Nick Mulvey – Meet Me There

James Morgan a réalisé le clip du chanteur Nick Mulvey pour sa chanson « Meet Me There ». On y suit un africain sur les belles terres, le désert et reliefs du Yemen. Filmé avec une caméra Red Epic Dragon, le clip est à découvrir dans ses deux versions : l’officielle et le director’s cut.

Director’s Cut Version :

Official Version :

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ListenUp: Brownbook Magazine: Unique and rare sounds from the Middle East in a look at the creative publication’s current music issue

ListenUp: Brownbook Magazine


This week, we check in with Dubai-based Brownbook magazine in celebration of the mix of “legends and underground heroes” included in their current music issue. In addition to a pull-out songbook featuring sheet music from classic Egyptian songstress Umm Kulthum, the informative issue…

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Link About It: L’ArcoBaleno: Earthquake-proof tables, Brazilian modern, Brooklyn’s Souda studio and more in the stories culled from the online market’s cast of talent

Link About It: L’ArcoBaleno


Helmed by Design Miami co-founder Ambra Medda, L’ArcoBaleno is an extraordinary online marketplace for the cultured design enthusiast. To provide further…

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NLE’s floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

Ahead of the opening of the Designs of the Year 2014 exhibition tomorrow, here’s a look back at one of the standout projects – a floating school on a Nigerian lagoon by architecture studio NLÉ (+ slideshow).

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

NLÉ, the studio founded by Nigerian-born architect Kunlé Adeyemi, developed the Makoko Floating School as a prototype for building in African regions that have little or no permanent infrastructure, thanks to unpredictable water levels that cause regular flooding.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

Half-building, half-boat, the floating structure provides teaching facilities for the slum district of Makoko, a former fishing village in Lagos where over 100,000 people live in houses on stilts. Prior to this the community had just one English-speaking primary school that regularly found itself under water.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

“In many ways, Makoko epitomises the most critical challenges posed by urbanisation and climate change in coastal Africa. At the same time, it also inspires possible solutions and alternatives to the invasive culture of land reclamation,” said the architects.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

NLÉ developed a structure that can accommodate up to 100 adults, even in bad weather conditions. It is primarily used as a school, but can also function as an events space, a clinic or a market, depending on the needs of the community.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Aerial photograph by Iwan Baan

Built by a team of local residents, the structure was put together using wooden offcuts from a nearby sawmill and locally grown bamboo.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Base of the building during construction

A triangular profile allows the building to accommodate three storeys whilst remaining stable over the water. “It is an ideal shape for a floating object on water due to its relatively low centre of gravity, which provides stability and balance even in heavy winds,” said the designers.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Structural framework

The lower level houses a space for play, while a sub-dividable space on the middle floor accommodates up to four classrooms and the upper level contains a small group workshop. A staircase on one side connects the three levels.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Community gathers to test the building

Here’s the project description from NLE:


Makoko Floating School

Makoko Floating School is a prototype structure that addresses physical and social needs in view of the growing challenges of climate change in an urbanising African context. It is a movable ‘building’ or ‘watercraft’ currently located in the aquatic community of Makoko in the lagoon heart of Africa’s second most populous city – Lagos, Nigeria. It is a floating structure that adapts to the tidal changes and varying water levels, making it invulnerable to flooding and storm surges. It is designed to use renewable energy, to recycle organic waste and to harvest rainwater.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

An estimated 100,000 people reside in Makoko in housing units built on stilts. Yet the community has no roads, no land and no formal infrastructure to support its day-to-day survival. In many ways, Makoko epitomises the most critical challenges posed by urbanisation and climate change in coastal Africa. At the same time, it also inspires possible solutions and alternatives to the invasive culture of land reclamation.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon

Until now Makoko has been served by one English-speaking primary school, built on uneven reclaimed land, surrounded by constantly changing waters. Like many homes in Makoko, this has rendered the primary school building structurally precarious and susceptible to recurrent flooding. Sadly, the inability of the building to effectively withstand the impact of increased rainfall and flooding has frequently threatened local children’s access to their basic need – the opportunity of education.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Vision for a cluster of four structures

In response to this and in close collaboration with the Makoko community, NLÉ has developed a prototype floating structure that will serve primarily as a school, whilst being scalable and adaptable for other uses, such as a community hub, health clinic, market, entertainment centre or housing. The prototype’s versatile structure is a safe and economical floating triangular frame that allows flexibility for customisation and completion based on specific needs and capacities.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Vision for a community of floating buildings

The 220m A-frame or pyramid building is 10m high with a 10m x 10m base. It is an ideal shape for a floating object on water due to its relatively low centre of gravity, which provides stability and balance even in heavy winds. It also has a total capacity to safely support a hundred adults, even in extreme weather conditions.

The building has three levels. The 1st level is an open play area for school breaks and assembly, which also serves as a community space during after hours. The 2nd level is an enclosed space for two to four classrooms, providing enough space for sixty to a hundred pupils. A staircase on the side connects the open play area, the classrooms and a semi enclosed workshop space on the 3rd level.

Detailed section of NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Detailed cross section – click for larger image

The simple yet innovative structure adheres to ideal standards of sustainable development with its inclusive technologies for renewable energy, waste reduction, water and sewage treatment as well as the promotion of low-carbon transport. Furthermore a team of eight Makoko-based builders constructed it using eco-friendly, locally sourced bamboo and wood procured from a local sawmill.

Construction began in September 2012 with floatation mock-ups and testing. Recycled empty plastic barrels found abundantly in Lagos were used for the building’s buoyancy system, which consists of 16 wooden modules, each containing 16 barrels. The modules were assembled on the water, creating the platform that provides buoyancy for the building and its users. Once this was assembled, construction of the A-frame followed and was completed by March 2013. Makoko Floating School is now in regular use by the community as a social, cultural and economic centre and will soon welcome its first pupils for use as a primary school.

NLE's floating school casts anchor in Lagos Lagoon
Concept diagram

The project was initiated, designed and built by NLÉ in collaboration with the Makoko Waterfront Community, in Lagos State. The project was initially self-funded by NLÉ and later received research funds from Heinrich Boll Stiftung as well as funds for its construction from the UNDP/Federal Ministry of Environment Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP).

Makoko Floating School is a ‘prototype’ building structure for NLÉ’s proposed ‘Lagos Water Communities Project’ and its ‘African Water Cities’ research project.

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anchor in Lagos Lagoon
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Walls of foliage will surround towers at Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard François

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

Flowering vines will sprawl across the facades of these four tower blocks underway in Casablanca by French studio Maison Edouard François, creating a series of brightly coloured vertical gardens.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

Located in the Les Hopitaux district of the North African city, the Gardens of Anfa project by Maison Edouard François comprises three mid-rise residential towers and a low-rise office office block. Set to complete by 2017, it will be the first development in Africa to feature vertical gardens this extensively.

Each floor of the three 16-storey residential towers will feature wrap-around balconies with screens made from an interwoven mesh. The balcony walls will be planted with jasmine or white bougainvillea, an ornamental vine native to South America.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

As the plants become established they will grow throughout the mesh, creating a blanket effect on the exteriors of the buildings. The 12-storey office block meanwhile will be differentiated from the surrounding buildings by the multicoloured flowers adorning its facade.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

The development encompasses a 50,000 square-metre site. Once complete, it will become a new mixed-use quarter that will also include public spaces, underground car parking and a series of low-rise residential blocks.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

At the base of the towers, public spaces will include seating, cafes, water features and a thoroughfare for cars and buses. Washingtonia palm trees will create a dense thicket of foliage, shading pedestrians from the intense Moroccan sun.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

Moving further away from the centre, trees and bushes of blue and white blossoms will be planted to separate the towers from the low-rise residential buildings that form the outer edge of the development.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois

These buildings will feature a series of balconies jutting out from the facade at random, and are also intended to incorporate vertical gardens. A row of purple blossom trees will form an outer perimeter, completing the development.

“These residential buildings break down the scale of the high-rise towers to give the park an inhabited character. This architecture of individual buildings demarcates the limits of the gardens,” added the spokesperson.

Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois
Gardens of Anfa diagram – click for larger image

This isn’t the first time Maison Edouard François has combined high-rise buildings with plants. Tour Végétale de Nantes was a concept unveiled by the studio in 2011 that featured trees and shrubs growing in stainless steel tubes on each floor of a tower.

Here’s some information from the architects:


The Gardens of Anfa, Casablanca – Morocco

The Gardens of Anfa will be the landscaped heart of a new neighbourhood in Morocco.

A large, dense park conceals a series of four buildings with vegetal façades, creating mimetic games with the surrounding nature.

Site plan of Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois
Site plan – click for larger image

In the foreground, Washingtonias are planted as if in a dense forest. In the mid-ground, multi-colored flowers cover the topography. In the background, trees and bushes flourish with blue and white blossoms.

The architecture plays itself out in many colors. Towers with organic forms are implanted around the square. The towers with office spaces have façades that are planted with multicolored bougainvilleas. The towers with housing units appear white, planted with jasmine or white bougainvilleas.

Ground floor plan of Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

Lower buildings surround the park and are set back from the adjacent roads. The façades of these small buildings are vertical gardens. These residential buildings break down the scale of the high-rise towers to give the park an inhabited character. This architecture of individual buildings demarcates the limits of the gardens.

Typical upper floor plan of Walls of foliage will surround the towers of Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard Francois
Typical upper floor plan – click for larger image

Program : Mixed-use program consisting of three mid-rise residential towers (R+16), a low-rise office tower (R+12), surrounded by low rise residential blocks, convenient amenities for the residences open onto the central and linking public piazza and three underground parking lots distributing each lot that make up the master plan.

Client: Yasmine Signature Anfa Club
Team: Maison Edouard François, Groupe 3 Architectes (local construction architect)
Area: 50 000 M² Net Floor Area
Schedule competition: 2012
Construction permit: 2013
Delivery: 2017

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Gardens of Anfa by Maison Edouard François
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Ethiopia Photography by Steve McCurry

Focus sur le photographe américain Steve McCurry qui propose la série « Omo Valley » en Ethiopie. Il réalise des portraits des africains en tenues traditionnelles, mais aussi des photos de moments de fête et de rites religieux. Sa série est à découvrir en images sur son portfolio et dans la suite de l’article.

Site officiel Steve McCurry

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Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

Design strategy collective Urban-Think Tank has designed and built a prototypical house as part of an initiative to improve housing conditions for slum dwellers in some of the 2700 informal settlements across South Africa (+ movie).

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

Urban-Think Tank, which was involved in the Golden Lion-winning research into the Torre David vertical slum in Caracas, has this time teamed up with ETH Zürich university to search for ways that architects can help improve the environment and security of these slums that house approximately 15 percent of the country’s entire population.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

Working under the title Empower Shack, the team organised a design-and-build workshop in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town that is one of the largest in South Africa, and developed a design for a low-cost two-storey shack for local resident Phumezo Tsibanto and his family.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

They then worked together to replace Tsibanto’s existing single-storey dwelling with the new two-storey structure, giving the family a new home with a watertight exterior and its own electricity.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

The designers are now exploring different configurations of the prototype that will allow it to adapt to the needs of different residents, extending up to three storeys when necessary.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums

This in turn becomes part of a wider strategy for rationalising the layout of the entire community, known as blocking out. This involves creating access routes for emergency vehicles and providing basic services such as sanitation and water.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Phumezo Tsibanto’s original home

“Our work on the Empower Shack project is not the result of the usual architectural pursuit for a new housing typology,” said Urban-Think Tank co-founder Alfredo Brillembourg. “While we are absolutely trying to innovate upon the design and technology of low-cost housing, we’re more concerned with the general ‘system’ that surrounds housing in the context of informal South African settlements.”

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Construction of the timber frame

He continued: “This includes the infrastructure that makes housing decent, such as power and sanitation, along with the urban configuration of homes. The Empower Shack project seeks to address these larger challenges, and in doing so, hopefully changes not just the built landscape of places like Khayelitsha, but also the social, political and economic structures that shape residents’ lives.”

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Installing the cladding

Brillembourg and partner Hubert Klumpner are now showing their findings from the two-year research in an exhibition at the Eva Presenhuber Gallery in Zurich.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
The completed shack

Here’s a project description from Urban-Think Tank:


Empower Shack

Can art and architecture lend a voice to segments of the population that go unheard? Empower Shack is a new exhibition presenting an ETH Zürich and Urban-Think Tank project on South Africa, supported by Swisspearl (Schweiz) AG. A collaboration between the Brillembourg & Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, South African NGO Ikhayalami (‘My Home’), Transsolar, Brillembourg Ochoa Foundation, Meyer Burger, the BLOCK ETH ITA Research Group, and videocompany, the Empower Shack team was established as a response to conventional approaches in dealing with urban informality, which are unsustainable and painstakingly slow in meeting the immediate needs of the vast majority of South Africa’s urban poor.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Aerial view of Khayelitsha

With its roots in a research, design and build workshop aimed at developing an innovative, replicable, affordable and sustainable shack prototype for Cape Town’s Khayelitsha (the third largest township in South Africa), the exhibition uses film, photography, drawings, painting and large-scale architectural installations to explore the complexity of living conditions in informal settlements, and the social role of architects in helping to address the economic, ecological and security challenges faced by residents.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Empower Shack exhibition at the Eva Presenhuber Gallery

With a population of over 50 million and the continent’s largest economy, South Africa is often seen as a source of relative stability and prosperity in the region. Yet economic inequality remains high. Around 1.5 million households (approximately 7.5 million people) live in 2,700 informal settlements scattered across the country, which faces an overall shortage of 2.5 million houses.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Shack installation at the Empower Shack exhibition

While the government’s record on housing delivery is laudable, the scale of need means informal settlements will remain for the foreseeable future. In response, authorities have slowly begun shifting the focus to incremental upgrading, including committing in 2010 to improve the quality of life of 400,000 households in well located informal settlements by 2014 through improved access to basic services and land tenure.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Empower Shack exhibition entrance

Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, along with their research and design teams and collaborating partners are engaged in an ongoing project to develop and implement design innovations for rapid and incremental informal settlement upgrading.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Blocking out strategy – click for larger image and text

The examples featured in the Empower Shack exhibition are intended to provide immediate strategies to alleviate a national crisis, while remaining embedded within community-driven processes around resource allocation.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Clustering strategy – click for larger image and text

With Empower Shack, Brillembourg and Klumpner reinforce their broader vision for practical, sustainable interventions in informal settlements around the world. They argue the future of urban development lies in collaboration among architects, artists, private enterprise, and the global population of slum-dwellers.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Initial volume sketches showing possible configurations – click for larger image

Brillembourg, Klumpner and their team frequently exhibit internationally in venues such as Kassel (2004), MoMA (2010) and the 13th Venice Biennale of Architecture, where they were awarded the Golden Lion in 2012. Through artistic and didactic presentations, they issue a call to arms to their fellow architects to see in the informal settlements of the world a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in the service of a more equitable and sustainable future.

Urban-Think Tank develops housing prototype for South African slums
Structural diagram – click for larger image and text

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prototype for South African slums
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Design Indaba 2014: The Expo: Africa’s emerging and established design talent join together in Cape Town for the yearly exhibition and marketplace

Design Indaba 2014: The Expo


Each year that we attend Cape Town’s brilliant Design Indaba conference, the subsequent Expo seems to infinitely grow and improve—a testament to the design world’s increasing fascination with the opportunities abounding in the vibrant continent. Now a massive marketplace consuming the entirety…

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Ghost town engulfed by mounds of sand in photography by Romain Veillon

Photo essay: French photographer Romain Veillon explored an abandoned town that is slowly being consumed by the Namib desert to create these images of once-opulent buildings filled with sand dunes.

The discovery of diamonds at the turn of the twentieth century prompted the establishment of Kolmanskop as a settlement for German miners, but it was abandoned just 50 years later when the diamond fields became exhausted and the value of the stones decreased. Now little more than a tourist destination, the ghost town is gradually disappearing under sand, so Romain Veillon paid a visit to document its remains.

The series is entitled Les Sables du Temps, which translates as The Sands of Time. Veillon hopes it will serve as both a memory of the perishing town and a reminder of the “strength of nature”.


Once rich and opulent, Kolmanskop is now a ghost town invaded by sand and lost in the middle of the Namib desert. But its history stays as short as it is surprising; founded after the discovery of diamonds by German settlers in 1908, Kolmanskop went through a real “diamond rush” and very fastly became the nerve centre of the area, due to its rich deposit of diamond. The legend says that even by night, you only had to go down to find diamonds in the sand, thanks to the moonlight.

Ghost town engulfed by mounds of sand<br /> photographed by Romain Veillon

Kolmanskop faced a striking prosperity that attracted many adventurers and other prospectors from across Africa, prosperity symbolised by the fact that Kolmanskop inhabitants used to get their clean water from 1000 kilometres away in Cape Town, or that they imported their champagne from Reims!

Kolmanskop emerged from the soil very quickly, as the new immigrants settled in the city. From a German inspiration, you could soon find there a hospital, a butcher shop, a bakery, an ice factory, a bowling alley, a casino, a school, a power plant and even a swimming pool. The hospital there received the first X-ray machine of the entire African continent, although the machine was mostly used to verify if miners had swallowed diamonds. At its zenith, Kolmanskop welcomed more than 1200 people and 700 families.

Ghost town engulfed by mounds of sand<br /> photographed by Romain Veillon

Unfortunately the drop of the diamond price after the First World War and the discovery of a bigger deposit south buried the last hope of Kolmanskop. Little by little the inhabitants quit the town, leaving behind them their houses and their belongings. By 1954, the city was entirely abandoned. Since then, it has slowly but surely become more and more covered by sand. Nowadays, Kolmanskop is only visited by the few tourists that venture into the isolated area.

With this set of photographs, I wanted to pay a tribute to this particular place and its past. For that, I have decided to underline the strength of nature that always takes back what is her’s, but also the ephemeral aspect of human constructions – symbolised here by the progress of sand and dunes through what remains of the city.

Ghost town engulfed by mounds of sand<br /> photographed by Romain Veillon

These silted doors are for me the symbol of an inevitable passing of time, reminding us that soon Kolmanskop will be no more and that we should enjoy it while it lasts. The light of the spot is also essential to me because it brings an atmosphere almost timeless and a strange sensation that is almost unreal.

Ghost town engulfed by mounds of sand<br /> photographed by Romain Veillon

You can lost in those dunes looking for the ghost of an ancient time, or trying to figure out what incredible stories must have taken place there.

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in photography by Romain Veillon
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BRCK portable internet router by Ushahidi “designed to work anywhere”

A portable router designed to bring constant internet connectivity to tough locations in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond was presented at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town this week.

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The BRCK portable router by Ushahidi

The BRCK device from Kenyan technology firm Ushahidi can automatically switch between Ethernet, WiFi and mobile broadband to maintain its connection. It has its own battery with an eight-hour life to cope with power-cuts and intermittent connections, plus a built-in 16 gigabyte hard drive.

Juliana-Rotich of Ushahidi
Juliana Rotich of Ushahidi

“There’s a gap in the reliability of the infrastructure and this is our answer,” said co-founder of Ushahidi Juliana Rotich, speaking to Dezeen after her talk at Design Indaba.

For her, creating technology appropriate to the location is crucial: “Why do we use technology designed for London when we are using it in Lagos?”

Rotich described the BRCK as “a rugged way to stay connected,” adding that their mantra is: “If it works in Africa, it’ll work anywhere.”

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The BRCK portable router by Ushahidi

The BRCK’s backup battery and multiple ways of connecting to the network mean that it will keep its users online even when internet connectivity and power is sporadic. From coders working in internet cafes in Nairobi to farmers working miles from large conurbations, the BRCK is designed to keep its users hooked up to the internet under the most difficult circumstances.

Weighing 500 grams the device is 132 milimetres by 72 milimetres by 45 milimetres, similar to the size of a Mac Mini. It’s designed to work in dusty locations, be physically robust and splash-proof. Up to 20 devices can be connected to its wireless network .

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The BRCK portable router by Ushahidi is designed to be used in challenging locations

The device enjoyed a successful Kickstarter campaign last year and is currently being refined by the Kenyan-based design team.

Rotich hopes that the launch of BRCK can be used as a means of developing the manufacturing base in Africa, a path which will require political and economic changes, as she sees it.

“We’ve shown we can prototype and make, but we still have to pay more than 100 percent duty on components – we have to make a tough business choice,” said Rotich.

“Ultimately we would love for the BRCK to be conceived in Africa, designed in Africa, made in Africa, used in Africa – and used around the world,” she added.

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“designed to work anywhere”
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