Volume 116 (2019): Edizione 4 (April 2019)

The article analyses the time periodisation of various eclectic currents in the architecture of Kharkov and the stylistic features of each flow. It shows how external factors (the administrative status of the city, political influences, trends in religious life, economic development) and various currents of eclecticism have influenced the transformation of the urban environment and characterised the specific features of the objects and the work of outstanding architects. On the basis of the analysis, architectural periods of eclectic currents in Kharkov have been identified and a list of them has been compiled.

The article discusses the architectural tradition of Mombasa, a port city in East Africa. Starting from the 10th century AD, Mombasa was an important trade centre of the Swahili culture, which developed its own language, art, crafts and architecture, drawing on Arabic, Persian and Indian influences. Mombasa is currently undergoing strong urbanisation processes, which lead to its rapid expansion, spatial chaos and urban poverty. The local authorities facing these problems decided to improve the tourist appeal of the city through initiatives to make it cleaner and enhance its aesthetic values. In 2018, an administrative decree was issued that required the façades of downtown buildings to be painted blue and white. As a result, Mombasa became the most frequently photographed city in Africa.

Nowadays the protection of historic urban layouts poses one of the greatest challenges in the field of cultural heritage protection. Even if this protection functions properly in large historic cities, it is sadly insufficient in smaller towns. The testimony to the latter claim is seen in deteriorating centres of small historic towns. Such degradation is a consequence of e.g. inappropriate investments disturbing their historic urban composition, which, in turn, demonstrates insufficient conservation protection. This article presents an analysis of selected medieval towns from Lesser Poland, with attention to both the state of preservation of their historic urban structure and the current form of its protection. Two towns (Nowy Targ, Skawina) are discussed in more detail.

2005 saw the completion of a project featuring the restoration of the surface of the Market Square in Lanckorona (the powiat of Wadowice, Lesser Poland Voivodship), funded by European Union funds. The design bound the contemporary needs of residents and tourists with the tradition of the place. It is also characterised by attractive visual linkages with the hills of the Beskidy Mountains seen in the background. The walls of this urban interior are composed of the frontages of timber residential market-side buildings. The construction included all of the design’s assumptions and the market square currently enjoys significant popularity, being often used by residents and tourists, with its surface often playing host to occasional open-air events.

Architectural archetypes, which can be defined as a timeless reference of the relevant typology of buildings, are labelled as such through purely intellectual appraisals. Their conceptual qualities do nonetheless translate into the design principles which have the potential to be used as guidelines of spatial definition. The contemporary American architect Louis I. Kahn, whose works are renowned for creating links with the built heritage, has adopted the notion of the archetype into his personal design philosophy. By means of studying a selection of his designs, this paper will try to explain what an archetype is and how it influences the architectural design. Moreover, it aims to show that deriving inspiration from the archetype is important in terms of creating unique places.

Modern schools face numerous challenges. They need to teach children about the need for sustainable development. Thus, school buildings and premises should be designed as living examples of the pursuit of sustainability. Moreover, green school grounds have the potential to become health-affirming landscapes. This paper discusses the close relationship between the concept of health-affirming everyday landscapes and sustainability in modern energy-efficient school design. In the first part of the paper, a literature review concerning the concept of health-affirming landscapes for children and teenagers and sustainability in school design is presented. In the second part, selected case studies of new energy-efficient schools in Poland and France are examined.

This paper investigates the influence of extraction on the surface in the area of the Pszczynka river. The mining-enhanced terrain subsidence hitherto observed has also resulted in the subsidence of the riverbed and its embankment. Some geotechnical solutions are proposed, including the reconstruction and repair of damage to the existing infrastructure. Such measures should facilitate a proper flow of water in the riverbed which is similar to a natural flow.

This paper presents the results of a series of experiments on samples made of steel fibre reinforced concrete. The investigated samples were made with different concentrations of steel fibres ranging from 20.0 to 32.5 kg/m3. Twenty-one cubic samples (15 x 15 x 15 cm) and fourteen cuboid samples (15 x 15 x 60 cm) were used for this investigation. The article focusses on the effect of the concentration of steel fibres on the properties of industrial floors. For this purpose, both destructive and non-destructive methods were used and compared. As a result of this study, it has been proved that compressive and flexural tensile strength are lower with increasing air content and decreasing density of concrete. Moreover, it was found that there is a correlation between ultrasonic pulse velocity and rebound hammer results which together can be used to estimate the compressive strength of steel fibre reinforced concrete.

This paper presents the results of a durability analysis of a hybrid light pole. The developed model includes a supporting structure of a pole with photovoltaic panels, a wind turbine and a boom with a light case. Due to various operating conditions, these poles may be characterised by a different configuration of the mutual spatial distribution of individual components. This results in a large diversity in the analysis results, hence the fact that the research was performed for the selected configuration variant for which the most unfavourable operating conditions were forecasted. In order to reveal potential stress concentration areas, a series of structural analyses was applied using the finite element method. As part of the work, changes to the supporting structure of the pole were proposed and to confirm the possibility of improving the resistance of the structure, additional analyses were conducted.

This article presents an attempt to develop a simplified dynamic model of the Kawasaki RS010L industrial robot using the Matlab mathematical environment. This is a six-axis robot which, due to its light weight and high movement ability, is used for a wide range of tasks, such as palletising and assembling objects. It was assumed that all links are stiff and the robot’s wrist is a concentrated mass located at the end of the third arm. In addition, the axes are controlled independently of each other in this model. Essential parameters were identified using a real robot and the correctness of the developed model was verified.