Lesson 3. Creativity in Everyday Life
본문 3-1 Saving Abandoned Buildings with Creativity
창의력으로 버려진 건물 구하기When buildings have become too old for their original purpose, they are often simply knocked down.
People might oppose tearing down the old buildings, especially if they are precious landmarks, but it is hard to justify letting unused structures take up valuable space.
In such cases, adaptive reuse ― the reusing of an old building or structure for something other than its original purpose ― is a smart solution.
Here are some outstanding examples of adaptive reuse from around the world.
Modern Art Museum in England
When the Bankside Power Station in London was shut down in 1981, the building was at risk of being torn down by developers.
However, many people started a movement to save the landmark building on the southern bank of the River Thames.
Eventually, it was decided that this building would be used as a new modern art museum to be called Tate Modern, and much of the character of the original power station building would be maintained.
Tate Modern still resembles the old power station, on both the outside and the inside, which features concrete floors and steel beams.
The Turbine Hall, stretching 155 meters long, 23 meters wide, and 35 meters high, was turned into a vast, grand entrance area.
It also functions as a display space for large art installations.
Next to the Turbine Hall is the Boiler House, which holds seven floors.
The reception and common areas are on the first two floors.
The third through the fifth floors have exhibition galleries.
The sixth and seventh floors feature restaurants and bars.
The Bankside Power Station could have become just a pile of bricks, but instead it has been
transformed into one of the world's largest museums of modern and contemporary art.
Luxury Hotel in the Netherlands
Another spectacular example of adaptive reuse can be seen in this beautiful hotel in the Netherlands, which blends its own unique history with modern functionality.
The building was one of the Netherlands' most infamous prisons from 1863 until 2007.
However, it has undergone a complete transformation into luxurious accommodations.
The building originally had 105 prison cells, but these have been converted into 40 luxurious rooms.
The rooms have been updated with modern furnishings, but details like exposed brick, barred windows, and original cell doors offer clues about its past.
If you need extra space, suite rooms with names like The Judge, The Lawyer, The Jailer, and The Director are available.
Guests can even enjoy a special dinner while slides of the jail's history are shown.
They are given black and white striped jail hats to get into the mood.
This hotel used to be a place from which people desperately wanted to escape, but with some creative thinking, it has been turned into a place guests never want to leave.
Tropical Theme Park in Germany
People living in Berlin who are eager to escape from the bitter cold of winter are now in luck.
Near the city, a huge hangar for manufacturing airships has become a theme park where the sun always shines and the temperature remains a mild 26 degrees Celsius.
The hangar fell into disuse because the company that owned it went bankrupt in 2002.
However, a company in Malaysia looked at this massive deserted dome and saw great potential.
In 2004, the hangar opened as a tropical theme park.
Measuring about 66,000 square meters, the dome is tall enough to fit the Statue of Liberty inside.
It contains the world's largest artificial rainforest, with more than 50,000 plants.
In the southern section of the dome, a special foil roof produces artificial sunlight, so visitors can get a tan even in the middle of winter!
By looking at the enormous dome with new eyes, a company was able to turn this huge space into an amazing vacation spot.
Adaptive reuse helps us preserve our heritage while allowing for new creative developments at the same time.
Each of these remarkable destinations shows that by changing our point of view, we can breathe new life into old, abandoned buildings.
본문 3-2 GPS: Born from a Change in Perspective
GPS: 관점의 변화에서 탄생하다.For thousands of years, humans had difficulty trying to figure out where they were.
So, they devoted a great deal of time and effort to resolving this problem.
They drew complicated maps, constructed great landmarks to keep themselves on the right path, and even learned to navigate by looking up at the stars.
Nowadays, it is much easier to find out where you are and which way to go because you have one of the world's greatest inventions at your fingertips.
As long as you have a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, you never have to worry about taking a wrong turn.
Your GPS receiver can tell you your exact location and give you directions to any place you need to go to, no matter where you are on the planet!
But how was this amazing technology invented?
The story begins in 1957, when the Soviet Union shocked the world by announcing that it had launched Sputnik 1 ― the world's first man-made satellite ― into orbit.
In particular, two researchers at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, were amazed by this achievement.
Filled with curiosity, they built a listening station the following year, and they began to closely monitor Sputnik 1 's radio signal.
While listening to the persistent sound from the satellite, they noticed something interesting: its radio frequency repeatedly became higher and lower.
This was happening because the frequency of a radio signal rises and falls depending on whether the satellite is moving toward or away from the listener.
By keeping track of these changes, Guier and Weiffenbach were able to determine the satellite's precise location.
Although Guier and Weiffenbach found this fascinating, tracking satellites was not exactly part of their duties.
Their director, Frank McClure, called them into his office, suspecting that they had been wasting their time.
He asked them to explain the thing they had been working on.
As Guier and Weiffenbach explained themselves, an idea flashed through McClure's mind.
"If we can figure out where the satellite is," McClure said, "then can't we do the opposite and use the satellite to figure out where we are?"
This turned out to be a revolutionary insight.
Not only could radio signals be measured to track a satellite from the ground, but by measuring the distance from the satellite to the receiver, the receiver's precise location could be determined as well.
This is the fundamental concept behind modern GPS.
Satellites are utilized to transmit signals, and any device with a GPS receiver can use these signals to calculate where you are, how high you are, and even how fast you are moving.
McClure was able to come up with this brilliant insight by taking the idea Guier and Weiffenbach had been researching ― finding where a satellite was from a known location ― and turning it on its head.
Likewise, we can produce extraordinary inventions and ideas by reversing our perspective.
The real act of discovery, it has been said, consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing things with new eyes!
