新闻万花筒：VOA视角之建立模块化房屋以满足人类住房需求

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Building Plans for Wiki-Style House Available Online

About one third of the world's city dwellers live in substandard housing, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. But researchers say free plans now available online for building houses made of manufactured parts that perfectly fit together may help solve this problem.

The world population is expected to grow to more than 8 billion by 2030, and the housing situation in urban centers is already a huge problem. Building new homes the traditional way still takes weeks or months.

In a London neighborhood, a group of volunteers is constructing a house made of prefabricated plywood panels and parts, the so-called Wiki House. All parts were precisely cut in a Computer Numerical Control, or CNC machine, following a free plan downloaded from the Internet.

Co-founder of the U.K.-based WikiHouse Foundation, architectural designer Alastair Parvin, said this could be the solution for affordable housing.

WikiHouse is essentially a series of technologies we're developing aimed at massively simplifying the process of making really sustainable high performance houses to a point where almost anyone can do it," he said. "And to do that we're using the power of the web and digital manufacturing technologies like 3-D printing.”

Precise cutting allows a perfect fit for all parts, which speeds up the process of assembly. No special tools are required.

The Wiki House was built in 10 days for exhibition purposes. Then, it was taken apart and reassembled elsewhere for permanent use.

Parvin said the whole concept is based on the blueprints available online.

“Open-source software is now really established, it drives a lot of the software we use," he said. "What's happening now is that that's now coming into the world of physical things, so we're effectively building a kind of Wikipedia for physical stuff.”

Parvin said the project is in its early stages, with limited availability. But he said he expects it to grow as more people start showing interest in houses whose assembly requires no special skills.

词汇解析

tolerance

难度：3星常用词汇，属常用6000词

英汉解释

n.宽容；忍耐力；容忍；公差

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

Tolerance is another name for indifference.

宽容是不关心的别名。

She had no tolerance for jokes of any kind.

她容不得开任何玩笑。

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current

难度：5星基本词汇，属常用1000词

英汉解释

n.趋势；(水、气、电)流

adj.现在的；流通的

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

Nothing disturbs the peaceful current of life in the village.

没有任何事干扰村里一向平静的生活.

用作形容词 (adj.)

How long will she keep her current job?

她现在这份工作能维持多久?

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regarding

英汉解释

prep.关于；至于

参考例句

用作介词 (prep.)

She said nothing regarding your request.

她对你的要求只字不提。

I care about nothing regarding my future career.

至于未来,我一点儿也不关心。

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additional

pinlv: hanyin:

英汉解释

adj.附加的；额外的

参考例句

用作形容词 (adj.)

You should know the additional responsibilities that are incidental to the job.

你该知道做这项工作要承担额外责任。

We are willing to pay an additional fee for immediate delivery .

我们愿意为即期交货支付一笔额外的费用。

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blast

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

n.爆炸；巨响；一阵(强风)；严厉的批评；<美俚>愉快的经历

v.爆破；摧毁；发出巨响；用力撞击；批评

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

27 school children were injured in the blast.

27名学龄儿童在爆炸中受了伤。

用作动词 (v.)

A massive car bomb blasted the police headquarters.

一个巨大的汽车炸弹在警局总部爆炸。

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cancel

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

v.取消；作废；注销；抵消；删除

n.取消；删除

参考例句

用作动词 (v.)

The match had to be cancelled due to the bad weather.

比赛因天气不好只得取消。

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umbrella

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

n.伞；雨伞；庇护

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

The wind blew my umbrella inside out.

风把我的伞吹得翻过去了。

Those small states are under the umbrella of the super power.

那些小国在超级大国的庇护之下。

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