📘 Part 3: Architecture and buildings

This episode's vocabulary

At a premium - if you get something at a premium, you pay a high price for it, esp. because it is not easily available.

Greenery (noun) - green plants or branches, especially when cut and used as decoration.

Skyscraper (noun) - a very tall modern building, usually in a city.

Amenity (noun) - something, such as a swimming pool or shopping centre, that is intended to make life more pleasant or comfortable for the people in a town, hotel, or other place.

Crane (noun) - a tall metal structure with a long horizontal part, used for lifting and moving heavy objects.

High-rise (noun) - a tall modern building with many floors.

Accommodation (noun) - a place to live, work, stay, etc. in.

Infrastructure (noun) - the basic systems and services, such as transport and power supplies, that a country or organization uses in order to work effectively.

Large-scale (adj.) - involving many people or things, or happening over a large area.

Aesthetic (noun) - relating to the enjoyment or study of beauty.

Shoddily (adj.) - in a way that is careless, of poor quality, and that uses low quality materials.

To construct (verb) - to build something or put together different parts to form something whole.

Storey (noun) - a level of a building.

Dozens (plural) - a large but not exact number.

To crave (verb) - to have a very strong feeling of wanting something.

Novelty (noun) - the quality of being new and unusual.

Inescapable (adj.) - if a fact or a situation is inescapable, it cannot be ignored or avoided

Building code (noun) - a set of local laws relating to how buildings should be designed or built, especially so that they are safe and of acceptable quality.

Vindictive (adj.) - having or showing a wish to harm someone because you think that they harmed you; unwilling to forgive.

Malevolent (adj.) - causing or wanting to cause harm or evil.

Either-or (adj.) - used to refer to a situation in which there is a choice between two different plans of action, but both together are not possible.

Inspector (noun) - someone whose job is to officially inspect something.

Build-up (noun) - an increase in the amount of something over a period of time.

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Questions and Answers

M: Why do some people like to live in tall buildings nowadays?

R: Well, space is at a premium, isn't it? And I think most people are living in cities now, aren't they? So rather than expand outwards, many places are building upwards since it's cheaper and more efficient.

M: What are the disadvantages of living in tall buildings?

R: Well, it's a pretty serious fire hazard, isn't it? And the lack of greenery and open spaces can be a problem for people both psychologically and physiologically. I don't think many skyscrapers have much in the way of amenities either now that I think about it.

M: Do you think there'll be more tall buildings in the future?

R: Well, it certainly seems to be the case whenever I look around Moscow. You can see cranes constructing more and more high-rises all the time.

M: Why aren't there many tall buildings in the countryside?

R: Well, the concentration of people is lower. So it's just not necessary if we think about accommodation. Oh, the infrastructure is less developed as well so it's generally harder to support large-scale building projects in the middle of nowhere, isn't it?

M: Do you think that in the future, they're gonna start building tall buildings in the countryside?

R: I can't imagine why they would need to. Well, not for accommodation purposes. You don't have that many people. They might undertake some large-scale construction projects, like maybe another Hadron Collider.

M: Does the design of the building influence people's mood?

R: People say this, and I think there might be an element of truth to it, if something is like so badly built that nothing works properly, or if it ruins local sweet spots, for example. By contrast, if it's built to last and fits in with the aesthetic of the area and works well, then people will feel better about it.

M: Do you see that in a badly designed building, people would feel blue and less happy?

R: Well, yeah. But that's not because of how the building looks. That's because like it's shoddily constructed.

M: What types of buildings are the most popular in your country today?

R: Well, there are lots of two to three-storey buildings in Scotland. And they house the apartments and shops. And sometimes they have five or six storeys, but nothing like in Moscow, where you've got some buildings that have dozens of floors, for example.

M: What impact does the climate and the environment have on the design of buildings in different countries?

R: Well, if we take areas with heavy snowfall, for example. And you often see buildings with slopes so that snow can slide off them. In higher buildings, this isn't possible. So they're designed with roof access to allow people to push off the snow that builds up over time. They tend to have stronger roofs in this respect too so they don't collapse in on themselves.

M: So the climate does influence the architecture of different buildings?

R: Well, it influences parts of it. I mean obviously, that won't be the only thing but it has to be taken into consideration.

M: Why do people love modern architecture?

R: Well, people crave novelty. So anything new is welcomed, whether it's architecture or new app on your phone. So I don't think they love modern architecture, just because it's modern architecture. They like it because it's new.

M: Do you think that there should be famous buildings in the country?

R: Well, it's unavoidable since people's memories of events are tied to places where they happen. Like you take the Kremlin, for example. And all of the decisions taken and events that have occurred there and are likely to. It's kind of inescapable.

M: Do you think safety standards are important when building people's homes?

R: Oh definitely. You can't live in a place if you stand a good chance of dying in it. And people spend so much time at home. They deserve a safe place to live.

M: But do you think sometimes safety standards are sacrificed for design?

R: I can't think of a time when that's happened. Oh, well, not in the case of homes anyway. And no, not for people's homes. I can't think of a time when that's happened. Maybe, oh, in favelas in Brazil, for example. There's no building codes. And, you know, I imagine sometimes they collapse. But that's not because people are vindictive or malevolent. That's just because of the situation that people find themselves in there.

M: But sometimes companies use cheap materials or they don't...

R: Well, I don't think people, there aren't any building companies in favelas, people build their own homes there.

M: Hmm, but what about in cities? In large cities, companies don't take care of materials they're

using or they don't control certain things and then the building collapses.

R: Yes. Or even to a lesser extent, there are, oh, you see this in new apartments in Tver, for example. There the ceilings are so low, I don't really know how tall people cope. But again, I suppose that's just because of what they have available to them. They would probably make the case that that's what's happening.

M: Who should be responsible for enforcing strict building codes? The government or the people who build the homes?

R: Well, I don't think that's an either-or situation, do you? I mean it's more a case of the range of options available to both. So the government can hire inspectors to specialize in this area, and go around looking for potential problems, while the people building the homes are already there on the ground to make sure they uphold the laws and codes while the inspectors are elsewhere. So it's a shared responsibility, isn't it?

M: Rory, thank you very much for your answers!

R: I hope there was a nice build-up of vocabulary.

M: It is a nice build-up of vocabulary on buildings and architecture.

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