the vertical city

The vertical city

Khalifa tower is the highest tower in the world and it is located in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai. This tower named Khalifa tower relative to the name of the president khalifa Alnahyan. This place is not a tower only, but also, it is a city because it includes the city elements such as, shopping center, institutions, library, hotels, and residential units. Khalifa tower is one of the most important attractions in the United Arab Emirate because it is one place has variety of facilities; such as, for shopping mall, offices, gym, library, and even hotels and apartments. 

Khalifa tower has a very unique shape, not only because it is the highest human made skyscrapers; but also, because it designed in a distinctively by professional engineers and architects. It considered as the most sophisticated and luxury spot in the United Arab Emirates. It is clothed with silver and gray glass, which reflects the sunlight, and makes the tower seem as a huge piece of bright and shiny diamond. Moreover, it looks like some glassy pipelines connected to each other and ranged in length, whenever its approach the center of the tower it gets longer. Moreover, this tower is located next to another towers and skyscrapers, which gives value to these towers. In another words, Khalifa tower has been used as a view; therefore, the prices of the places overlooking Khalifa tower are higher than any other view in this area.

This tower has many different facilities as I have mentioned above, and now I would like to discuses in more details about how these facilities are designed and distributed in the tower. First of all, this tower used space successfully because its area is small comparing to how many facilities it includes; and the designers used the vertical area in addition to the horizontal area. Starting from the basement, there is two basements, B1 and B2, for parking that enough for three thousand car to park. Above that there is one of the biggest shopping mall in the Middle East named Dubai mall. Dubai mall has too many shops varying in the class; for example, the high class such as Dior, Polo Ralph Loren, and Hermes; the middle class such as Zara, H&M, and also there are some popular shops. Moreover, the mall has some places for entertainment and they are very famous, one of them is the aquarium, which the biggest aquarium in the Middle East, that is located in the middle of the mall and most of the shops overlook it. Also, there is a skating area and this area is used sometimes for some events such as, the national events and the religious events. In addition, the biggest theater in the Middle East is located in the mall that located in Khalifa tower. Furthermore, there are several kinds of restaurants in the mall in addition to the food court. And next to the mall there is some luxury hotels has a door get the residents into the mall, and it is an economical way to mobile from place to place; in details, it is economical to walk a small distance than paying to a cab or spending an amount of fuel if one decide to drive.  

Above the mall there is a reception area, which was built to ensure the comfort to the residents. To be more specific, this area includes gym, Jacuzzi, pool and spa; and because the society in Dubai prevents women’s privacy, they provided a private reception for women. As well as, this area includes a hall specialized for social gathering and special occasions such as weddings. And this reception is located under the residential units in Khalifa tower. There are two kinds of the residential units for instance, studios and apartments of one to four bedrooms, and these two units considered as a very luxurious and stately units. Moreover, there is twelve floor specialized for offices and institutes. These twelve floors located above another parking specialized for the owners and the workers in the offices and the institutes; and these parking and offices located above the residential units.

In the upper floors are the floors of culture because there is a huge library located in the upper floors and also there is a platform. I named the floors of culture because the library there includes tons of cultural books. Moreover, the platform is located in the 126 floor and it made of glass. It gives the feeling of being flied in the sky by using architecture in this tower. In the platform people can enjoy the view of the sophisticated and modern city, Dubai; also, they can enjoy the view of on of the biggest fountain in the Middle East, the fountain of Khalifa tower and the park of it as well. Moreover, in this platform there is an educational tour that tells the visitors about the development in Dubai and about the history of this country.   

I found this tower is valuable because people visit this place for many reasons. Some people from foreign countries come to this tower to spend few days in a hotel in this tower and enjoy its architecture. Moreover, people visit this vertical city for entertainment because there are many and different places for entertainment in this vertical city as I have mentioned above, the shopping mall and what it includes such as the theater, skating, and the aquarium; also, the platform floor. Moreover, this tower is a place for relaxing such as the spa. Also, there are many people live in this architectural masterpiece and also they can invite their family members, relatives, and friends and gather in the hall provided to them. As well as, workers in the istiuteis can work in a modern environment and enjoying the view of this gorgeous city, Dubai, because the offices area located in the middle of the tower, which overlook the city. 

beverly center

Maryam Alsaqran

Jeff klepper

English 113B

October 23^RD 2013

Beverly Center

The Beverly center is a huge and famous shopping center that located in California, Los Angeles. This shopping center include a bunch of shops some are luxury such as, Bloomingdales and some are normal as mayc’s. Moreover, some restaurants and different cuisines are in the Beverly center. I choose to write about this place because when I first came to California the Beverly center was the first mall I visit and since that time I didn’t like it because of it design and it facilities’ distribution.

            First of all, the outer look is a set of stories for parking and on the top of them is a huge piece of block, which is boring. When I first look at the building I thought that it was a building for parking not a shopping mall. I usually imagine the upper part of the building as a coffin, dark, solid, and plain box that used to bury dead people; in other words, a shape that is not suitable to represent a famous shopping center in Los Angles, the state of fashion. I feel its is a stuffy place because there is no windows in the whole building. According to the article Windows the author Daniel Lemmens says, “ A window is meant to look through. To observe.”(Lemmens 1); and the only place has a glass in this building is the stairs that takes the visitors from the parking into the mall. However, there is no space visible through that glass the wall inside that place is too close to the glass; so it is stuffy as well. Furthermore, there is no main entrance to the mall; people need to have a car to park it in the parking then to go into the mall from the doors and the stairs from the parking area, so how if someone wants to walk to this mall?  The main doors outside are to the restaurants, which makes the mall seems as a mall for restaurants only.

Moving on to the facilities such as the restaurants in this mall, I didn’t find that the restaurants are organized in there. Each restaurant is far away from any other restaurant, which makes people face confusion to choose where to eat because they are not seeing the entire restaurant in one place to find what they are craving. And again, the inside of the mall is stuffy because there are no windows.

James Howard Kunstler said about the public spaces in a ted video named The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs, that “people just go there voluntarily because they just like them” also he said “people just go because its pleasure to be there” ( Kunstler) so the public spaces sould be pleased on eyes.  Therefore, I would like to recreate the outer design and make it more pleased to the eyes. First of all, I would move the parking area to the basement and make the mall is on the ground floor; because by that’s way the mall is going to be obvious more, than the parking and it would seems as a mall in stead of a parking building. Furthermore, I would put a huge glass door to be the main entrance in the middle of the front of the mall to make it easier to the pedestrian to get into the mall. Also, I would provide elevator instead of the stairs to the people to get into the mall from the new parking area; because I fount the elevators are more suitable to take people from basements to ground than the stairs.

In addition, I would make it a glass building, what I meat is that I want to make the building is full of windows some of them are openable and some are not. So then visitors can get benefit from the sunlight while they are shopping and also to have an airy and breezy space. As well as, the glass would make the building modern and new contrary how it is now. And finally, I would keep the restaurants in one place to represent the dining area; and add some other fast food restaurants such as MacDonald’s. 

Works Cited

Kunstler, James H. "James Howard Kunstler: The Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs."        TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

Lemmens, Daniel. "Windows." Urologic Nursing, 22.3 (2002): 147.

morning

after noon

night   

before     

campus

Oviete library in california state university, northridge. its is a very huge building, it is the hugest building in the campus and its located in the middle of the campus. this building is surrounded by a green area, grass and trees. i feel that the green color is a positive color, what i mean with positive is a color that makes us active, happy and gives us a hope to success in life. Moreover, the color of the building is a light color and the building doesn't include many details and architecture therefore is seems simple. i feel that the way its build attract people to visit the library to study in a calm area to focus. furthermore, the long stairs represent that people should start from the zero or the ground and work hard in order to reach their dreams and goals.

this is a cafeteria located close to the english class. this place is known for its yellow umbrellas and the outdoor brown table. actually i haven't ever been there but when i see this place i usually thing about an organic cheese sandwich with some fresh vegetables. I have no idea about the reason of having an umbrellas under some huge trees, i don't think that it would prevent them from the sun beams because the trees are protecting people from the sun beams in this space. i feel that this place is boring because i is stable the colors are boring and it is too crowding with meaningless items.

this is the dining area behind the bookstore there is an indoor and outdoor tables so people can chose where they want to sit and eat. the outdoor tables makes me think about the weather, i feel that the weather is nice in the picture so people are enjoying their meals in the lovely weather. the none-smoking sign makes me happy because it is a symbol that represent that the air in this area is clean and fresh. The colors in this place are basic colors, gray, white, and a little bit of blue; i think the way the color are there helps the restaurant to be obvious to the people, what i mean is that the logo of the restaurants are notable. For example, the BK logo is very notable in this are which attract people to come to eat in there. I think it is a way of business, or an advertisement, so we can see how the design of the place contribute in the business and the advertisement world.

FINAL DRAFT, ESSAY#1

P2P Sharing Files

Recently, the phenomenon of sharing files online, such as musing, has been separated among people worldwide. This process helps people to find the file they want faster, easier, and cheaper than going to the store to purchase a CD. However, has one ever though about the consequences of this behavior? Is it a legal or illegal behavior? Does it have any negative effects in stead of the positive effect ? If it is affected negatively, what would the range of the harm is going to be on the effected slide? Who is the effected slide? Although sharing files, especially music, online for free is a simple and easy process, it considered as a crime by the law because its effect negatively on the economy; it is a reason of the financial losses especially music industry.

            Most people share music and download them online for free; therefore, they are harming the owner, the artist, of the piece they download for free. Lets say that a singer released a new song in the music market; a lot of money was spent to make this music and publish it, then this singer would be waiting for the profit of his work. But, what happing is that the percent of the physical sold copies is decreasing because the majority is downloading the new music online freely. According to the article Illegal Downloading, Ethical Concern, And Illegal Behavior, the author Kirsten Robertson states, “Further, the RIAA’s message comparing downloading to stealing a CD is also intended to communicate that downloading is illegal, equivalent to stealing a CD”(Robertson 218). Logically, sharing and downloading music without paying money is same as stealing a CD because it’s has the same consequence, which is a financial loss to the artist. Therefore, downloading is a stealing but in a sophisticated way, so it is an illegal behavior because stealing is a crime that causes losing money.

Sharing files has been affected the sale of the music industry, which contributes in the drop of the sales; and some of the websites, who enable the free sharing, were the main reason of this collapse in the music industry’s sales. The process of sharing and downloading music for free is too easy in some websites such as, Napster. And according to the author Alejandro Zentner in the article, Measuring the Effect of File Sharing Music Purchases, a lawsuit was against Napster in San Francisco in the United States of America because of the “engaging in or enabling, or facilitating others in copying, downloading, uploading, trans- mitting, or distributing plaintiffs copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings, protected by either federal or state law, without express permission of the rights owner”(Zentner 64). That lawsuit was the result of the collapse in the music sales that happened because of the websites, which allows people to share files without paying money. To be more specific, those websites reduced the number of buying physical CDs thirty percent, which is not a small number or percent, because of the downloading. Moreover, Zentner estimated that the sales in 2002 would be higher if there was no free downloading in those websites (Zentner 63). If we realized the number of people using same of those websites in order to download and share music instead of buying them, we will fine them outnumber those who buy the physical CD, especially in the recent years, then its harm the sales.

In the United States, the lawsuits are filling permanently against people, who get used to share music using the peer-to-peer sharing service in online websites, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). People would share music and gain money by making business illegally then they would hurt not only the music industry , but the artist as well. Same as what happened in Free Culture book to Jesse Jordan, who was a freshmen at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York; a lawsuit was filled against him when he used the service of sharing music online. He was ordered to pay about $15,000,000 by the RIAA because he was branded as a pirate, the adverb of piracy, which means “using the creative property of others without their permission” (Lawrence Lessig, 53). So this behavior is considered as a stealing, a crime, because it hurt the economy or the financial case of the owner of the stolen property. It not only hurt the owner, but it also affect the financial case of the pirate as well. Because of the existence of the RIAA the rights are protected; then pirates will be ordered to pay a huge amount of money and that would affect their financial budget and could drive them to bankrupt.

            Moving on to the copyright issue, the peer-to- peer files sharing could affect the copyright negatively, and then it would also hurt the economy and the sales. According to the Copyright Criminals movie, Shock G, a digital underground, said that “ it is easier to snap a picture with a camera than paint a picture” comparing this phrase to music, it would be easier to take some one else work than to create a new piece of music or a new song. This process is provided in an easy and a fast way in the websites of peer-to-peer sharing files, where pirates can find and take, “snap”, a song or a piece of music then improve it, after that publish it in an easy, fast and economical way. However, the economic status of the creator is being affected negatively and hurt twice. The first time is, when the original work is being pirated, by people sharing files illegally, and second time when they publish it and benefit from the profit of the new word, which is not his/her original work. In other words, the owner is not only losing the copyrights, but also losing money.

      The peer-to-peer file sharing is the main reason of the economic collapse especially in the music field. The ways it hurt are different, whether by downloading them instead of buying them physically or by sharing music illegally in online websites, or by invading the copyright issue. Those cases are paths to reach the dropped economy that accompanied a financial lose to one side, the owners, or both sides, owners and pirates.

Works cited

 Copyright criminals. Dir. Benjamin Farnzen, and Kembrew, McLeod. 2009. Film.

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to                        Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.New York: Penguin, 2004. Free Culture. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.

Robertson, Kirsten, Lisa McNeill, James Green, and Claire Roberts. "Illegal           Downloading, Ethical Concern, and Illegal Behavior." Journal of Business Ethics,             108.2 (2012): 215-227.

Zentner, Alejandro. "Measuring the Effect of File Sharing on Music Purchases." The                    Journal of Law and Economics, 49.1 (2006): 63-90.