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Learning Commons
Culinary Reactions
When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe, you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful bacteria and fungi. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.
In Culinary Reactions, author Simon Quellen Field turns measuring cups, stovetop burners, and mixing bowls into graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners, and beakers. How does altering the ratio of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, butter, and water affect how high bread rises? Why is whipped cream made with nitrous oxide rather than the more common carbon dioxide? And why does Hollandaise sauce call for "clarified" butter? This easy-to-follow primer even includes recipes to demonstrate the concepts being discussed, including: Whipped Creamsicle Topping—a foam; Cherry Dream Cheese—a protein gle; Lemonade with Chameleon Eggs—an acid indicator; and more!
Spaces in Architecture
The design of a building is a complex process in which the architect develops spaces which are defined by a number of different parameters. The most important of these are space requirements, distances, furniture and fittings, and movement zones. From the dimensions of the human body it is possible to derive guide values for these reference sizes that make spaces comfortable to be in and to use. Spaces in Architecture is a useful reference work for students and designers for quickly looking up detailed information on space scenarios that occur in many different types of buildings. For example, the book lists all important dimensions for entrance areas, doors, staircases, ramps, and elevators. On the basis of this fundamental information it is possible to design buildings in terms of function and type.