1.
Ashford, Kent
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Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the edge of the North Downs. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 74,204, the name comes from the Old English æscet, indicating a ford near a clump of ash trees. It has been a town since the 13th century. Ashford has been a hub and has stood at the centre of five railway lines since the 19th century. The arrival of the railways became a source of employment and contributed to the towns growth, with the opening of the international passenger station it is now a European communications centre, with new lines running between London and the Channel Tunnel. The M20 motorway also links Ashford to those two destinations for road traffic, the town has been marked as a place for expansion since the 1960s and appeared on several Government plans for growth. Changes have included the County Square shopping centre, the redevelopment of the Templer Barracks at Repton Park, and the award-winning Ashford Designer Outlet. In the 1970s, a ring road scheme and construction of the multi storey Charter House building destroyed significant parts of the old town. St Marys Church in Ashford has been a landmark since the 13th century. Today, the functions in a dual role as a centre for worship. Ashford has two schools, the Norton Knatchbull School and Highworth Grammar School. There has been evidence of habitation around Ashford since the Iron Age. Two axes from the Lower Paleolithic period have been found near Ashford, during the construction of the Park Farm estate in the late 1990s, excavation in the area revealed tools from the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period dating back to the 7th century BC. A number of other Mesolithic tools were discovered during construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link through Ashford, during Roman Britain, iron ore was mined in the Weald and transported to Ashford where two ironworks processed the ore into a workable metal. Archaeological studies have revealed the existence of a Roman town to the north of the current centre, roughly at the junction of Albert Road and Wall Road. The present town originates from a settlement established in 893 AD by inhabitants escaping a Danish Viking raid. The name comes from the Old English æscet, indicating a ford near a clump of ash trees, at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086 it was still known by its original Saxon name of Essetesford
2.
Kent
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Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
3.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
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Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and originally known as the Richard Rogers Partnership. Its main offices are located in the Leadenhall Building, London, previously they were at the Thames Wharf Studios. In its various incarnations it is known for important buildings including Lloyds building and the Millennium Dome in London. The firms principal offices are located at Leadenhall Building in London and it also maintains offices in Shanghai and Sydney. As of March 2016 the firm has thirteen partners, including Richard Rogers, Graham Stirk, the practice is run with a profit-share scheme and a limit on the directors salaries in comparison with those of the lowest paid in the office. The practice is focused on sustainability, urban regeneration and social awareness. Celebration of public space and the encouragement of public activities is also a recurring theme and it is owned by a charitable trust, ensuring that no individual owns any share in its value and preventing private trading and inheritance of shares. The practice divides its profits between all of the staff and their charities, according to publicly declared principles. Soon after the Pompidou Centre in Paris was opened in 1977, Richard Rogers formed the Richard Rogers Partnership, if I want to leave something to the future, it has to be able to change – but retain something of the ethos that we built up over 50 years. In November 2015 Rogers Stirk Harbour created five new partners including Tracy Meller who became their first woman partner, founding partner Mike Davies stepped down. In 2006 the practice was awarded the Stirling Prize for their Madrid-Barajas Airport, in 2008, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was awarded the Manser Medal for Houses and Housing, given for the best one-off house designed by an architect in the UK. In 2009 it was awarded the Stirling Prize for Maggies Centre in London and it won the RIBA National Award 2015 for NEO Bankside luxury apartments in London and was subsequently shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for the second time. This list contains projects from the beginning of the partnership in 1977 through to the present day, for earlier work by Richard Rogers, Team 4, Richard and Su Rogers and Piano + Rogers, see the Richard Rogers page. Rogers first work came when he co-founded Team 4 in 1963 with Su Brumwell, Team 4’s first project was Creek Vean, a residential property in Cornwall. He then established a partnership with Su Rogers, John Young, by July 1971 Rogers had won a design competition to build the Pompidou Centre in Paris with co-partner with Italian architect Renzo Piano. He is a winner of the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, Ivan Harbour Ivan Harbour joined Richard Rogers Partnership in 1985, in 1993 he was made a senior director. In 2007 the practice changed from Richard Rogers Partnership to Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Harbour led the design team for the Senedd, Terminal 4 Barajas Airport, Madrid, the Law Courts in Antwerp and Bordeaux and the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg. Graham Stirk Graham Stirk joined Richard Rogers Partnership in 1983 and was made a director in 1995
6.
BuroHappold Engineering
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Originally working mainly on projects in the Middle East, the firm now operates worldwide and in almost all areas of engineering for the built environment, with 23 offices around the world. Edmund, or Ted, Happold worked at Arup before founding BuroHappold, where he worked on such as the Sydney Opera House. Ted Happold died in 1996, but the claims to maintain his views on engineering. BuroHappold was founded on 1 May 1976, with its first office on Gay Street in Bath, United Kingdom. The firm started with eight partners, The Kings Office, Council of Ministers and Majlis Al Shura, Central Government Complex in Riyadh, in 1982 BuroHappold started to work with Future Tents Ltd on a variety of temporary and recreational structures. The firms combined their operations in 1992, but split again in 1997, in 1983, BuroHappold opened an office in Riyadh, and has since opened offices around the UK and internationally, By 1993, BuroHappold had 130 employees and eight partners. In 1998 this had grown to 300 employees and 12 partners, in 2006 the partnership stood at 25 with over 1400 employees and 14 offices. SMART also develops Buro Happolds in-house software Tensyl, a finite element analysis and patterning program for fabric structures. Also notable is its group COSA, which undertakes computational modelling and analysis, in 2007 BuroHappold became a limited liability partnership, and in 2008 appointed 18 new partners. The firm is a limited liability partnership with 52 partners, the Mannheim Multihalle was a timber gridshell of 50 by 50 mm lathes of hemlock of irregular form, depending on the elasticity of spring washers at the joints for its flexible form. It was one of the first major uses of structural gridshells, following the development of fabric structures expertise on the projects with Frei Otto, BuroHappold was instrumental in further developing the knowledge and technology of fabric structures. They also designed the, at the time, largest fabric canopy in Europe at the Ashford Designer Outlet in the UK, the expertise in wooden gridshell structures has resulted in the design of structures such as the Weald and Downland Museum and the Savill Building in Windsor Great Park. The firm has worked with Shigeru Ban on a number of other projects, another design in cardboard was the Westborough School cardboard classroom in Westcliff. One Angel Square in Manchester Arsenal F. C. C, United States, a curved steel grid roof clad in square glass overlapping panels. Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, a four-tiered,50,000 seater national football, philippine Arena, in the Philippines is the largest indoor arena in the world in terms of seating capacity. It can hold up to 60,000 seats, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, a new museum in Dallas The Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, a rail and bus transportation hub in Anaheim, California. The High Line Park in New York City, a park occupying a disused elevated railway line, Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof redevelopment, in Stuttgart, Germany, a project to realign the Deutsche Bahns rail lines so they can be joined to the intra-European network. The sub-terranean station will be roofed with a park, with organically shaped, reinforced concrete shells with petal-shaped sections terminating as skylights
7.
Arup Group
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The firm has over 14,000 staff based in 92 offices across 42 countries, and is present in Africa, the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Arup has participated in projects in over 160 countries, Arup is owned by trusts, the beneficiaries of which are Arups past and present employees, who receive a share of the firms operating profit each year. The firm was founded in London in 1946, as the Ove N. Arup Consulting Engineers by Ove Arup and he set out to build a firm where professionals of diverse disciplines could work together to produce projects of greater quality than was achievable by them working in isolation. In 1963, together with the architect Philip Dowson, Arup Associates was formed, in 1970, the firm reformed as Ove Arup & Partners. It is best known for its work for the built environment. Projects to which it has contributed include the Sydney Opera House,3, Nevada, USA Druk White Lotus School was built to survive the Ladakhi weather. Kingdom Centre, The third tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia, and the second tallest in Riyadh and this group continues to work under the banner of Arup Associates following a streamlining of the Arup brand. Many of Arups modern stadia are designed with a contemporary, distinctive edge, the most notable stadium projects led by Arup remain the City of Manchester Stadium, Allianz Arena, Beijing National Stadium, Donbass Arena and the Singapore Sports Hub. Arups multidisciplinary sports venue design and engineering scope on the Singapore Sports Hub won the 2013 World Architecture Festival Award in the Future Projects, the Casa da Música, Oporto, designed by Arup and Office for Metropolitan Architecture was nominated for the 2007 Stirling Prize. Arup was awarded the Worldaware Award for Innovation for its Vawtex air system in Harare International School, Arup Fire has won the Fire Safety Engineering Design award four times since its creation in 2001. The 2001 inaugural award was won for Arups contribution to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, in 2004, the design for Londons City Hall was appointed joint winner. In 2005, the Temple Mills Eurostar Depot won, the 2006 winning entry was for Amethyst House, a nine-storey building with an atrium from the ground to the top, in Manchester, UK. Arup was also awarded Royal Town Planning Institute Consultancy of the award in 2008. Mike Glover is the recipient of the 2008 Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal, the Evelyn Grace Academy, London designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup won the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize 2011. Arup was named Tunnel Design Firm of the Year at the 2012 ITA AITES International Tunnelling Awards, Arup Fellow is a lifelong honorary title awarded to selected honorary individuals in the firm. It acknowledges the highest design and technical achievements of people, not only within the firm and they are considered role models who possess world-class expertise who put theory into effective practice. Sir Ove Nyquist Arup, structural engineer and philosopher, founder of the company, recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture 1966, peter Dunican, structural engineer, first chairman of Ove Arup Partnership, and President of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 1977 and 1978. Sir Jack Zunz, civil engineer, and principal designer of the Sydney Opera House
8.
Shopping mall
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A shopping arcade is a specific form serving the same purpose. Many early shopping arcades such as the Burlington Arcade in London, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, however, many smaller arcades have been demolished, replaced with large centers or malls, often accessible by vehicle. Technical innovations such as lighting and escalators were introduced from the late 19th century. From the late 20th century, entertainment venues such as movie theaters, as a single built structure, early shopping centers were often architecturally significant constructions, enabling wealthier patrons to buy goods in spaces protected from the weather. In places around the world, the shopping centre is used, especially in Europe, Australia. Mall is a term used predominantly in North America, outside of North America, shopping precinct and shopping arcade are also used. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, malls are commonly referred to as shopping centres, the majority of British shopping centres are located in city centres, usually found in old and historic shopping districts and surrounded by subsidiary open air shopping streets. Large examples include West Quay in Southampton, Manchester Arndale, Bullring Birmingham, Liverpool One, Trinity Leeds, Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow and these centres were built in the 1980s and 1990s, but planning regulations prohibit the construction of any more. Out-of-town shopping developments in the UK are now focused on retail parks, planning policy prioritizes the development of existing town centres, although with patchy success. Bullring, Birmingham is the busiest shopping centre in the UK welcoming over 36.5 million shoppers in its opening year, there are a reported 222 malls in Europe. In 2014, these malls had combined sales of $12.47 billion and this represented a 10% bump in revenues from the prior year. One of the earliest examples of public shopping areas comes from ancient Rome, One of the earliest public shopping centers is Trajans Market in Rome located in Trajans Forum. Trajans Market was probably built around 100-110 CE by Apollodorus of Damascus, the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul was built in the 15th century and is still one of the largest covered shopping centers in the world, with more than 58 streets and 4,000 shops. Numerous other covered shopping arcades, such as the 19th-century Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus, Syria, isfahans Grand Bazaar, which is largely covered, dates from the 10th century. The 10-kilometer-long, covered Tehrans Grand Bazaar also has a lengthy history, the oldest continuously occupied shopping mall in the world is likely to be the Chester Rows. Dating back at least to the 13th century, these covered walkways housed shops, with storage, different rows specialized in different goods, such as Bakers Row or Fleshmongers Row. The Marché des Enfants Rouges in Paris opened in 1628 and still runs today, the Oxford Covered Market in Oxford, England opened in 1774 and still runs today. The Passage du Caire was opened in Paris in 1798, the Burlington Arcade in London was opened in 1819
9.
McArthurGlen Group
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McArthurGlen Group is a public company, a developer and manager of designer outlet malls. McArthurGlen originated as a company in North America, part of the Vancouver based McLean Group. It opened and ran factory outlet shopping centres, following a $180 million share issue in 1993 it became McArthur/Glen Group. McArthurGlen UK Ltd was also set up in 1993, based in London and managing designer shopping outlets across the North America, United Kingdom, in July 9,2015, McArthurGlen opened its first outlet in North America at Vancouver Airport. McArthurGlen Designer Outlets McArthurGlen Group About McArthurGlen Designer Outlets
10.
Outlet store
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An outlet store or factory outlet is a brick and mortar or online store in which manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public, cutting out the middle-men. Traditionally, a factory outlet was an attached to a factory or warehouse. In modern usage, outlet stores are typically manufacturer-branded stores such as Gap or Bon Worth grouped together in outlet malls, the invention of the factory outlet store is often credited to Harold Alfond, founder of the Dexter Shoe Company. Outlets first appeared in the Eastern United States in the 1930s, factory stores started to offer damaged or excess goods to employees at a low price. After some time, the audience expanded to include non-employees, in 1936, Anderson-Little opened an outlet store independent of its existing factories. Until the 1970s, the purpose of outlet stores was to dispose of excess or damaged goods. In 1974, Vanity Fair opened up the first multi-store outlet center in Reading, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, outlet malls grew rapidly in the USA. A typical outlet mall in the USA is opened with between 100,000 to 200,000 square feet of retail space and this can gradually increase to 500,000 to 600,000 feet. The average outlet mall has an area of 216,000 feet, in 2003, outlet malls in the USA generated $15 billion in revenue from 260 stores. The number of US malls increased from 113 in 1988 to 276 in 1991, outlet malls are not an exclusively American phenomenon. In Europe, retailer BAA McArthurGlen has opened 13 malls with over 1,200 stores and 3 million square feet of retail space, stores have also been emerging in Japan since the mid to late 1990s. At factory outlets, the products sold are from one brand only, manufacturers who sell only their own products at a reduced price run factory outlets. On the other hand, retailers run outlet stores, and various brands are sold there, factory outlets have been around longer than outlet stores and were typically built next to the factories where the products were manufactured
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