雅思阅读真题（Part 3）
多功能会议空间与21世纪建筑趋势
本篇也叫：多功能会议空间、多用途会议空间、混合空间、城市游牧族、Nomad咖啡馆、Stata中心
Part 3 · 考频：中频 · 最近考试：2024.2.24
本篇为雅思阅读真题（Part 3）《Multi-purpose meeting spaces》，共 14 题，2024.2.24雅思考试真题回忆，页面提供完整原文、题目、答案与解析，并支持在线机考模式免费练习。本页同时提供 Markdown 版本 供 AI 助手与搜索引擎直接读取。
文章探讨21世纪建筑趋势，以加州Nomad咖啡馆和麻省理工学院Stata中心为例，描述城市游牧族（urban nomads）随时联网、移动办公的生活方式如何促使建筑师重新设计建筑与公共空间，打造集学习、社交、工作于一体的混合空间。
Trends in 21st-century architecture
A
At the Nomad Café in California, Katrina Canlas, a law student at a nearby university, places her espresso next to her mobile phone, opens her laptop, logs on to the internet and begins preparing for her next class. She's a regular here but doesn't usually bring cash, so her credit-card statement each month reads "Nomad, Nomad, Nomad. That says it all, she thinks. She's one of today's 'urban nomads", permanently connected and constantly moving from place to place. She communicates all day by text, photo, video or voice with friends and family, and amazingly does her work stuff at the same time. She roams around town, but alights at oases that cater to her and her fellow nomads.
B
Christopher Waters opened the Nomad Café in 2003 to provide a watering-hole for techno- Bedouins such as himself. Since Bedouins, whether in Arabian deserts or American suburbs, are tribal creatures, Waters understood from the outset that a good urban oasis has to do more than provide internet access; It must above all be a new or very old-kind of gathering place. Urban nomads and their lifestyles are causing architects and planners to rethink how they design buildings and public spaces and even entire cities.
C
A prime example of this new architecture can be found in the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed by architect Frank Gehry. Gehry likes to cause a bit of controversy, and the Stata Center certainly did the trick. Opened in 2004, its façade of bizarre angles and windows became a Boston landmark. But the building's most radical innovation is on the inside. The entire structure was conceived as a kind of hybrid space', with the nomadic lifestyles of modern students and academic staff in mind. This is best seen in the building's 'student street, an interior passage, dotted with nooks and crannies, that twists and meanders through the complex and is open 24 hours a day. Cafés and lounges are interspersed with work desks and whiteboards, and there is free internet access everywhere. Students, teachers and visitors are studying, chatting, napping, emailing, researching, and reading. Every bit of this space can instantaneously become the venue for a seminar, a snack or a friendship.
D
The fact that people are no longer tied to specific places for functions such as studying or learning means that since the tum of the 21st century there has been a huge drop in demand for traditional, private, enclosed spaces such as offices or classrooms. Simultaneously there has been a tremendous rise in demand for semi-public spaces that can be informally appropriated as ad-hoc work-spaces. This shift marks the biggest change in architecture in the 21st century. In the previous century, architecture was about specialised structures-offices for working, cafeterias for eating and so forth. This was necessary because workers needed to be near landline phones, fax machines and filling cabinets, and because the economics of building materials favoured repetitive and simple structures, such as grid patterns and cubides
E
With spaces made intentionally multi-functional, 21st-century aesthetics will probably be the exact opposite of the sci-fi chic thuat 20th-century futurists once imagined. For example, buildings will have much more varied shapes than before. People working on faptops find it comforting to have their backs to a wall, so hybrid spaces will become curviefand snake-like in order to make best use of the surface area of their inner walls. This is more affordable today because computer-aided design and new materials make non-repetitive forms cheaper to build.
F
Flexibility is what separates today's successful spaces from unsuccessful ones. For example, a not-for-profit organisation in New York turtied Bryant Park, a once-derelict but charming garden in front of the city's public library, into a hybrid-space park popular with office workers. The park's manager noticed that a lot of visitors were using mobile phones and laptops there, so they installed Wi-Fi and added some chairs and desks. The idea was not to distract people from the flowers but to let them use their little bit of park as they saw fit.
G
The academic name for such spaces is third places', a term coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989. Oldenburg wanted to distinguish between the sociological functions of people's first places where they live, their second places where they work and the other public spaces that serve them as safe, neutral and informal meeting points which would encourage conversation. As Oldenburg saw it, a good third place makes admission free or cheap-the price of a cup of coffee, say-offers creature comforts, and draws a group of regulars. He felt that most people, especially in suburban areas, were moving only between first and second places. Society, Oldenburg feared, was at risk of coming unstuck in these areas without third place venues for spreading ideas and forming bonds.
H
But, do the casis-like internet cafés for urban nomads play the role that Oldenburg envisioned? James Katz of Rutgers University warns that these cafés are often full of people with headphones on, speaking on their mobile phones and hacking away at their laptop keyboards. They are more engaged with their email inbox than with the people touching their elbows. These places are 'physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated, says Katz, which leaves people feeling 'more isolated than they would be if the cafe were merely empty. Many cafés are trying to deal with this problem by, for example, hosting special events such as live jazz and poetry readings and actually turning off their internet connections at this time so that people, mingle more. Clearly the new cases and the urban nomads who spawned them are still evolving.
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答案：A typifies her way of life.
原文定位：She's a regular here but doesn't usually bring cash, so her credit-card statement each month reads "Nomad, Nomad, Nomad. That says it all, she thinks
答案：B its creation of a pleasant social atmosphere.
原文定位：Waters understood from the outset that a good urban oasis has to do more than provide internet access; It must above all be a new or very old-kind of gathering place
答案：C its most revolutionary aspect.
原文定位：But the building's most radical innovation is on the inside
答案：D to be interchangeable in their uses
原文定位：Every bit of this space can instantaneously become the venue for a seminar, a snack or a friendship
答案：YES
原文定位：the fact that people are no longer tied to specific places for functions such as studying or learning means that since the turn of the 21st century there has been a huge drop in demand for traditional, private, enclosed spaces such as offices or classrooms. Simultaneously there has been a tremendous rise in demand for semi-public spaces that can be informally appropriated as ad-hoc work-spaces
答案：NOT GIVEN
答案：YES
原文定位：This was necessary because workers needed to be near landline phones, fax machines and filling cabinets, and because the economics of building materials favoured repetitive and simple structures, such as grid patterns and cubicles
答案：YES
原文定位：For example, buildings will have much more varied shapes than before
答案：NOT GIVEN
答案：E are based on people's previously observed patterns of activity.
原文定位：The park's manager noticed that a lot of visitors were using mobile phones and laptops there, so they installed Wi-Fi and added some chairs and desks
答案：C should be inexpensive, relaxing and secure.
原文定位：a good third place makes admission free or cheap-the price of a cup of coffee, say-offers creature comforts, and draws a group of regulars
答案：H are in danger of losing their social cohesion.
原文定位：He felt that most people, especially in suburban areas, were moving only between first and second places. Society, Oldenburg feared, was at risk of coming unstuck in these areas without third place venues for spreading ideas and forming bonds
答案：G are a common sight in internet cafés.
原文定位：These places are 'physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated,' says Katz, which leaves people feeling 'more isolated than they would be if the cafe were merely empty
答案：B encourage users to temporarily give up their mobile electronics.
原文定位：Many cafés are trying to deal with this problem by, for example, hosting special events such as live jazz and poetry readings and actually turning off their internet connections at this time so that people mingle more