D.C.L. 1994

While cleaning our  place I found this! Done at a time when my wife was employed there at the D.C.L. (Design Consortium Limited) It was her first job as were for few of my other batch mates, soon after we finished our B.Sc. (Built. Env.).

lies my teacher told me (book #23)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong is a 1995 book by sociologist James Loewen. It critically examines twelve American history textbooks and concludes that textbook authors propagate factually false, Eurocentric, and mythologized views of history. In addition to critiquing the dominant historical themes presented in textbooks, Loewen presents a number of his own historical themes that he says are ignored by traditional history textbooks. A newly revised and updated hardcover edition was released on April 1, 2008.

excerpts

at wikipedia

walking the talk on galle fort with channa daswatte @ thuppahi's blog

A repost from Thuppahi's Blog on an interesting article by by Namali Premawardhana as published on Sunday Times 12 February 2012. Thuppahi's Blog as a whole is really interesting including his explanation of th eblog's name.

visit   Thuppahi's Blog

plagiarism leads to hungarian president's fall

Plagiarism is becoming serious problem in Sri Lanka as well. With the increasing accessibility to the web, it has becoming an 'entrenched practice' especially due to the ease with which you can 'rob' information using the web.

Fortunately, it is very easy to detect the 'web lifted' information using the same web. Unfortunately what we still do not have is a robust set of academic rules and regulations which could be mitigated effectively and quickly in the event of proven  plagiarism, even though the academia in Sri Lanka has long recognized the illegality and the seriousness of  plagiarizing others work. The other problem the academia facing today is the shear volume of  plagiarism.

Here is what has happened to the president of Hungary. Apperently the the fellow has lifted a cool 95% of his doctoral thesis from others. A true politician.

"The Pál Schmitt academic misconduct controversy refers to the allegations of plagiarism concerning the 1992 doctoral dissertation and the circumstances of the doctoral defence of Pál Schmitt, the president of Hungary. The controversy began in January 2012, when Hungarian news organizations published a number of articles claiming that about 197 pages of Schmitt's 215-page dissertation had been lifted from works by other, foreign scholars, without giving appropriate credit.

On 11 January 2012, Hungarian news portal HVG.hu published an article which claims that material that amounts to around 180 of the 215 pages of Pál Schmitt's 1992 doctoral (dr. univ.) dissertation, titled "Az újkori olimpiai játékok programjának elemzése" ("An analysis of the programme of the modern Olympics"), had been lifted from a 1987 manuscript by Bulgarian sports reseacher Nikolay Georgiev, together with a page's worth of material from a work by Hristo Meranzov and Georgiev. On 19 January, news organizations found that an additional 17 pages had been lifted from a paper German sport sociologist Klaus Heinemann. The late Georgiev's daughter said she did not know of any cooperation between Schmitt and her father in the preparation of Georgiev's work. Heinemann denied any knowledge of Schmitt, and expressed concern about the allegation of plagiarism.

Further concerns about a conflict of interest were raised when it was reported that multiple members of Schmitt's thesis committee had also been members of the Hungarian Olympic Academy and the Hungarian Olympic Committee, organizations Schmitt headed around the time the dissertation was defended."


Link to Wikipedia article "Pál Schmitt scientific misconduct controversy"

Ando's house in sri lanka (#53)

Tadao Ando has designed a house in Sri Lanka, and the construction has been completed. Ando’s signature concrete is present here, but it’s been said that he had more freedom as fewer constraints existed in this site. Ando never visited the site before the construction. He sent his collaborators Kiyoshi Aoki and Yukio Tanaka to Sri Lanka, who worked closely with local architect office PWA Architects.

It was built for Belgian entrepreneur Pierre Pringiers.

Another japanese architect, Shigeru Ban who is well know for using cardboard as a building material has also done a house Villa Vista in the southern parts of Sri Lanka. (But this is not done in cardboard!)

via japanese design
and baunetz.de

Architect: Tadao Ando
Photos:Edmund Sumner

Find mor ephotos and information here @ arcilook.com

sri lankan post tsunami architecture

"I’m traveling to Sri Lanka to discover what progress has been made from the disaster on Boxing Day 2004. I will be looking at how the funding has filtered down to community level and how the coastal villages have developed over the years. I’m intrested in the architecture that services the local habitants and how it has changed. I want to create a in-depth photo essay of the area. I will be in Colombo for the first week meeting up with architects and contacts from London."

Found on the web! A blog on  Post Tsunami Architecture in Sri Lanka.