the corner of Dearborn and Superior streets, in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, a unique new building graces the landscape. At 22,000 sq ft, it isn’t enormous. At $21.5 million, it isn’t extravagantly expensive. The building, which houses the offices of the Poetry Foundation, has a rare purpose, however: it was designed and built to reflect the ephemeral beauty of a poem.
How, exactly, is that accomplished? How do engineers and architects design and build something with concrete, steel, and glass to evoke “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, for example?
The task fell to Chicago architect John Ronan, who was chosen in an international search from among 50 other firms that submitted plans. Ronan selected the engineers, including the global firm Arup as the structural engineer and Glass Solutions, in Chicago, as the façade engineer. Ronan describes the building as a subtle, spatial narrative that slowly unfolds.
One of the key elements Ronan created to convey subtlety is a perforated black zinc screen that shrouds the building and is either opaque or transparent depending on the angle from which it is viewed and the lighting conditions. The screen either obscures or reveals a 4,000 sq ft public garden filled with trees and open to the sky.
This unique disappearing act was accomplished by staggering 3/8 in. diameter round perforations in the black zinc, resulting in about 40 percent open area, Ronan wrote in response to Civil Engineering magazine online questions. “We looked at several different perforation patterns, in multiple sizes before settling on this one,” he said.
Ronan chose black zinc to evoke authority and seriousness. The oxidized zinc is .039 in. thick, and will develop a dark gray patina as it weathers in Chicago’s wind, rain, and snow.
“The perforations made the metal very light,” Ronan added, “which required it to be anchored about every three feet horizontally and two feet vertically. The screen wall is like a sail and requires lateral stability.”
The vertical anchors for the screen are aluminum. At the top, they are attached to a header beam that runs continuously around the building. The beam extends from the building’s structure over the plaza and is anchored laterally in two places. At the bottom, they are attached to the top of the foundation wall, beneath the garden slab.
“Unlike much of contemporary architecture, it cannot be reduced to a single image,” Ronan said of the building, which opened this summer. “It has to be experienced to be understood. It is not meant to be a loud architecture statement that screams for attention, but a subtle spatial narrative that slowly unfolds.”
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Another key challenge of the building is the performance space, where the Poetry Foundation plans to hold readings. The room seats 125, and offers views of the plaza and the street beyond.
“The challenge was how to isolate outside street noise so that poets could be heard without amplification,” Ronan wrote. “Making the performance space acoustically perfect for the human voice was the most challenging aspect of the design."
To accomplish this, Ronan chose textured concrete masonry units for the walls, grouted solid. Over the walls is stretched fabric with acoustical backing. The ceiling is also fabric, and the windows are monolithic glass. The formed chairs are made from layers of birch veneer, glued together with no mechanical fasteners to loosen and squeak as they age.
The Poetry Foundation is pleased with the building. “The building will help us continue the oral tradition of reading and reciting poetry out loud, while shining a national spotlight on Chicago as the home of Poetry, one of the oldest and most important literary magazines in the English speaking world,” said John Barr, the foundation’s president, in a press release about the building’s opening to the public on June 25. (4150 знаков)
Words to Texts 2 & 3
neighbourhood – соседство
to grace – украшать
ephemeral – эфемерный, преходящий; мимолётный
to evoke – пробуждать (чувства) ; вызывать (воспоминание )
search – поиск
to submit – представлять на рассмотрение
spatial – пространственный, существующий в пространстве
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narrative – рассказ, повествование
to unfold – развертываться; раскрываться
to convey – сообщать, передавать (ощущения)
to shroud – маскировать, прятать, скрывать
opaque – непрозрачный; непроницаемый, тёмный
transparent – прозрачный, просвечивающий, светопроницаемый
to obscure – прятать; скрывать; затемнять
disappearing – исчезающий
to stagger – качаться, колебаться
to evoke – пробуждать (чувства) ; вызывать (воспоминание)
patina – патина (плёнка разных оттенков, образующаяся на бронзе, меди, латуни при окислении металла), налет
to weather – подвергаться атмосферным влияниям
lateral – боковой; побочный, отводящий
header beam – верхняя балка – верхня балка, перекладина
plaza – открытая площадка (перед городскими зданиями); зона
отдыха; торговый комплекс
challenge – вызов (на соревнование), серьезное испытание
masonry – каменная или кирпичная кладка
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grouted solid – твердое тело с заполнением пустот цементным
раствором
acoustical backing – акустический подстилающий слой
spotlight – прожектор
Text 4 and Text 5
NYC Concrete
A concrete testing firm doing business in New York City ( NYC) is indicted, accused of falsifying thousands of tests in high-profile projects, including Yankee Stadium and the Lincoln Tunnel.
The validity and accuracy of thousands of concrete tests and inspections on high-profile projects in New York City, including Yankee Stadium and the Lincoln Tunnel, are in question after Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., announced indictments in August against the testing firm American Standard Testing and Consulting Laboratories (ASTC), its owner Alan Fortich, and five employees.
ASTC is accused of submitting thousands of fraudulent test reports, skipping safety tests, and creating false reports to offer the impression that tests were performed. The allegedly false reports span more than 10 years.
"Today’s indictment sends a clear message to the concrete-testing industry that there are serious consequences for cutting corners on the job site,” New York City building inspector Robert LiMandri said in a press release following the announcement. “We have created a specialized unit to increase oversight and better ensure the integrity of this work.”
The company is also charged with manipulating government programs to obtain contracts through special programs designed to help disadvantaged businesses owned by women or a member of a designated minority group.
Fortich and the company “vehemently deny the allegations in the indictment, and we shall fight this case,’’ their lawyer, Richard R. Leff, told the New York Times.
Under the city’s building code, a structural engineer must specify the strength of concrete that the project requires. An independent lab must then locally obtain raw materials and test four different proportions, or mixes.
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The four different mixes are poured into cylinders. After 7, 14, 28, and 56 days, cylinders with each of the four mixes are placed into a compressive strength machine that applies immense pressure until the concrete cracks. The load at which it cracks enables engineers to calculate the strength—measured in pounds per square in. (psi)—of each mix of concrete. The firm then prepares a report specifying which mix should be used for the project.
The test is designed to select the most economical mix of concrete that meets the design criteria, according to John Durrant, P.E. M.ASCE, ASCE’s senior managing director of engineering and lifelong learning.
Concrete that fails to meet the design criteria can cause a building to deteriorate rapidly and not perform to specifications, Durrant says. In the worst-case scenarios, the steel in the buildings could be more susceptible to corroding, he adds.
The building code of New York City also requires any concrete poured at a project be tested with a slump test, an air entrainment test, a density test, and a temperature test.
“These tests are quality controls that will give you an indicator that, if these things are within range, the mix is likely to perform as designed and expected,” Durrant says.
The indictment alleges that none of the almost 3,000 test reports in ASTC’s database contained legitimate test results and comes 15 months after V. Reddy Kancharla, P.E., the former top executive of Testwell Laboratories Inc., once a leading concrete testing company in the city, was sentenced on May 26, 2010, to up to 21 years in prison following his conviction for falsifying test results. Kancharla was ordered to pay $225,000 in reparations, and Testwell was ordered to pay $1,761,009 in reparations.
In that case, concrete poured at the Freedom Tower and certified to reach the engineer’s specified 12,000 psi was actually averaging 10,000 psi when the Port Authority conducted its own tests. Only one-third of the tested samples reached the specified 12,000 psi. When the Port Authority took core samples of concrete already in place and tested them, it found that the concrete had strength of 9,000 psi, according to the district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors began scrutinizing ASTC because the company certified work on Yankee Stadium, as did Testwell. ASTC was hired to test concrete on the Second Avenue Subway line after Testwell was charged with falsifying results on that project. Prosecutors allege ASTC then falsified results on the subway project.
“Because of this fraud, government agencies and private companies paid thousands of dollars for test results that were no more than worthless pieces of paper,” Vance said in a press release announcing the indictments. (4600 знаков)
Words to Texts 4 & 5
to indict – обвинять, критиковать
to accuse – винить, обвинять, упрекать
validity – законность; пригодность
accuracy – правильность, точность
high-profile – привлекающий внимание, заметный, выдающийся
indictment – обвинительный акт
fraudulent – обманный; жульнический, мошеннический
to skip – перескакивать
allegedly – по утверждению, как утверждают
to span – перекрывать (об арке, крыше и т.п.), соединять
берега (о мосте)
consequences – последствия
to cut corners – срезать угол, пойти кратчайшим путём, напрямик
press release – пресс-релиз, сообщение для прессы
oversight – недосмотр, оплошность, упущение
to be charged with – отвечать за
disadvantaged – находящийся в неблагоприятном положении
designated – назначенный, намеченный
vehement – сильный; неистовый; страстный
allegation – голословное утверждение
to fight a case – отстаивать дело
compressive strength – прочность на сжатие, прочность при сжатии
to crack – трескаться, растрескиваться
in. (inch) – дюйм
to meet the design criteria – удовлетворять проектным критериям
to fail – разрушаться; ломаться; выходить из строя
to deteriorate – ухудшаться, становиться хуже
specifications – технические условия
worst-case scenario – самый неблагоприятный путь развития, самый
неблагоприятный сценарий
susceptible – восприимчивый
slump test – испытание бетонной смеси на осадку конуса
air entrainment – вовлечение воздуха в бетон
to allege – ссылаться (в оправдание, в доказательство) , приписывать
legitimate – законный
former top executive – бывшее высшее руководство
to be sentenced – быть приговоренным к
sample – образец
strength – прочность
attorney – адвокат
prosecutor – обвинитель
to scrutinize – тщательно исследовать
to be hired to – бать нанятым для
fraud – обман; мошенничество
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