Monday, February 21, 2011

Villa El suenio In mount Pelion-Volos, Greece




Architectural Design :                  Michael Balaroutsos Architect & Associates
                                                                                    

Structural Design :                       Michael Balaroutsos Architect & Associates                                                                             
                                                   John Tzavellos   Civil Engineer
Facilities :                                   Michael Balaroutsos Architect & Associates
                                                                          
                                                   Tasos Fasoulidis      Electrical Mechanical                                                                         

Landscape Architecture :            Michael Balaroutsos  Architect  & Associates                                                                               

Art Design :                                                        Helen Aglaini-Gina Taktikoy
                                                                         

contact
Michael Balaroutsos Architect
IOLKOU 13 STR
38333 VOLOS-GREECE
e mail 
[email protected]
[email protected]



This is a rural house designed according to the traditional architecture. So, much build from stone and cover four sides with a roof, wooden windows and doors in traditional styles.
In another chapter I'll show you on, the architecture of Mount Pelion, (the mountain of the Centaurs). The first glance at the villa, is the name and the perimeter fence, which reminiscent of Mexican architecture.
The combination of tall fence with local stone and wooden doors give a NEW character and a taste of what we see going inside. An inscription on a ceramic oval enameled plate, impressed us immediately by name,
HASIENDA EL SUENIO.
The homeowner living many years in Mexico, and having traveled many times in Latin America, wanted to add a ton of memories.




Crossing the stone path, between alleys planted with olive and laurel. which leads to the two-storey building.







Come across the pool, next there is a small detached guesthouse. Nearby is the barbecue. A unique design castled by a stone wall and a carved wooden pillar which came from Cancun. The small traditional bakery, in the center waiting for the chef to improvise with the delicious local dishes.






Going TO the bulk of the building, found the metal pergola-like little Carousel (for the sake of the children of the family) and entering the main entrance, reveals the Ethnic environmental living room.
Striking feature here is the fireplace with a purely Mexican character and the open wooden roof.










The traditional handcrafted furniture, steal our attention several times with beautiful designs, while the stone walls dominate the bright colors of the decorations. The plastered walls are painted with a special style antique, giving a dynamic feel to the space.






On the second floor there is still an impressive fireplace in bright colors that dominates the small living room.
But what impresses more comfortable, is the style of the bathrooms of the house.
Two small wc and main bathroom are unique.














The stone basin of the bath and carbon paints, takes us in ancient times



To conclude this small tour, we are left with the feeling that the house we built, is very friendly and dares to live. It's better than to have only the photos of a magazine.
Watching it in time, I am glad to see it change form.



Human Planet - Web exclusive series trailer - BBC One

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The decipherment of the Antikythera Mechanism








With high-tech helper, the mysterious Antikythera mechanism reveals its secrets and demonstrates the high technological level of our ancient ancestors. The Mechanism (or else "Calculator") of the Antikythera Mechanism is a complex built around 80 BC in our country and who serve to accurately assess the positions of the sun, moon and planets. Watch the video (with Greek subtitles )
The mechanism came from Rhodes, a thriving ancient city at the time, with great contribution to the development of science. Indicative is that Rhodes in the 2nd century BC The Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, he developed his theory, which explains the abnormal movement of the moon



The workmanship of the Facility is so high that from the Hellenistic period is the period in which it was constructed until the 18th century were not seen again, such mechanisms, both extremely accurate and so many small parts.
The rescue of the Facility by archaeologists and the study by conventional means have not been able to reveal many things about the exact number and shape of individual components, operation and reading the inscriptions found on it. Indeed, given the extremely vulnerable and fragile salvaged material, any attempt to study should be done locally, at the Archaeological Museum in Athens, where he kept.
Based on these data formed a group of actors, which since 2005 works in order to shed light on unknown aspects of the mechanism. Specifically, the University of Athens, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the National Archaeological Museum, the University of Cardiff in Wales and the companies HP and X-Tek Systems provide the necessary equipment and scientific resources needed for a thorough study of Facility.

HP has contributed to the project with special technology available, which consists of three-dimensional representation of the external part of the mechanism and highlight detail at that point was not visible. The HP system called PTM (Polynomial Texture Mapping) uses a combination of digital photography and three-dimensional graphics algorithms to make more elegant way to projections of a material body and make it more legible too subtle details such as in this case, very faint markings, which could occur eventually be translated. There would be no exaggeration to say that HP's system really showed previously unseen details of the Facility and threw much light on the secrets.


Equally impressive was the contribution of X-Tek Systems.
The company offered a very long scan, weighing 12 tons, carrying him from the UK in the Archaeological Museum in order to map out the mechanism to form a complete three-dimensional model, while penetrating inside. The surprising discoveries made using this special CT scanner showed that the mechanism is not comprised of 30 but from 37 sections (30 are the ones who survived to 82 fragments in total) and that its functions are extended far beyond the calculation of the position the sun, moon and phases. It was revealed that the mechanism was able to predict the positions of the planets in relation to the stellar background of the zodiac, while body was calculated calendar years.
In particular, the mechanism could count so-called cycle Kallipou over a period of 76 years, divided into 940 groups and the Saros cycle, a period of about 18 years, divided in an appropriate manner provides a way of predicting solar and lunar eclipses.


source
Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM)
High Resolution Radiograph of the Antikythera Mechanism
Project OverviewAntikythera Mechanism