Rafael Veyisov est un artiste originaire d’Azerbaïdjan qui a décidé d’utiliser la couche de poussière accumulée sur une voiture garée sur son lieu de travail pour créer une véritable oeuvre d’art. Utilisant l’aspect clair de la poussière pour représenter le ciel, cette jolie création est à découvrir dans la suite.
This holiday house with rammed earth walls by US architects DUST is nestled amongst the rocky outcrops and sprouting cacti of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona (+ slideshow).
With a long narrow body that ambles gently across the terrain, the Tucson Mountain Retreat is a single-storey residence with terraces along its north and south elevations and a small deck upon its roof.
DUST architects Cade Hayes and Jesus Robles planned a location away from animal migration paths and overexposure to sunlight and wind, then used local soil to build the house’s red earth walls.
“Great effort was invested to minimise the physical impact of the home in such a fragile environment, while at the same time attempting to create a place that would serve as a backdrop to life and strengthen the sacred connections to the awe-inspiring mystical landscape,” explains Hayes.
The rooms of the house are separated into three zones, comprising a sleeping and bathing area, a central living room and a music studio. Residents have to leave the building to move between zones, intended to provide acoustic separation.
The living room features glazed walls on both sides, which slide open to enable cross ventilation. The music room opens out to a north-facing deck, while the two bedrooms have a terrace along their southern edge and feature a chunky concrete canopy to shelter them from harsh midday sun.
A spiralling metal staircase leads up to the roof, offering residents a wide-stretching view of the surrounding desert landscape.
The house produces all its own water using a large rainwater harvesting system that filters the liquid until it is clean enough to drink.
There’s also a small car parking area a short distance away and it can be accessed via a narrow footpath.
Another project we’ve featured from the Arizona deserts is a cast concrete house that is sunken into the ground. We’ve also published a cabin built by students in the Utah desert. See more houses in the US.
See more architecture using rammed earth, including a research complex in India.
Photography is by Jeff Goldberg/ESTO.
Here’s a project description from DUST:
The Tucson Mountain Retreat is located within the Sonoran Desert; an extremely lush, exposed, arid expanse of land that emits a sense of stillness and permanency, and holds mysteries of magical proportions. The home is carefully sited in response to the adjacent arroyos, rock out-croppings, ancient cacti, animal migration paths, air movement, sun exposure and views. Great effort was invested to minimise the physical impact of the home in such a fragile environment, while at the same time attempting to create a place that would serve as a backdrop to life and strengthen the sacred connections to the awe-inspiring mystical landscape.
Intentionally isolating the parking over 400 feet from the house, one must traverse and engage the desert by walking along a narrow footpath toward the house, passing through a dense clustered area of cacti and Palo Verde that obscure direct views of the home. Upon each progressive footstep, the house slowly reveals itself, rising out of the ground. The entry sequence, a series of playfully engaging concrete steps, dissolves into the desert. As one ascends, each step offers an alternative decision and a new adventure. Through this process, movement slows and senses are stimulated, leaving the rush of city life behind.
The home is primarily made of rammed earth, a material that uses widely available soil, provides desirable thermal mass and has virtually no adverse environmental side effects. Historically vernacular to arid regions, it fits well within the Sonoran Desert, while at the same time it embodies inherent poetic qualities that engage the visual, tactile and auditory senses of all who experience it.
The program of the home is divided into three distinct and isolated zones; living, sleeping, and music recording/home entertainment. Each zone must be accessed by leaving the occupied zone, stepping outside, and entering a different space. This separation resolves the clients’ desired acoustic separation while at the same time, offers a unique opportunity to continuously experience the raw desert landscape.
Rooted in the desert, where water is always scarce, the design incorporates a generous 30,000 gallon rainwater harvesting system with an advanced filtration system that makes our most precious resource available for all household uses.
Solar heat gain is reduced by orienting the house in a linear fashion along an east–west axis, and by minimising door and window openings in the narrow east and west facades. The main living and the sleeping spaces extend into patios and open toward the south under deep overhangs that allow unadulterated views and access to the Sonoran Desert. The overhangs provide shelter from the summer sun while allowing winter sunlight to enter and passively heat the floors and walls. They also scoop prevailing southerly breezes and enhance cross ventilation, which can be flexibly controlled by adjusting the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. When the large glass doors are fully opened, the house is transformed, evoking a boundless ramada-like spirit where the desert and home become one.
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by DUST appeared first on Dezeen.
Why flavor goes flying at 30,000 feet
Airline food has suffered for years as the butt of the joke, commonly characterized as bland and passable at best. There’s a scientific explanation for why sky-high meals feel so lacking, however,and illuminates the special challenge airlines face in combatting the problem. From the time you take off, you’re settling into a low-humidity environment that dries out the nasal passage and significantly reduces the power of your taste buds.
Blame these tiny taste receptors and their dependence on your sense of smell, coupled with the depletion of saliva for the lack of wow factor in high-altitude food. “What most people consider taste is really more flavor, of which the vast majority is really from olfaction—or the sense of smell,” says Doctor Gene Liu, an Otolaryngologist at Cedars Sinai Medical Group. “Our taste buds are little chemical receptors in the mouth and throat and predominantly on the tongue that sense sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami when partially broken down foods within the saliva come into contact with the receptor cells. An electrical signal is then transmitted to the taste centers within the brain along specialized nerves.”
There are several factors that affect the conditions inside an airplane and render it so dry—recirculated air and dust particles primarily—and therefore, the congestion this causes, says Liu, “decreases our ability to appreciate the flavor of the food.”
Each flavor type has its own section on the surface of the tongue: Salt and sweet at the front, sour at the sides, and bitter at the back. Eating in a plane at high altitudes, coupled with the low humidity in the cabin significantly reduces the ability to taste the more subtle components of a meal. A dryer mouth can’t experience the flavors as well due to the reduction in the saliva needed to taste flavors. “When we bite into a steak, if we have a diminished sense of smell, we would still be able to taste the salt, but there would be less ‘steak-ness’ to the steak,” adds Liu.
Knowing how to master ingredient combinations helps combat the challenges of creating flavorful inflight meals. In their book, “The Flavor Bible” Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg describe how each taste affects the other—”…bitterness suppresses sweetness…Saltiness stimulates the appetite, while sweetness satiates it…” in a way that may enlighten the average flyer looking for a tastier meal in flight. Understanding how to combine these tastes for this unique eating environment contributes to creating a balanced, flavorful dish.
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