UNIVERSITY OF PANAMA

ARCHITECTURE LESSON 2

PROFESSOR: ILSA HERRERA

 2
Building Wonders

Think and Discuss

1. What is the tallest building in your area? What is the oldest?
2. What do you think are
the most amazing
buildings in the world?
Why are they special?
2
Using Vocabulary. Answer the questions. Share your ideas with a partner.

1. What is the style of the building you are in right now? Is it modern? Is it traditional?
2. What tasks or activities are you committed to right now?
From whom or what do you get inspiration? Explain your answer
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (often referred to simply as Wembley or sometimes as the New Wembley) is
a football stadium located in London, UK. It was opened in 2007, and will play host to the 2012
Summer Olympics.

Facts and Figures

1. Wembley cost £798 million ($1,560 million) to build.
2. With 90,000 seats the new Wembley is the largest football stadium in the world with every
seat under cover.
3. The arch is 133 meters above the level of the external concourse.
4. The stadium roof rises to 52 meters above the pitch. This compares to the 35 meters tall
Twin Towers of the old stadium.
5. The new Wembley has a circumference of 1 km.
6. The roof is over 11 acres. Four acres are movible.
7. The rows of seating, if placed end to end, would stretch 54 kilometers.
8. 4,000 separate piles form the foundations of the new stadium. The deepest of these, at 35
meters, is as deep as the old Wembley’s twin towers were tall.
9. There are 35 miles (56.3270 km) of heavy-duty power cables in the stadium.
10. The arch, which is erected some 22° off perpendicular, is the longest single span roof
structure in the world with a span of 315 Meters.
11. With a diameter of 7.4 meters the arch is wide enough for a Channel Tunnel train to run
through.
12. 90,000 m3 (cubic meters) of concrete and 23,000 tones’ of steel were used in the
construction of the new stadium.
13. The roof alone weighs almost 7,000 tones’.
14. Each of the two giant screens in the stadium is the size of 600 domestic television sets.
15. The new Wembley has a cubic capacity 4,000,000 m3 inside its walls and under its roof. This
is the equivalent of 25,000 double decker buses.
16. The total length of the escalators is the same as a 400 meter running track.
17. There are 2,618 toilets – which is more than any other stadium in the world.
Match the Words exercise
The first one has been done for you

acre medir

arch cimientos

concourse 4.047 metros cuadrados

foundations
foundations campo

Heavy-duty
heavy-duty construir

pitch pitch bajo techo

roof roof estadio

stadiumstadium arco

to build to build explanada

toto
play host
play hostto
to techo

to stretch (to measure) fuerte, resistente

under cover para acoger a

running track pista de atletismo

span vano

toilet servicio

Gap Fill exercise

Fill the gaps using words or phrases from the word list

acres
1) Wembley...will play ___________ to the 2012 Summer Olympics
arch

2) Wembley cost 927,000,000€ to _________ concourse

foundations
3) Wembley is the largest football _____________ in the world with every seat
_________ ____________ heavy-duty

pitch
4) The arch is 133 metres above the level of the external ______________
roof

5) The stadium roof rises to 52 metres above the _________

 stadium
6) The ____________ is over 11 ____________. Four acres are moveable.
build

7) The rows of seating, if placed end to end, would ____________ 54 kilometers host

stretch
8) 4,000 separate piles form the ______________ of the new stadium
under cover

9) There are 56.327 kilometers of _______________ power cables in the stadium running track

span
10) The _____, which is erected some 22⁰ off perpendicular, is the longest single
________ roof structure in the world toilets

11) The total length of the escalators is the same as a 400 meter _______ _______

12) There are 2,618 ___________ - which is more than any other stadium in the world
LESSON B
WRITING TASK: REVISING

Analyzing. The paragraphs below compare the Golden Gate Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Which paragraph is the first draft___________Which paragraph is the revision? _______

a
comparison
paragraph,

To avoid
too
often.

describe what

referring to.
Strange Architecture
Match the depicted buildings with the corresponding descriptions
and discuss with your partner a) which of these buildings you (don’t)
find appealing and why, b) what kind of weird buildings you’ve already
seen in your life and where, and c) how you’d like your future home (house
or apartment) to be once designed (both internally and from the outside).

WonderWorks is an entertainment
center focused on science exhibits
with five locations in the United
States. The company's slogan is "Let
What looks like left-over boulders from the Stone Age is
Your Imagination Run Wild". The
actually a house. Casa do Penedo or the 'House of Stone', was exhibits are housed in a themed
built in 1974 with four different boulders. The Portuguese building designed by architect Terry
getaway has no electricity so the homeowners use candlelight Nicholson, looking as if it were
to see when indoors. That said, the house boasts a cozy picked up by severe weather and
dropped upside down on an existing
fireplace, a swimming pool carved into stone and logs for
building.
stairs.
The “Crooked House” is an unusual piece of
architecture located on Monte Cassino
The original idea of these cubic houses came about in
Street in Sopot, Poland. Completed in 2004,
the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these
the building was designed by Szotyńscy &
cubic houses that were built in Helmond.
Zaleski who were inspired by the fairytale
The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top illustrations and drawings of Jan Marcin
of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic Szancer and Per Dahlberg as well as designs
by Antonio Gaudi. The magical effect draws
houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he
many visitors to the property which houses
tries to create a forest by each cube representing an
restaurants, cafés and shops.
abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a
forest.

This project, located in the heart of Kansas City,
represents one of the pioneer projects behind the
revitalization of downtown. The people of Kansas City
were asked to help pick highly influential books that
represent Kansas City. Those titles were included as
‘bookbindings’ in the innovative design of the parking
garage exterior, to inspire people to utilize the
downtown Central Library.
A trend that started and continues to this day in
town Waikato in New Zealand is the use of old,
discarded, corrugated iron to create "works of
art". Perhaps the most significant of these are
the "Sheep" and "Dog" buildings on Main Road,
Tirau. Housing a wool and craft store the "Sheep"
building would be considered a great example of
mimetic architecture. The "Dog" building houses
the town's Information Center.
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 You work for the Customer Accounts section of an engineering consultancy that carries
out infrastructure analysis for British Industry and local authorities. You are having a very
busy period at the moment and the latest projects have been placed in the hands of one
of your junior project managers because you just haven’t had the staff to deal with them.
You have already read the plans that have been drawn up, now you need to sit down
with other department heads and decide whether or not to approve the plans. Read the
personality cards provided and debate according to the personality you have chosen.

Memo
To: Department Heads
From: Ivan Ishoo
Date: 01/03/18
Re: Restructuring Plans

Dear colleagues,

As you all know from our previous meetings, there have been a few challenges with some of the new
accounts we have that need to be addressed. We have had one of our younger, more inexperienced project
managers working on these issues and we now have some draft plans that need our attention. There will be a
meeting to discuss the plans next week and I would like you all to attend and furnish each other with your
feedback and input, being that the project manager is relatively new to the post.

Our clients are consortiums that manage infrastructure for three different cities and we are up against
some stiff competition to keep these contracts at the moment due to the current austerity measures that have
been implemented by central government. As such, we are going to need to make sure that these are the right
plans for our clients if we want them to retain our services. If you think that the plans need adjusting then
please speak up. It is in all our interests for our customers to continue to remain financially robust which would
work as free publicity for us in the kind of market we are operating in.

I look forward to seeing you all at next week’s little gathering.

Warmest regards

Ivan Ishoo

Connect each of the words on the left with its definition on the right.

1. challenges a. give, provide

2. furnish b. contribution

3. gathering c. problems

4. draft d. opinion

5. feedback e. basic or preliminary outline

6. input f. robust, strong

7. stiff g. meeting