Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime

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Urbanism

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Varosha

Varosha is a former resort town located in the city of Famagusta, Cyprus. After Turkey took control of northern Cyprus in the 1970s, the resort town Varosha was left empty. Before the division of Cyprus in 1974, Varosha was a booming resort town with sky-scraping hotels, glamorous shopping districts, and sandy beaches frequently called the best in Cyprus. At its height, the resort town of Varosha was home to 39,000 residents and thousands more visited each year as tourists. But after 1974, everyone but the Turkish military was forbidden from entering, and today, buildings in the once-booming resort town are crumbling and abandoned.

Al-Araqeeb

Al-Araqeeb is a Bedouin village located in the Negev desert region of southern Israel. The village has gained international attention due to its ongoing legal and political struggles with the Israeli government over land ownership and residency rights. The history of Al-Araqeeb dates back several generations, with Bedouin families residing in the area for decades. However, the Israeli government does not recognize the village as an official settlement and has repeatedly attempted to demolish the structures and forcibly evict its residents. The village has been rebuilt over 200 times.

Dynamic compaction

Dynamic compaction is a method that is used to increase the density of the soil when certain subsurface constraints make other methods inappropriate. It is a method that is used to increase the density of soil deposits. The process involves dropping a heavy weight repeatedly on the ground at regularly spaced intervals. The weight and the height determine the amount of compaction that would occur. The weight that is used, depends on the degree of compaction desired and is between 8 tonne to 36 tonne. The height varies from 1m to 30m. The impact of the free fall creates stress waves that help in the densification of the soil. These stress waves can penetrate up to 10m. In cohesionless soils, these waves create liquefaction that is followed by the compaction of the soil, and in cohesive soils, they create an increased amount of pore water pressure that is followed by the compaction of the soil.

Money train

A money train is one or more railcars used to collect cash fare revenue from stations on a subway system and return it to a central location for processing. This train was typically used to carry money bags guarded by transit police to deter robberies. On the New York City Subway, a "money train" was first mentioned in 1905, a year after the system opened. Their trains were converted from subway cars that have been removed from passenger service. This has since been discontinued, with the last service running in January 2006.

Ponte City

Ponte City is a skyscraper in the Berea suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, just next to Hillbrow. It was built in 1975 to a height of 173 m (567.6 ft), making it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa. The 55-storey building is cylindrical, with an open centre allowing additional light into the apartments. The centre space is known as "the core" and rises above an uneven rock floor. When built, Ponte City was seen as an extremely desirable address due to its location and views over Johannesburg, but it became infamous for its crime and poor maintenance in the late 1980s to 1990s.

Hashima Island

Hashima Island is an island off the coast of Nagasaki in southwest Japan. Coal mines operated on Hashima from the 1890s, and at one point in time it was the most densely populated place in the world. At its peak, over 5000 miners lived with their families on an island measuring just over a kilometre long and half as wide, working in mines at depths of up to 660m. When the mine closed there was no reason for anyone to reside here, and in the early 1970s the entire island was abandoned, leaving the structures and contents to rot.

BoozeTown

Mel Johnson was the visionary behind the utopian BoozeTown. His city would be comprised of dozens upon dozens of bars and nightclubs, all with different themes. He was meticulous in his planning and fleshed out every detail. Street names would allude to alcohol, such as Gin Lane, Bourbon Boulevard, and 21st Amendment Ave; there would be a moving sidewalk and an electric trolley system which would help escort staggering drunks home (or to another bar); much of the alcohol would be brewed or distilled inside the town which would produce revenue; every bar and liquor store would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; drinks would be allowed everywhere, even banks and places of worship; the city would have its own currency, BoozeBucks; there would be a police force, the Party Police, but instead of harassing drinkers they would be there to assist them