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The Acres
The Acres, also known as Galesburg Country Homes, is a residential development in Charleston Township, Michigan, United States. Developed starting in the late 1940s, it consists of 21 or 22 circular land lots, of which five contain houses. Four of the houses were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, while the other was designed by Taliesin Associated Architects fellow Francis Wilsey after Wright's death. The Acres also contains of open land, including a pond; the entire complex is accessed through a single road, Hawthorne Drive. The development was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. From west to east, the development consists of the Pratt, Fonken, Meyer, Eppstein, and Weisblat houses. All of the houses have different designs, though each has a concrete-block and mahogany exterior. The Pratt, Weisblat, and Eppstein houses are designed in the Usonian style with an "in-line" floor plan. The Usonian houses generally share features such as open plan floor layout ...
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Charleston Township, Michigan
Charleston Township is a civil township of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Kalamazoo County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded a population of 1,904, slightly down from 1,975 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 census. Geography The township is on the eastern side of Kalamazoo County, bordered to the east by the city of Battle Creek, Michigan, Battle Creek in Calhoun County, Michigan, Calhoun County and to the west by the smaller city of Galesburg, Michigan, Galesburg. The village of Climax, Michigan, Climax lies along the township's southern border, and the village of Augusta, Michigan, Augusta is partially in the northern part of the township. Interstate 94 runs through the center of the township, connecting Battle Creek to the east with Kalamazoo, Michigan, Kalamazoo to the west, and serving the township with one exit. According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which are land and , or 2.20 ...
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Suntop Homes
The Suntop Homes, also known under the early name of The Ardmore Experiment, were quadruple residences located in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and based largely upon the 1935 conceptual Broadacre City model of the ''minimum houses''. The design was commissioned by Otto Tod Mallery of the Tod Company in 1938 in an attempt to set a new standard for the entry-level housing market in the United States and to increase single-family dwelling density in the suburbs. In cooperation with Frank Lloyd Wright, the Tod Company secured a patent for the unique design, intending to sell development rights for Suntops across the country. The first (and only) of the four buildings planned for Ardmore was built in 1939, with the involvement of Wright's master builder Harold Turner, after initial construction estimates far surpassed the project budget set by the Tod Company. There were several reasons that construction of the other three planned units did not move forward, including the escalation of ...
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Berm
A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of Soil compaction, compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a border wall, border/separation barrier for navigation, good drainage, industry, or other purposes. Etymology The word is from Middle Dutch and came into usage in English via French. Military use History In medieval military engineering, a berm (or berme) was a level space between a parapet or defensive wall and an adjacent steep-walled ditch (fortification), ditch or moat. It was intended to reduce soil pressure on the walls of the excavated part to prevent its collapse. It also meant that debris dislodged from fortifications would not fall into (and fill) a ditch or moat. In the trench warfare of World War I, the name was applied to a similar feature at the lip of a trench, which served mainly as an elbow-rest for riflemen. Modern u ...
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Elevation (architecture)
An architectural drawing or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building (or building project) that falls within the definition of architecture. Architectural drawings are used by architects and others for a number of purposes: to develop a design idea into a coherent proposal, to communicate ideas and concepts, to convince clients of the merits of a design, to assist a building contractor to construct it based on design intent, as a record of the design and planned development, or to make a record of a building that already exists. Architectural drawings are made according to a set of Convention (norm), conventions, which include particular views (floor plan, Cross section (geometry), section etc.), sheet sizes, units of measurement and scales, annotation and cross referencing. Historically, drawings were made in ink on paper or similar material, and any copies required had to be laboriously made by hand. The twentieth century saw a shift to drawing on tracing paper s ...
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Eaves
The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural style, such as the Chinese dougong bracket systems. Etymology and usage According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', ''eaves'' is derived from the Old English (singular), meaning "edge", and consequently forms both the singular and plural of the word. This Old English word is itself of Germanic origin, related to the German dialect ''Obsen'', and also probably to ''over''. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the word as ''eave'' but notes that it is "usually used in plural". Function The primary function of the eaves is to keep rain water off the walls and to prevent the ingress of water at the junction where the roof meets the wall. The eaves may also protect a pathway around the building from the rain, prevent erosion of the footi ...
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Concrete Block
A concrete block, also known as a cinder block in North American English, breeze block in British English, or concrete masonry unit (CMU), or by various other terms, is a standard-size rectangular block used in building construction. The use of blockwork allows structures to be built in the traditional masonry style with layers (or courses) of staggered blocks. Concrete blocks may be produced with hollow centers (cores) to reduce weight, improve insulation and provide an interconnected void into which concrete can be poured to solidify the entire wall after it is built. Concrete blocks are some of the most versatile building products available because of the wide variety of appearances that can be achieved using them. Naming Those that use cinders (fly ash or bottom ash) as an aggregate material are called ''cinder blocks'' in the United States. They are also known as ''breeze blocks'', a term derived from ''breeze'', referring to the small cinders and cinder-dust t ...
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Eric And Pat Pratt Residence
The Acres, also known as Galesburg Country Homes, is a residential development in Charleston Township, Michigan, United States. Developed starting in the late 1940s, it consists of 21 or 22 circular land lots, of which five contain houses. Four of the houses were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, while the other was designed by Taliesin Associated Architects fellow Francis Wilsey after Wright's death. The Acres also contains of open land, including a pond; the entire complex is accessed through a single road, Hawthorne Drive. The development was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. From west to east, the development consists of the Pratt, Fonken, Meyer, Eppstein, and Weisblat houses. All of the houses have different designs, though each has a concrete-block and mahogany exterior. The Pratt, Weisblat, and Eppstein houses are designed in the Usonian style with an "in-line" floor plan. The Usonian houses generally share features such as open plan floor layout ...
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Batten
A batten is most commonly a strip of solid material, historically wood but can also be of plastic, metal, or fiberglass. Battens are variously used in construction, sailing, and other fields. In the lighting industry, battens refer to linear light fittings. In the steel industry, battens used as furring may also be referred to as "top hats", in reference to the profile of the metal. Roofing ''Roofing battens'' or ''battening'', also called ''roofing lath'', are used to provide the fixing point for roofing materials such as shingles or tiles. The spacing of the battens on the trusses or rafters depend on the type of roofing material and are applied horizontally like purlins. Battens are also used in metal roofing to secure the sheets called a ''batten-seam roof'' and are covered with a ''batten roll joint''. Some roofs may use a grid of battens in both directions, known as a ''counter-batten system'', which improves ventilation. Roofing battens are most commonly made of ...
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Rebar
Rebar (short for reinforcement bar or reinforcing bar), known when massed as reinforcing steel or steel reinforcement, is a tension device added to concrete to form ''reinforced concrete'' and reinforced masonry structures to strengthen and aid the concrete under tension. Concrete is strong under compression, but has low tensile strength. Rebar usually consists of steel bars which significantly increase the tensile strength of the structure. Rebar surfaces feature a continuous series of ribs, lugs or indentations to promote a better bond with the concrete and reduce the risk of slippage. The most common type of rebar is carbon steel, typically consisting of hot-rolled round bars with deformation patterns embossed into its surface. Steel and concrete have similar coefficients of thermal expansion, so a concrete structural member reinforced with steel will experience minimal differential stress as the temperature changes. Other readily available types of rebar are manufacture ...
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National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List of national parks of the United States, national parks; most National monument (United States), national monuments; and other natural, historical, and recreational properties, with various title designations. The United States Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior. The NPS employs about 20,000 people in units covering over in List of states and territories of the United States, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Territories of the United States, US territories. In 2019, the service had more than 279,000 volunteers. The agency is charged with preserving the ecological a ...
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Passive Heating
In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it does not involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices. The key to designing a passive solar building is to best take advantage of the local climate performing an accurate site analysis. Elements to be considered include window placement and size, and glazing type, thermal insulation, thermal mass, and shading. Passive solar design techniques can be applied most easily to new buildings, but existing buildings can be adapted or "retrofitted". Passive energy gain ''Passive solar'' technologies use sunlight without active mechanical systems (as contrasted to ''active solar'', which uses thermal collectors). Such technologies convert sunlight into usable heat (in water, air, and thermal mass), caus ...
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Native Species
In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equivalent to the concept of indigenous or autochthonous species. A wild organism (as opposed to a domestication, domesticated organism) is known as an introduced species within the regions where it was Human impact on the environment#anthropogenic, anthropogenically introduced. If an introduced species causes substantial ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage, it may be regarded more specifically as an invasive species. A native species in a location is not necessarily also endemism, endemic to that location. Endemic species are ''exclusively'' found in a particular place. A native species may occur in areas other than the one under consideration. The terms endemic and native also do not imply that an organism necessarily first o ...
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