The Rooftop Trend and How It Began

When the weather is great and sunny, isn’t it nice to be able to spend your time on a rooftop ? Enjoying the sun, the view and feel that luxury of city living ! The access to a rooftop is very popular and many restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings offer a great place on the rooftop.

Hotel Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Hotel Banyan Tree (Bangkok)

But this trend hasn’t exist 140 years ago. At that time, rooftop wasn’t viewed as a luxury, it was used by domestic servants to hang out wet laundry and for industrial equipment. The attitude of most residents against rooftop can be said to be awkward and the impulse of most residents was to stay away.

A group of boys play marbles on a New York rooftop as laundry hangs in the background. Date unknown. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)

This attitude began to change in the 1880s, when Rudolph Aronsin, inspired by European traditional, built a garden on the roof of his Moorish-styled Casino Theatre on Broadway to stage operettas, musicals and concerts. Other theaters took note and roof gardens blossomed in New York. Theater rooftop gardens became a summertime entertainment and offered an exotic and relaxing place for the locales to escape from the din and heat of the city.

A beer garden on top of the Belasco Theatre, ca. the 1880s. (New York Historical Society)

Elevator is an important factor that increase the value of top-floor apartments. It has before lower rents because of the exhaustive climb and proximity to the rooftop service space. Elevator make these quieter, sunnier and with grand views place more easily accessible and therefore more valuable.

Invest in rooftops declined after the war, but we can find some modern architectures that remind us of American’s taste for rooftop garden. With more and more people being aware of sustainability, roof gardens are more and more often built for ecological benefits.

The Chicago City Hall

To help you build your perfect garden roof, Shanghai Metal Corporation can provide you with the necessary materials ! We have rock wool, ideal for growing plants and we accept any challenging construction projects. Please contact us if you need further information, our English speaking staff will be very glad to help you. To be fully updated on our products, follow us on social media.

    

Original article : citylab
Photos : citylab, google image

Ayu P.//SMC editor

The New Building Trend : Green Building

Green building, also known as green construction or sustainable building is a building structure that is “environmentally responsible” and “resource-efficient”. It has the objective to reduce the negative effect of built environment on human health and the natural environment by :

• Efficiently using resources (energy, water, etc.)
• Protecting occupant’s health & improving the employee’s productivity
• Reducing environmental degradation (waste, pollution)

According to a study, green building construction is increasing across the globe as it is more and more viewed as a long-term business opportunity. More and more building owners and developers switch from new building design to a more green building. Green building is hitting the mainstream, therefore, to distinguish themselves, developers focus more and more on designing green building.

Graphic from World Green Building Trends

There are different factors that drive the construction of green building and they vary around the world. Australia, USA and European Countries are mostly influenced by business factors (market & client demand). Singapore, UAE and South Africa are more influenced by regulation (government’s policies) and ethical reasons.

Several green building certification has been established and may attract competitors.  One of the most notable are LEED and BREEAM. Below you can discover some buildings that has been awarded with a green building certification.

Taipei 101, Taiwan

This skycrapper is the tallest and largest building of LEED Platinum certification in the world since 2011.

Abad Nucleus Mall, India

This mall is India’s first LEED certified gold-rated green mall.

The University of Texas, USA

This is the first academic building in Texas to receive LEED Platinum certification.

Shearer’s Foods plant, USA

We have here the first food manufacturing plant to receive LEED Platinum status.

David L. Lawrence Convention Center, USA

This is the first convention center in the world to have received the Gold and Platinum LEED rating.

There exists thousand of other construction that has been awarded as green building and the number keeps increasing. We are getting more and more involved in fighting against environmental degradation. Shanghai Metal Corporation cares about the future and participate in reducing energy consumption. We offer solar panel that can be designed according to your projects and drawings. We also have eco-friendly material for buildings and we can help you with many types of construction projects. Please feel free to contact us if you need further information. Also follow us on social media to have a quick update of our products.

    

Credits to : wikipedia, World Green Building Trends, bdcnetwork
Photos : google image

Ayu P.//SMC editor

Exploring the Christmas Cakes from Different Countries

The wonderful Christmas festival is approaching and we’re all excited to get our Christmas presents, to spend quality time with our family and…to stuff ourself with calories of delicious Christmas desserts. We can find dozens of lovely Christmas cakes across the countries, each with its own ingredients, decoration and color. Have you already decided of the Christmas cake that you would like to make for your family or friends ? Let’s find out what people around the world eat during this celebration.

France : Bûche de Noël (Yule Log)

Most of the time, this dessert is covered with chocolate buttercream, but we can also find other variations, such as ganache and espresso or other flavored frostings and fillings.

Germany : Weihnachstsstollen

This cake usually contains dried fruit, nuts, spices and covered with sugar. It has a long history since the 15th Century. It was at first a tasteless cake made with flour, yeast, oil and water. Since then it has gotten sweeter !

United Kingdom: Christmas Cake

Christmas cake in the UK is made months before the holiday. By wrapping the cake like a present, plus the amount of alcohol it has absorbed, the cake lasts a very long time. The Christmas cake is not only eat during Christmas dinner but is also enjoyed at tea time or for snacks during the holidays.

Scottland : Whisky Dundee

This famous Scottish cake has a rich flavor. This cake distance itself from fruit cake by featuring glazed pecans as the topping instead of marzipan and has less fruits. A popular story is that Mary Queen of Scots did not like glace cherries in her cakes, so the cake was first made for her, as a fruit cake that used blanched almonds and not cherries

Iceland : Vinetarta

This  cake consists of cookie-like layers held together by prune filling. It is the center of all Icelandic Christmas festivities.

Poland : Piernik

Poland’s anhcient Christmas cake has a unique taste, having a mix of ginger and chocolate.

Japan : Kurisumasu Keki

In Japan, Christmas cakes are traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve. There was a time where this term was used to called women who were unmarried after the age of 25, describing them as “unsold”.

Philippines : Bibingka

This is a type of rice cake from the Philippines traditionally eaten during the Christmas season. It has an interesting aroma of toasted banana leaves.

India : Allahabadi Cake

This traditional Indian rum fruit cake originates from the city of Allahabad, known for its baking tradition and business.

To help you make a wonderful Christmas cakes, Shanghai Metal Corporation can provide you with the best cooking materials. We have silicone molds for example and we are professional in manufacturing metal materials for any activities. If you need any specific requirements for further information, feel free to contact us. Our English speaking staff will be very glad to help you find the most suitable product for you. Don’t forget to follow us on social media to discover our other products.

    

Sources : wikipedia, foodrepublic, chickensoup, gouk.about
Photos : google image

Ayu P.//SMC editor

Container Homes – Only The Question of Make Or Buy

Shipping containers are a modular construction material that can be used to build affordable houses with aesthetic design. One of the major advantages of container houses is their durability; you basically need a light torch and dynamite to break in. Getting a safe home like this raises the question “to make or buy?”. Here we will analyze both of those options.

Buying a prefabricated container house will save you a lot of time and physical work. You need to consult a container house provider and offer them your sketches. You need to give them precise information about your living conditions in order for them to implement proper insulation, floor and roofing. You should also ask for computer rendered image of their work. There are many companies that provide prefabricated container houses and ship them worldwide. We also in Shanghai Metal Corporation do that. You can see our house concept and manufacturing details here.

Many people want to have a perfect control over the whole process which is why they choose to build them themselves. If you want to build a container house yourself, you should pay attention to some things. The first thing is the choice of containers. Countries that import a lot of goods but do not do much exporting have hundreds of thousands of used shipping containers in their ports. When you’re in a port you should select the one on the top of the pile because using a crane to get the lower ones is a time consuming and a rather expensive task.

The other thing is that you never know what has been shipped inside the container. Therefore you should hire a professional to check if there are any traces of toxic spillages or radioactive materials.

In terms of construction you need to pay close attention painting and insulation. If done improperly the house will start to collect rust and turn into a freezer or an oven depending on the outside temperature. The insulation is usually done with an insulating foam. When adding windows you need to be careful not to break the whole structure. You also need to use some steel reinforcements.

Some people want to build container houses themselves in order to save construction costs. But after considering the above mentioned aspects you’ll see that making it yourself might not be the cheapest option. Also if you add the fact that getting a professional to put in drywall, heating and plumbing may cost over $200 per square meter, you might want to take time and discuss more with a customized house provider. If you like building things yourself, you might want to start with smaller projects, say, a summer house, swimming pool or a sauna.

If you are a DIY person, just go for it! Whether you want to make or buy, we in Shanghai Metal Corporation can offer all the materials. We do customized container houses according to your requests. We also offer shipping containers and other additional construction material. You can send us more questions or specify your requirements with this form. Check also our social media channels for future updates.

    

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: HomeDSGN, Julie Kinnear, Container Transportation, Jets on Green

Please use the the social media boxes below to SHARE this article to reach all the people building container homes everywhere.

Living on the Edge of a Floating House

In today’s world people are taking construction business the dew dimensions. The ultimate extremes seem to be in space and underwater but another setting of prefab architecture is on the surface of water.

The world has many examples of beautiful floating architecture. A floating house has basically two features that are superior compared to their on-the-ground counterparts.

First, floating houses offer safety in areas suffering from floods. An article on BBC tells about an idea of floating houses saving people from UK’s floods. Besides residence, also school buildings have been converted into floatable forms. The concept of floating school buildings has already been applied in Nigeria.

Second, a floating building also operates as a transportation method. An example has been set in Finland, where sauna rafts have become a sort of a summer trend. Sauna rafts are basically rafts that are equipped with motor engines that move the raft in a moderate speed. Inhabitat has written more about the design of Finnish sauna rafts that also include a patio and hammocks. Formerly Shanghai Metal Corporation wrote an article about container saunas and container swimming pools, but this solution has both of them in one package.

For construction businesses the environment brings challenges as we’ve seen in case of floating architecture. In large major projects it’s the pioneers of the business who define the standards for quality. Shanghai Metal Corporation is one of them, not only because of the width of its business that encompasses prefab building, containers and steel building but also due its success in executing successful projects including some of the largest steel bridges in China.

For information about our construction projects, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: BBC, The Huffington Post, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat

What if Apple Was Started in a Shipping Container?

On April 1, 1976, the two biggest Steves in the world’s history, Jobs and Wozniak, started a company called Apple that has had a major impact in our lives. Like many companies before and after them, the visionaire and the tech-guru started their business from a garage. Apple’s business started to gain momentum when an American investor with Finnish family roots, Mike Markkula offered his financial capital and expertise on January the first 1977. On April the same year, the company released its first masterpiece, the Apple II personal computer that turned out be a ticket from the garage office. The next wave of success had to be waited until 1984 and the publishing of the Macintosh. Apple had brought to the market the first computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) already in 1983. But because the price  of the computer called Lisa was too high for consumers, Macintosh had to be the solution. Macintosh’s  ground breaking TV commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, was aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. Due to conflicts with the board of directors, Jobs was fired in 1985. According to his speech in the university of Stanford in 2005, getting fired from Apple was one of the best things ever happened to him. In 1996 Apple bought NeXt, the company founded by Jobs, and then began the era of iMacs, iPods, iPhones and iPads. In the beginning of September 2014, we all witnessed the publish of the new iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch. Many companies after and before Apple have started their business operations from a garage. The list is long and it includes companies such as Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Harley-Davidson, Google, Amazon and Mattel to name but a few. Today’s start-ups, or, the multinational corporation of tomorrow have another choice besides a garage, shipping containers. Shipping containers are a modular building material that is also durable and feasibly priced. Because of their physical properties, start-up business managers are able to design customized offices. Whether it is a swimming pool, hotel, home or an office, Shanghai Metal Corporation is a reliable provider of shipping containers. To learn more about our large variety, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Try also downloading our mobile application by scanning the QR code below with your new iPhone 6. Tuomas P. // SMC Editor Pictures and original articles: Hola.com, Wikipedia, Popsugar, Forbes, Irish Mirror, Wikipedia,  World Home Design Ideas Magazine, Retire@21, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

A Smart Car Jumps Over a Bridge Every Day!

They have filmed some really astonishing car jump stunts in Hollywood. In real life, the jumps such as James Bond: The Man With the Golden Gun, Thelma and Louise and Terminator 2, would result in absolutely catastrophic damage. Still, there is a car that jumps over a bridge every single day.

In Rotterdam, you can see a Smart Car jumping over an elevated bridge from miles away. The thing that you will see is actually a billboard advertisement made by an advertising agency BBDO Düsseldorf to promote the sales of the Smart BRABUS car. The billboard is attached to the cutting point of the bridge, and when the bridge opens, it seems like the Smart car is jumping over the bridge.

The BRABUS campaign lead to a phenomenal success of more than 2000 cars sold before its launch. Smart car is famous also for its other creative marketing campaigns. The small size of the car has inspired its marketers to design, say, unique small size parking spaces for only smart cars a way to promote the car’s fuel efficiency (see the picture below). The Rotterdam Bridge campaign is really groundbreaking in automobile industry.

Shanghai Metal Corporation has successfully implemented some major bridge building projects. Our projects include the pedestrian bridge in Shanghai’s Wuzhou Avenue, an airport highway in Hefei city and an arch bridge in Zhejiang province’s city of Caidong.

To know more about our bridge building projects, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

 

SMC #BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original stories:  Toxel.com, Adsoftheworld.com, Jalopnik.com

Welding in Its Aesthetic Form

In the movie the Grudge Match, starred by Sylvester Stallone, Robert de Niro and Kim Basinger, Stallone’s character Henry “Razor” Sharp welds metal sculptures from metal trash in his garage. In real life, many welding artists’ artworks have left a mark in our modern culture.

   
  A welded predator from the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blockbuster movie.

Besides a process used in civil engineering projects, welding has gained a lot of popularity in sculpting art since the 1930’s. Welding is a fundamental method for reshaping steel structures and a way for some artists to give their contribution to art.

The Chicago Picasso in Civic Center Plaza.

For instance, Pablo Picasso designed a 50 feet and 162 ton sculpture as a gift to the people of Chicago. “The Chicago Picasso” was revealed in 1962 and has since stayed in good shape thanks to its protective coating of iron oxide. Other artworks worth mentioning are e.g. Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time found in Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, Jeff Koons Balloon Dogs and Alexander Calder‘s La Grande Vitesse in Michigan.

Just like welding industrial objects, also art welding requires a premium welding machine. Shanghai Metal Corporation also has to offer a high-quality welding machine that is widely used in boilers and other container manufacturing, electrical construction, the construction, aviation / aerospace industry, vehicle manufacturing and other industries in a variety of metals.

 

To know more about our welding machine, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

 

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Colorcoat-online.com, Cirrusimage.com, Wikipedia,  Joblo.com, Forbes.com, Howtospotapsycopath.com,  Mig-welding.co.uk, Thinng.com