Exercise 4

Choose the correct definition that best keeps its meaning in the right hand column.

1.urban 2.lay out 3.embodiment 4.consider 5.canvass 6.drawback 7.advantage

a) material representation b) to discuss or examine carefully; to ask for opinions. c) having to do with town or cities and not the countryside d) disadvantage e) plan or arrangement f) a favorable factor or circumstance affording superiority. g) to draw a line or to show the shape of smith round the outside edge.

Exercise 5

Match an adjective in column A with a noun in column B.

Example: Big city

A	B
industrial architectural municipal public clean small	service air boiler center embodiment noise

Exercise 6

Read the text and try to understand its content.

Environmental and Social Impact

There are big cities and small towns. There are towns that “live off” one industry and others that are manifold. There are university towns and resort towns. Anadyr’ in Chukotka is in the permafrost zone, Petropavlovsk – Kamchatsky is near several active volcanoes. The town development is guided by master plans. All of them look a lot better now than they did before. The buildings are more attractive and more comfortable, the streets are wider and straighter, there is more greenery, the air is cleaner. Speaking of the size of a city, every type has both advantages and drawbacks.

In considering the design of a town or city we must always remember that the town must be sited in a healthy position, free from dust, fogs, its layout must not encourage winds through urban spaces and it must not pollute its own atmosphere. It must provide proper standards of space and sunlight to its buildings and open spaces and it must be possible to move about the town easily without danger to life. Its parts must be so arranged that it is a convenient place for dwelling, working and playing. The general plans of a town are known to take into consideration the advantageous siting of industrial undertakings and residential areas, the laying out of highways, the organization of municipal transport, the creation of centers and green belts, and the development of public services and communication.

To maintain the oxygen balance of a large industrial city, there has to be at least 25 m² of trees and bushes per resident. Moscow, with 40% of its area covered with greenery, exceeds this standards. Even without counting the forests which surround the city on all sides there is several times more greenery per president in Moscow than in the big cities outside Russia.

Of course, this does not totally explain Moscow’s clean air and the absence of smog. A range of measures designed to prevent air pollution have been carried out – offending factories have been rebuilt or relocated outside city limits, dust traps have been installed at all factories, small boilers have been abolished and the ecologically clean modes of public transport have been developed.

Our specialists maintain that the planting of greenery is the least expensive and most effective way of improving the air of large industrial centers. No matter how perfect the dust traps are, they will not add oxygen to the air. Meanwhile, a hectare of park or garden produces as much oxygen as 200 people consume. Properly chosen trees and shrubs reduce the municipal noise level by 20% and regulate the city’s temperature.

The architectural embodiment of the modern city is in fact impossible until biological, social and personal needs have been canvassed until the cultural and educational purposes of the city have been outlined and until all of man’s activities have been integrated into a balanced whole. One cannot base an architectural conception on such a sociology as that which led a group of modern architects and planners to examine the modern city with reference to only four functions: work, transportation, dwelling and recreation.

Notes to the text:

1. take into consideration принимать во внимание

2. master plan генеральный план

3. dust trap пылеуловитель

4. no matter не имеет значения

5. in fact на самом деле, фактически

6. with reference to что касается, относительно того, что