Beach house

A beach house is a house on or near a beach, sometimes used as a vacation or second home for people who commute to the house on weekends or during vacation periods. Beach houses are often designed to weather the type of climate they are built in and the building materials and construction methods used in beach housing vary widely around the world. Beach houses require special paint to protect them from the salt water. If a property is built on sand, it needs foundation with special requirements.

Beach houses are often associated with beach gardens with a special planting and a particular type of leisure use. One of the most famous twentieth century beach gardens was constructed by Derek Jarman at Dungeness, England. It celebrated local materials, native plants and the openness of the site. Other beach gardens have tried to create an isolated microclimate. Swimming pools are popular in beach gardens. American architect Andrew Geller designed sculptural beach houses in the coastal regions of New England during the 1950s and 60s.

Beach House

Beach House is an American dream pop band from Baltimore, Maryland, formed in 2004. The band consists of French-born Victoria Legrand (vocals, keyboards) and Baltimore native Alex Scally (guitar, keyboards).

Their self-titled debut album was released in 2006 to critical acclaim and has been followed by Devotion in 2008, Teen Dream in 2010, Bloom in 2012, and Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars in 2015.

History

Formation and Beach House

Vocalist and organist Victoria Legrand, who graduated from Vassar College in 2003, and guitarist Alex Scally, who graduated from Oberlin College in 2004, formed the band in 2004 after meeting in Baltimore's indie rock scene, producing music composed largely of organ, programmed drums, and slide guitar. Of the origins of the band name, Scally said: "We’d been writing music, and we had all these songs, and then there was that moment where you say ‘what do we call ourselves?’ We tried to intellectualize it, and it didn’t work. There were different plant-names, Wisteria, that kind of thing. Stupid stuff. But, once we stopped trying, it just came out, it just happened. And it just seemed perfect." In an interview with Pitchfork Media, Legrand addressed their two member status; "[I]t's a way to challenge ourselves: What do you do when it's just the two of you... [O]ne of the reasons this has been such a fulfilling experience for me is that with two people, it's so much easier to achieve things that feel exciting and new."

Better Place

Better Place was a venture-backed international company that developed and sold battery-charging and battery-switching services for electric cars. It was formally based in Palo Alto, California, but the bulk of its planning and operations were steered from Israel, where both its founder Shai Agassi and its chief investors resided.

The company opened its first functional charging station the first week of December 2008 at Cinema City in Pi-Glilot near Tel Aviv, Israel The first customer deliveries of Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars enabled with battery switching technology began in Israel in the second quarter of 2012, and at peak in mid September 2012, there were 21 operational battery-swap stations open to the public in Israel.

Better Place filed for bankruptcy in Israel in May 2013. The company's financial difficulties were caused by mismanagement, wasteful efforts to establish toeholds and run pilots in too many countries, the high investment required to develop the charging and swapping infrastructure, and a market penetration far lower than originally predicted by Shai Agassi. Less than 1,000 Fluence Z.E. cars were deployed in Israel and around 400 units in Denmark, after spending about US$850 million in private capital. After two failed post-bankruptcy acquisition attempts, the bankruptcy receivers sold off the remaining assets in November 2013 to Grngy for only $450,000.

House

A house is a building that functions as a home, ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shantytowns to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, marble or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation and electrical systems. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups or individuals. The design and structure of the house is also subject to change as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and other social, economic, demographic, and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors also influence the building style and patterns of domestic space.