A View To A Thrill

Swiss Alps Bring Drama to Vacation House by Wespi de Meuron Romeo

  

Talk about a spectacular site. Vertiginous bordering on precarious, it offers heart-stopping views of Lago Maggiore and the Swiss Alps. Just the kind of challenge that the trio behind Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architetti adore. In fact, they were the ones who suggested the brissago property to their clients as ideal for the vacation house the couple were looking to build. “It’s very typical here,” Jérôme de Meuron says. So his firm is well versed in tackling the topography.

Nevertheless, the first-time clients were initially shocked by the architects’ proposal: a cascading four-level house entirely in concrete. “Our houses relate to the hilly Ticino region’s traditional architectural language, which is old stone,” de Meuron continues. “The concrete would have the same rough character.” It didn’t take long for discussions and local house tours to bring the couple onboard.

Concrete aside, the house is no bunker. For that, credit the many inside-outside connections. Throughout the 2,000 square feet, large windows frame views, and even more enormous doors open to various outdoor “rooms.”

Forms interlock like a three-dimensional puzzle. Beyond the parking spots for two cars, procession starts at the top— everything but the roof is still pretty much invisible at this point. From here, a stairway leads down to a courtyard, signaling arrival. Now the architecture truly begins to unfold. Next to the front door is an expansive window, a wall of glass, through which the first of the two public levels appears.

It’s shared by the kitchen and the dining area, which introduce the materials palette for the house overall: concrete, stainless steel, plaster, and oak. That’s it. Nothing more. Lightening the austerity, the graceful forms of white shell chairs by Charles and Ray Eames line both sides of a simple rectangular dining table that’s, of course, oak. The tableau, including a wood- burning fireplace, suggests leisurely meals for the couple and their extended family. There’s also a pleasant view, but the real postcard panoramas are yet to be seen.

Boom. They pop into crystal-clear focus when you walk over to the kitchen. Thanks to an uninterrupted 12-foot-wide span of glass, the lake and mountains appear to be in arm’s reach. And little inside competes with the vista. The oak cabinetry and the stainless counter and appliances couldn’t be more clean-lined.

Furnishings continue in the spare vein in the living room, down one level via stairs or elevator. A danish mid-century chair sits alone in a corner. Opposite, putty-toned fabric covers an Antonio Citterio sectional, behind which various niches are carved in the plaster wall. “Places for books and objects was a client request,” Luca Romero says. “Rather than add shelving, we integrated it.” Acting as side tables are simple wooden cubes cut from local trees.

At the back of the living room, a monumental pocket door, oak punctuated by rows of round holes, confers a sense of enclosure and protection. Then the door slides away, opening the room to the main courtyard. While it’s not physically central, it’s designed to be the heart of the house, recalling the piazzas of european towns. “External and internal, landscape and architecture, are all tied together,” Markus Wespi says. Olive trees dot the paving, piazzalike.

We now descend to the guest level, with its two bedrooms and its gym—as if all the running up and down stairs weren’t enough exercise. At the very bottom, oriented toward the lake, is the master suite. Its no-fuss furnishings again embody Swiss precision, but luxury is steps away. A short corridor connects the bathroom to a sauna.

Prefer a dip in the pool by the lake? The indoor stairs and elevator aren’t the sole options for getting there. From each of the four levels, footpaths meander downward. “The different routes are a village reference,” de Meuron says. They terminate at a concrete form sunk into the slope of the land. Inside is not only a swimming pool but also an open-air kitchen.

Project Team: Stella Pilback: Styling. Ingegneri Pedrazzini Guidotti: Structural, Civil Engineer. Verzeroli Elia e Figli: General Contractor. Roberto La Rocca Architettura: Con­struction Manager.

Source: www.interiordesign.net

 

Home is ready for Christma

Home of Christina Kattrup Schroeder is ready for Christmas. Her farm house has a beautiful charm with its exposed beams, nice mixture of vintage and modern design and all the holiday decor which fits here perfectly.

The only 3 pieces of jewelry men should wear

As far as jewelry goes, for men, simple is better. As Askmen.com notes, the "less is more" adage applies to jewelry above all else.
Most men should be seen with only three main accessories decorating their appendages: a nice watch, a good pair of cuff links, and, if they're married, a simple wedding band.
Why? Because unless you're a movie star, pro athlete, or pirate, it's extremely hard for today's man to pull off anything more extravagant than those three pieces.
Earrings, metallic chains, and even bracelets look out of place on most men who try to pull them off. Unfortunately, they just make it look as if you're trying too hard — more Tony Soprano than James Bond.
This doesn't mean your accessories have to be boring, though. There is plenty of room within the confines of the pieces to make a statement with your accessories. There are a million kinds of watches to choose from, as well as a set of cuff links for every interest under the sun.
As always, however, once you know the rules you have license to break them.
Men's style expert Barron Cuadro of Effortless Gent shies away from absolutes in regard to male jewelry. He told Business Insider "it all depends on a man's personal style and how eccentric he is in his day-to-day wardrobe."
"Some guys (e.g., Pharrell, Johnny Depp) can wear a ton of jewelry and they look great, because it fits their personality and aesthetic," Cuadro says. "If, say, Don Draper showed up at SC&P one day in the same jewelry, it wouldn't make sense."
If you can get away with it and it fits your personal style — more power to you, go crazy. But just keep in mind it might not fit in with your financial firm's conservative dress code.















 Source: www.businessinsider.com

Neuroscientists reveal how the brain can enhance connections

           When the brain forms memories or learns a new task, it encodes the new information by tuning connections between neurons. MIT neuroscientists have discovered a novel mechanism that contributes to the strengthening of these connections, also called synapses.

At each synapse, a presynaptic neuron sends chemical signals to one or more postsynaptic receiving cells. In most previous studies of how these connections evolve, scientists have focused on the role of the postsynaptic neurons. However, the MIT team has found that presynaptic neurons also influence connection strength.

"This mechanism that we've uncovered on the presynaptic side adds to a toolkit that we have for understanding how synapses can change," says Troy Littleton, a professor in the departments of Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, a member of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and the senior author of the study, which appears in the Nov. 18 issue of Neuron.

          Learning more about how synapses change their connections could help scientists better understand neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, since many of the genetic alterations linked to autism are found in genes that code for synaptic proteins.

Rewiring the brain

      One of the biggest questions in the field of neuroscience is how the brain rewires itself in response to changing behavioral conditions -- an ability known as plasticity. This is particularly important during early development but continues throughout life as the brain learns and forms new memories.

         Over the past 30 years, scientists have found that strong input to a postsynaptic cell causes it to traffic more receptors for neurotransmitters to its surface, amplifying the signal it receives from the presynaptic cell. This phenomenon, known as long-term potentiation (LTP), occurs following persistent, high-frequency stimulation of the synapse. Long-term depression (LTD), a weakening of the postsynaptic response caused by very low-frequency stimulation, can occur when these receptors are removed.

     Scientists have focused less on the presynaptic neuron's

role in plasticity, in part because it is more difficult to study, Littleton says.

    His lab has spent several years working out the mechanism for how presynaptic cells release neurotransmitter in response to spikes of electrical activity known as action potentials. When the presynaptic neuron registers an influx of calcium ions, carrying the electrical surge of the action potential, vesicles that store neurotransmitters fuse to the cell's membrane and spill their contents outside the cell, where they bind to receptors on the postsynaptic neuron.

          The presynaptic neuron also releases neurotransmitter in the absence of action potentials, in a process called spontaneous release. These 'minis' have previously been thought to represent noise occurring in the brain. However, Littleton and Cho found that minis could be regulated to drive synaptic structural plasticity.

        To investigate how synapses are strengthened, Littleton and Cho studied a type of synapse known as neuromuscular junctions, in fruit flies. The researchers stimulated the presynaptic neurons with a rapid series of action potentials over a short period of time. As expected, these cells released neurotransmitter synchronously with action potentials. However, to their surprise, the researchers found that mini events were greatly enhanced well after the electrical stimulation had ended.

          "Every synapse in the brain is releasing these mini events, but people have largely ignored them because they only induce a very small amount of activity in the postsynaptic cell," Littleton says. "When we gave a strong activity pulse to these neurons, these mini events, which are normally very low-frequency, suddenly ramped up and they stayed elevated for several minutes before going down."

Synaptic growth

            The enhancement of minis appears to provoke the postsynaptic neuron to release a signaling factor, still unidentified, that goes back to the presynaptic cell and activates an enzyme called PKA. This enzyme interacts with a vesicle protein called complexin, which normally acts as a brake, clamping vesicles to prevent release neurotransmitter until it's needed. Stimulation by PKA modifies complexin so that it releases its grip on the neurotransmitter vesicles, producing mini events.

When these small packets of neurotransmitter are released at elevated rates, they help stimulate growth of new connections, known as boutons, between the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. This makes the postsynaptic neuron even more responsive to any future communication from the presynaptic neuron.

"Typically you have 70 or so of these boutons per cell, but if you stimulate the presynaptic cell you can grow new boutons very acutely. It will double the number of synapses that are formed," Littleton says.

The researchers observed this process throughout the flies' larval development, which lasts three to five days. However, Littleton and Cho demonstrated that acute changes in synaptic function could also lead to synaptic structural plasticity during development.

            "Machinery in the presynaptic terminal can be modified in a very acute manner to drive certain forms of plasticity, which could be really important not only in development, but also in more mature states where synaptic changes can occur during behavioral processes like learning and memory," Cho says.

                 Littleton's lab is now trying to figure out more of the mechanistic details of how complexin controls vesicle release.

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials
provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 The original item was written by Anne Trafton.
 Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Thing that successful people do right before bed

      The very last thing you do before bed tends to have a significant impact on your mood and energy level the next day, as it often determines how well and how much you sleep.
      Successful people understand that their success starts and ends with their mental and physical health, which is almost entirely dependent upon their getting enough sleep.
      That is why bedtime routines are a key ritual for so many of them — and why the very last thing most successful people do before bed is read.

There's a hidden map in your iPhone

The next time you need to remember exactly where you've been on a map, consult your iPhone.

It's very typical for a smartphone to track your location these days, and it's something the iPhone has been doing for years. But you may not know that your iPhone keeps an extremely detailed log of where you've been on a map, including time stamps for when you come and go.

Here's how to find the log — and if you feel so inclined, delete it.

Up to the age of humans

Artist Blu recently finished work on this staggering mural in Italy depicting a timeline of natural history from the tiniest single-cell creatures at the bottom, through the evolution of dinosaurs and mammals, up to the age of humans

Earth from Galaxy: 15 Years on Station

More than 2.7 million images have been taken from the International Space Station in 15 years of humans aboard. Here are a few of the favorites as chosen by the NASA Photo Team.

(October 18, 2015) --- A night pass of city lights

(June 14, 2012) --- Star trail composite created with photos from Expedition 31 with docked Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts visible

(May 23, 2011) --- This image of the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, was taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 23, 2011 (USA time). The pictures taken by Nespoli are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the International Space Station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Onboard the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 27 commander Dmitry Kondratyev; Nespoli, a European Space Agency astronaut; and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman. Coleman and Nespoli were both flight engineers. The three landed in Kazakhstan later that day, completing 159 days in space

(September 17, 2011) --- This is one of a series of night time images photographed by one of the Expedition 29 crew members from the International Space Station. It features Aurora Australis, seen from a point over the southeast Tasman Sea near southern New Zealand. The station was located at 46.65 degrees south latitude and 169.10 degrees east longitude

(March 28, 2015) --- Earth observation taken during a night pass of Spain and Italy

(July 26, 2014) --- One of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the International Space Station photographed this oblique night image of almost the entire countries of Italy and Sicily on July 26, 2014.

(May 23, 2011) --- This image of the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, was taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 23, 2011 (USA time). The pictures taken by Nespoli are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the International Space Station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Onboard the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 27 commander Dmitry Kondratyev; Nespoli, a European Space Agency astronaut; and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman. Coleman and Nespoli were both flight engineers. The three landed in Kazakhstan later that day, completing 159 days in space

(July 15, 2014) --- An aurora captured

(September 13, 2014) --- Night Earth Observation

(September 13, 2014) --- Night Earth Observations of aurora

March 31, 2015) --- This close up of the huge Typhoon Maysak "eye" of the category 5 (hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale) was captured by astronauts on board the International Space Station Mar. 31, 2015. The massive Typhoon is headed toward the Philippines and expected to land on the upcoming Easter weekend. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellites, both co-managed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, captured rainfall and cloud data that revealed very heavy rainfall and high thunderstorms in the still strengthening storm

(April 6, 2015) --- City lights during a night pass over northern central Europe 

 April 6, 2015) --- City lights during a night pass over northern central Europe

 (August 10, 2015) --- A nighttime view of the Earth

 (August 24, 2015) --- Distant view of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) during its final approach for docking with the International Space Station (ISS) with darkness of space in the background

 (August 29, 2015) --- Photo of severe weather from space

Ali and Nino Scuplture by Tamara Kvesitadze

The Statue of Love sculpture inspired by the love story of "Ali and Nino" created by Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze. The 7 ton statues which are located in Georgia(Batumi), starts their motion at 7 P.M and pass through each other each day.