Hasta La Ideas

Long ago in a town far, far away, I was an undergraduate student. I had one teacher, professor O’Brien, who insisted that his students communicate with him via email. Back then, I sent and received at most two messages per week.

Today, you can put a pair of zeros behind that number.

I’m sure I’m not alone. For many, reading emails is more of a chore than a convenience. One thing you can do to make things easier on your recipients is to write clear, uncluttered subject lines. It’s not very difficult, but can go a long way to making this often irksome task more pleasant and efficient.

First and foremost, keep your subject lines short. According to Business Insider, most computer-based email applications only show around 60 characters in email subject lines. On smart phones, mail apps show maybe half that number. Full sentences won’t really work to meet those restrictions, so consider key words or ideas. Focus on the heart of what you’re going to say. And, to be clear, “Hey!” is not a worthwhile subject.

Since mobile phones give you so little to work with, get the most important words out first (often it’s a verb). “Cancel lunch Friday,” for example, is just 19 characters, the crux of the message, and “cancel” is featured first.

With that point made, it’s time for some decluttering. We aren’t shooting for a diagrammable sentence here, so implied words may be sacrificed. This isn’t always a good idea, of course, but if you’re pushing the limit, feel free to jettison an “although” or even an “after,” if you can without changing the meaning.

There are a few people I communicate with regularly who have a habit of indicating whether or I not I need to respond in the subject itself. For example, “no response needed” or “please respond.” I don’t like this practice, though I know many do. I think it’s just extra words for me to process, but I also understand that if you’re skimming your inbox, it can help identify which messages need attention and which can be set aside. I’ll leave this one up to you.

If your recipient understands the meaning, a message that is completely conveyed in a subject line can be ended with an EOM (end of message). This is good for simple status messages like “Finished (EOM)” and “Meet me in lobby in 5 (EOM).” It saves your reader time by knowing they don’t even have to open the email. If you have more than 25 characters, however, it’s best to keep the subject line brief and put a longer message in the body of an email. Anything longer than that and your reader might have to open the email anyway to see the whole subject line.

Finally, I have two pet peeves I want to share with you. Unless you’re aiming to be funny, don’t start a sentence in the subject and then finish it in the body. Typically I din’t know that’s what’s going on, and I read the body as a fragment sentence, which is confusing for a few seconds until I interpret your setup. I’ve seen this work where the subject is the setup and the body is the punchline, but that’s rare.

And, this should go without saying, don’t use all caps. Slogging through email is annoying enough; yelling doesn’t help.

Sometimes I long for the days when I was sitting in the library at Marywood University, that orange cursor blinking at me while I banged out a simple, three-sentence message to Dr. O’Brien. Two messages per week? I could live with that.

Post written by David Caolo

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Prefabricated brick panels create decorative cladding that complements the existing 1970s buildings surrounding this new facility for the Danish Meat Research Institute designed by C.F. Møller for a campus near Copenhagen (+ slideshow).

Scandinavian firm C.F. Møller was asked to develop the research centre at the Danish Technological Institute in the town of Taastrup to accommodate new facilities for the Danish Meat Research Institute, including an abattoir, microbiological and chemical laboratories, robotic workshops, meeting rooms and offices for the centre’s 120 staff.

The institute’s campus comprises red brick buildings with concrete lintels designed by Vilhelm Wohlert – the Danish architect of Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum – so the project team chose to reference the original buildings in the choice of material but utilise a contemporary construction method.

“The campus is very characteristic with the red brick buildings sitting in a beautiful landscape so our task was to do something innovative and modern but still related to the context,” project architect Anna Maria Indrio told Dezeen.

The external facades of the new facility are entirely clad in prefabricated brick panels that are produced with insulation already integrated and simply mounted onto the structural framework.

Projecting headers create a decorative relief pattern that repeats across the facades according to the arrangement of the panels.

“By creating this decorative facade we avoid the kind of dull prefabricated buildings that have clearly visible junctions between the panels,” said Indrio. “We found an innovative way of presenting the familiar red brick building that reflects the innovation taking place inside.”

The brickwork continues inside the building’s atrium, which bridges a gap between two separate wings housing the laboratories on one side and the offices on the other.

The atrium contains the entrance and main staircase and can also be used to host exhibitions and events.

Windows on either side enable visitors to observe the staff at work as soon as they enter the building and create a visual link between those working in the laboratories and the offices.

Concrete window surrounds, which echo the exposed lintels on the original buildings, wrap along three edges of the glazing that protrudes outwards from the facades to create bay windows.

These openings offer wider views of the surrounding landscape than a standard window, which Indrio explained is “important for the relationship between the inside and outside and gives a pleasant environment when you sit inside.”

Photographs by Torben Eskerod.

The post C.F. Møller completes red brick facility
for the Danish Meat Research Institute appeared first on Dezeen.

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