Lego
Lego is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles and working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, the pieces reused to make new things; the Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Movies, games and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand; as of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced. In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's "world's most powerful brand"; the Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", derived from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well".
In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. In 1949 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks"; these bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and released in 1947. Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased; the bricks manufactured from cellulose acetate, were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time. The Lego Group's motto is det bedste er ikke for godt which means "only the best is the best"; this motto, still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly. By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego company's output though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende, visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys.
Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk. By 1954, Christiansen's son, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group, it was his conversation with an overseas buyer. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not versatile. In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; the modern Lego brick design was patented on 28 January 1958. The Lego Group's Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of simple blocks whose lengths measure twice the width and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children. In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures. In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program.
In May 2013, the largest model created was displayed in New York City and was made of over 5 million bricks. Other records include a 4 km railway. In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as the "world's most powerful brand." Lego's popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many forms of cultural works, including books and art work. It has been used in the classroom as a teaching tool. In the US, Lego Education North America is a joint venture between Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group. In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York. Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each piece remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in the current time, Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers.
Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways. Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision; when two pieces are engaged they must fit yet be disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres. Primary concept and development work takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs 120 designers; the company has smaller design offices in the UK, Spain and Japan which are tasked with developing products aimed at these markets. The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages; the first stage is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market. The second stage is the design and development of the product based upon the results of the first stage; as of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modelling software to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine.
These pr
Montreal Biodome
The Montreal Biodome is a facility located at Olympic Park in the Montreal neighbourhood of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve that allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the Americas. The building was constructed for the 1976 Olympic Games as a velodrome, it hosted judo events. Renovations on the building began in 1989 and in 1992 the indoor nature exhibit was opened; the Montreal Biodome is one of four facilities that make part of the largest natural science museum complex in Canada, Space for Life, which includes the Montreal Insectarium, Montreal Botanical Garden, Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium. It is an accredited member of both the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums; the building was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert as part of his larger plan for an Olympic park that included the Montreal Olympic Stadium and the Olympic pool. The venue was a combined judo facility. Construction of the building began in August 1973, the facility was opened in April 1976.
The velodrome, along with the accompanying Olympic pool inspired Tallibert's designs for Luxembourg's National Sports and Culture Centre. In 1988, a feasibility study was conducted for converting the velodrome into a biodome. Construction started in 1989, the facility was opened to the public on 18 June 1992 as the Montreal Biodome. In the summer of 2003, the Biodome installed an audio guide system that lets visitors get information about what they are viewing, provides statistics to the facility about what the visitors find most interesting. Visitors can rent a receiver programmed to receive French, Spanish, or English for adults, or French or English for children; the facility allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the Americas: The Tropical Forest is a replica of the South American rainforest. The Laurentian Forest is a replica of the North American wilderness; the Saint Lawrence Marine Eco-system is an estuary habitat modelled on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The Sub-Polar Region is a habitat, divided into Arctic and Antarctic.
All the exhibits are housed inside the former velodrome, used for the cycling and judo events of the 1976 Summer Olympics, with each of the four environments taking up a portion of the stadium. A variety of animals live in each simulated habitat, ranging from the macaws in the Tropical Forest, to the lynx in the Laurentian Forest, to the penguins in the Antarctic and the different kinds of fish that inhabit the waters of the Saint Lawrence River; as well, two new species have been discovered living in the Biodome: the acarian Copidognathus biodomus in the simulated estuary in 1996, the bacterium Nitratireductor aquibiodomus in the water reprocessing system in 2003. In October 2015, it was announced that both the Biodome and the Insectarium would be closing their doors to the public from September 2016 to December 2017, in order to receive a facelift, as part of one of the many ways to celebrate the city of Montreal's 375th anniversary.. The facelift project went back to a bidding process, the Biodome continued to be open to the public through 2017.
Bio-Dome, the film Biosphere 2, the attempt to create a self-contained ecological system Olympic Stadium Official website Space for Life Foundation home page The Glass Ark, a National Film Board of Canada documentary
McGill University
McGill University is a public research university in Montreal, Canada. It was established in 1821 by royal charter, granted by King George IV; the university bears the name of James McGill, a Montreal merchant from Scotland whose bequest in 1813 formed the university's precursor, McGill College. McGill's main campus is at Mount Royal in downtown Montreal, with the second campus situated in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue on the Montreal Island, 30 kilometres west of the main campus; the university is one of two universities outside the United States who are members of the Association of American Universities and it is the only Canadian member of the Global University Leaders Forum within the World Economic Forum. McGill offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, with the highest average admission requirements of any Canadian university. Most students are enrolled in the five largest faculties, namely Arts, Medicine and Management. McGill counts among its alumni 12 Nobel laureates and 145 Rhodes Scholars, both the most of any university in Canada, as well as five astronauts, the incumbent prime minister and two former prime ministers of Canada, the incumbent Governor General of Canada, 14 justices of the Canadian Supreme Court, at least eight foreign leaders, 28 foreign ambassadors, over eight dozen members of the Canadian Parliament, United States Congress, British Parliament, other national legislatures, several billionaires, nine Academy Award winners, 11 Grammy Award winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, two Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, at least 16 Emmy Award winners, 28 Olympic medalists, all of varying nationalities.
McGill alumni were instrumental in inventing or organizing football and ice hockey. McGill University or its alumni founded several major universities and colleges, including the Universities of British Columbia and Alberta, the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dawson College; the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning was created in 1801 under an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, An Act for the establishment of Free Schools and the Advancement of Learning in this Province. In 1816 the RIAL was authorized to operate two new Royal Grammar Schools, in Quebec City and in Montreal; this was a turning point for public education in Lower Canada as the schools were created by legislation, the District Public Schools Act of 1807, which showed the government's willingness to support the costs of education and the salary of a schoolmaster. This was an important first step in the creation of nondenominational schools; when James McGill died in 1813 his bequest was administered by the RIAL.
Of the original two Royal Grammar Schools, in 1846 one closed and the other merged with the High School of Montreal. By the mid-19th century the RIAL had lost control of the other eighty-two grammar schools it had administered. However, in 1853 it took over the High School of Montreal from the school's board of directors and continued to operate it until 1870. Thereafter, its sole remaining purpose was to administer the McGill bequest on behalf of the private college; the RIAL continues to exist today. Since the revised Royal Charter of 1852, The Trustees of the RIAL comprise the Board of Governors of McGill University. James McGill, born in Glasgow, Scotland on 6 October 1744, was a successful merchant in Quebec, having matriculated into the University of Glasgow in 1756. Soon afterwards, McGill left for North America to explore the business opportunities there. Between 1811 and 1813, he drew up a will leaving his "Burnside estate", a 19-hectare tract of rural land and 10,000 pounds to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning.
On McGill's death in December 1813, the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, established in 1801 by an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, added the establishing of a University pursuant to the conditions of McGill's will to its original function of administering elementary education in Lower Canada. As a condition of the bequest, the land and funds had to be used for the establishment of a "University or College, for the purposes of Education and the Advancement of Learning in the said Province." The will specified a private, constituent college bearing his name would have to be established within 10 years of his death. On March 31, 1821, after protracted legal battles with the Desrivières family, McGill College received a royal charter from King George IV; the Charter provided the College should be deemed and taken as a University, with the power of conferring degrees. Although McGill College received its Royal Charter in 1821, it was inactive until 1829 when the Montreal Medical Institution, founded in 1823, became the college's first academic unit and Canada's first medical school.
The Faculty of Medicine granted its first degree, a Doctorate of Medicine and Surgery, in 1833. The Faculty of Medicine remained the school's only functioning faculty until 1843, when the Faculty of Arts commenced teaching in the newly constructed Arts Building and East Wing; the university historically has strong links with the Canadian Grenadier Guards, a military regiment in which James McGill served as Lieutenant-Colonel. This title is m
Home
A home, or domicile, is a living space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, household or several families in a tribe. It is a house, apartment, or other building, or alternatively a mobile home, yurt or any other portable shelter. A principle of constitutional law in many countries, related to the right to privacy enshrined in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the inviolability of the home as an individual's place of shelter and refuge. Homes provide areas and facilities for sleeping, preparing food and hygiene. Larger groups may live in children's home, convent or any similar institution. A homestead includes agricultural land and facilities for domesticated animals. Where more secure dwellings are not available, people may live in the informal and sometimes illegal shacks found in slums and shanty towns. More "home" may be considered to be a geographic area, such as a town, suburb, city, or country; the earliest homes that humans inhabited were naturally occurring features such as caves.
Throughout history, primitive peoples have made use of caves. The earliest human fossils found in caves come from a series of caves near Krugersdorp and Mokopane in South Africa; the cave sites of Sterkfontein, Kromdraai B, Malapa, Cooper's D, Gladysvale and Makapansgat have yielded a range of early human species dating back to between three and one million years ago, including Australopithecus africanus, 7Australopithecus sediba and Paranthropus robustus. However, it is not thought that these early humans were living in the caves, but that they were brought into the caves by carnivores that had killed them; the first early hominid found in Africa, the Taung Child in 1924, was thought for many years to come from a cave, where it had been deposited after being preyed upon by an eagle. However, this is now debated. Caves do form in the dolomite of the Ghaap Plateau, including the Early and Later Stone Age site of Wonderwerk Cave. There is numerous evidence for other early human species inhabiting caves from at least one million years ago in different parts of the world, including Homo erectus in China at Zhoukoudian, Homo rhodesiensis in South Africa at the Cave of Hearths, Homo neandertalensis and Homo heidelbergensis in Europe at Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, Homo floresiensis in Indonesia, the Denisovans in southern Siberia.
In southern Africa, early modern humans used sea caves as shelter starting about 180,000 years ago when they learned to exploit the sea for the first time. The oldest known site is PP13B at Pinnacle Point; this may have allowed rapid expansion of humans out of Africa and colonization of areas of the world such as Australia by 60–50,000 years ago. Throughout southern Africa and Europe, early modern humans used caves and rock shelters as sites for rock art, such as those at Giants Castle. Caves such as the yaodong in China were used for shelter. Among the known sacred caves are China's Cave of a Thousand Buddhas and the sacred caves of Crete; as technology progressed and other hominids began constructing their own dwellings. Buildings such as huts and longhouses have been used for living since the late Neolithic, it is unknown when the first mansion was built because there is no way to know for sure, but it is believed to have origins as a type of palace during the Mesopotamian period. A house is a building that functions as a home for humans ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, or other materials containing plumbing and electrical systems.
Most conventional modern houses will at least contain a bedroom, kitchen or cooking area, a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock may share part of the house with humans; the social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may be other social groups or individuals; the design and structure of homes is subject to change as a consequence of globalization and other social, economic and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors influence the building style and patterns of domestic space. A terraced house is a style of medium-density housing where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls, while semi-detached housing consists of pairs of houses built side-by-side or back-to-back, sharing a party wall and with mirrored layouts. An apartment or a flat is a self-contained housing unit; such a building may be called an apartment building, apartment house, block of flats, tower block, high-rise or mansion block if it consists of many apartments for rent.
In Scotland it is called a block of flats or if it's a traditional sandstone building a tenement, which has a pejorative connotation elsewhere. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier by leasehold rented by tenants. A homestead consists of a dwelling a farm house, together with other buildings and associated land, facilities for domesticated animals. In Southern Africa, the term can
Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIA is an Israeli-Canadian architect, urban designer, educator and author. He is most identified with Habitat 67. Safdie was born in Mandatory Palestine, to a Syrian Jewish family, his family moved to Montreal, Canada, in 1954. In 1959, Safdie married a Polish-born Israeli; the couple had a daughter and a son. His son Oren Safdie is a playwright who has written several plays about architecture including Private Jokes, Public Places, his daughter Taal is an architect in a partner of the firm Safdie Rabines Architects. In 1961, Safdie graduated from McGill University with a degree in architecture. In 1981, Safdie married Michal Ronnen, a Jerusalem-born photographer, with whom he has two daughters and Yasmin. Carmelle Safdie is an artist, Yasmin Safdie is a social worker. Safdie is the uncle of Dov Charney and former CEO of American Apparel. After apprenticing with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, Safdie returned to Montreal to oversee the master plan for Expo 67. In 1964, he established his own firm to undertake an adaptation of his McGill thesis.
Habitat 67, which pioneered the design and implementation of three-dimensional, prefabricated units for living, was a central feature of Expo 67 and an important development in architectural history. He was awarded the 1967 Construction Man of the Year Award from the Engineering News Record and the Massey Medal for Architecture in Canada for Habitat 67. In 1970, Safdie opened a branch office in Jerusalem. Among the projects he has designed in Jerusalem are Yad Vashem and the Alrov Mamilla Quarter, which includes the Mamilla Mall, David's Village luxury condominiums, the 5-star Mamilla Hotel. In 1978, after teaching at McGill, Ben Gurion, Yale universities, Safdie moved his main office to Boston and became director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, until 1984. From 1984 to 1989, he was Urban Design at Harvard. Since the early 1990s, Safdie, a citizen of Canada and the United States, has focused on his architectural practice, Safdie Architects, based in Somerville, MA, has branches in Toronto and Singapore.
Safdie has designed six of Canada's principal public institutions—including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Vancouver Library Square—as well as many other notable projects around the world, including the Salt Lake City Main Public Library. Moshe Safdie's works are known for their dramatic curves, arrays of geometric patterns, use of windows, key placement of open and green spaces, his writings and designs stress the need to create meaningful and inclusive spaces that enhance community, with special attention to the essence of a particular locale and culture. He is a self-described modernist. Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects Companion of the Order of Canada Gold Medal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence Mt. Scopus Award for Humanitarianism, Jerusalem Wolf Prize in Arts, 2019 In November 2011, Punjab Chief Minister honoured Safdie at the inauguration ceremony of the Khalsa Heritage Museum, he said. Safdie said he wanted the museum to look 300 years old and he thought he had succeeded in this objective.
1967 Habitat 67 at Expo 67 World's Fair, Quebec, Canada 1980 Robina Gold Coast City, Australia 1981 Coldspring New Town, Maryland, USA 1987 Musée de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Canada 1988 The National Gallery of Canada, Ontario, Canada 1988 Hebrew Union College, Israel 1989 City plan for Modi'in, Israel 1989 The Esplanade condominium complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 1991 The Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec, Canada 1992 The Class of 1959 Chapel, Harvard Business School, Massachusetts, USA 1993 Mamilla Centre and David's Village, Israel 1994 Former Ottawa City Hall, Ontario, Canada 1995 Vancouver Library Square, British Columbia, Canada 1995 The Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts, British Columbia, Canada 2000 The Exploration Place Science Museum in Wichita, Kansas, USA 2002 The campus of Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, USA 2003 Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, USA 2003 Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 2003 Eleanor Roosevelt College campus, UC San Diego, USA 2003 Pantages Tower, Ontario, Canada 2003 Corrour Lodge, Inverness-shire, Scotland 2004 Airside building of Terminal 3, Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel 2005 Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, Israel.
C. USA 2009 Asian University for Women, Bangladesh 2009 Mamilla Mall, Israel 2010 Yitzhak Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, Israel 201
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it the most populous city in New England. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999; the city is the economic and cultural anchor of a larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States. Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England, it was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Siege of Boston.
Upon gaining U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation, its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public park, first public or state school and first subway system; the Boston area's many colleges and universities make it an international center of higher education, including law, medicine and business, the city is considered to be a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base includes finance and business services, information technology, government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings.
Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but renamed it Boston after Boston, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630, was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest for fresh water, their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history. Over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century.
Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, the city engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. Boston encountered financial difficulties as other cities in New England grew rapidly. Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution occurred near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing distrust in Britain fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city; when the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, Thomas Hutchinson the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists; this did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, the army killed several people in response to a mob in Boston.
The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America. In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts; the act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of rebels threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Intolerable Acts, demanding compensation for the lost tea from the rebels; this led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Concord. Boston itself was besieged for a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775; the New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege.
On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a Py
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