Architecture Commons^™

Identification And Characterization Of Fine Particulate Matter Hot Spots On An Urban Arterial Corridor Integrating Probe Vehicle, Traffic And Land Use Data, Katherine Eleanor Bell

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of integrated probe vehicle, traffic and land use data to identify and characterize fine particulate matter (PM[subscript 2.5]) hot spot locations on urban arterial corridors. In addition, a preliminary analysis is conducted to consider volatile organic compound (VOC) hot spot locations. A pollutant hot spot is defined as a location on a corridor in which the mean pollutant concentrations are consistently above the 85th percentile of pollutant concentrations when compared to all locations along the corridor. In order to collect data for this study, an electric vehicle was equipped with …

Synergy Of The Developed 6d Bim Framework And Conception Of The Nd Bim Framework And Nd Bim Process Ontology, Shawn Edward O'Keeffe

Dissertations

The author developed a unified nD framework and process ontology for Building Information Modeling (BIM). The research includes a framework developed for 6D BIM, nD BIM, and nD ontology that defines the domain and sub-domain constructs for future nD BIM dimensions. The nD ontology defines the relationships of kinds within any new proposed dimensional domain for BIM. The developed nD BIM framework and ontology takes into account the current 2D-5D BIM dimensions. There is a synergy between the 6D and nD framework that allows the nD framework and ontology to be utilized as a unified template for future dimensional development. …

The Water Wall: A Passive Solar Collection And Thermal Storage Device For Supplementary Radiant Heating, Rhett Roman Noseck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Through the implementation of passive solar building systems, suburbia could take a fresh new step forward toward a progressively more sustainable direction. Making passive solar strategies a priority, master planned community developments would see opportunity to change the style and design of future suburban residences.

The focus and intention of this body of work is to research, design, fabricate, and test a prototype of a passive solar heating device using water as the medium for thermal storage. The size and shape of the design for the water wall device will be determined by the currently built suburban environment; however, for …

A Case Study Of Zero Energy Home Built For Solar Decathlon Competition 2013, Sanjib Mulepati

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Energy consumption in residential homes has been a subject of research related to sustainability. Reduction in the consumption of energy is a goal of sustainable construction. The Department of Energy (DOE) started a Solar Decathlon competition in 2002 in which the students from different universities around the globe build an energy efficient and affordable home suitable for their climate and location. The main goal of this competition is to select the best home that is designed and built in a sustainable way. In this study, the home designed and constructed for participation in the competition by the students at University …

The Cost Of Green Infrastructure: Worth The Investment?, Martha Sheils

Green Infrastructure

Is GI worth the investment?

• LID techniques often lead to cost savings when we look at WHOLE PROJECT COSTS

• Natural Infrastructure investments for flood control, drinking water protection and wildlife habitat can yield SIGNIFICANT AVOIDED COSTS and additional co-benefits to communitites

Evaluation Of Phase Change Materials For Cooling In A Super-Insulated Passive House, Jeffrey Stephen Lauck

Dissertations and Theses

Due to factors such as rising energy costs, diminishing resources, and climate change, the demand for high performance buildings is on the rise. As a result, several new building standards have emerged including the Passive House Standard, a rigorous energy-use standard based on a super-insulated and very tightly sealed building envelope. The standard requires that that air infiltration is less than or equal to 0.6 air changes per hour at a 50 Pascal pressure difference, annual heating energy is less than or equal to 15kWh/m2, and total annual source energy is less than or equal to 120 kWh/m2. A common …

"Toxic" Workplaces: The Negative Interface Between The Physical And Social Environments, Linda Too, Michael Harvey

Linda Too

Toxic real estate has been used as a negative phrase to describe non-performing assets on a firm's balance sheet. Today there is another form of "TOXIC" real estate that needs management's attention, i.e. physical workplaces that are harmful to employees on a day-in and day-out basis. Particularly when productivity of workforce is now central to business competitiveness, it is timely to explore the interface between physical and social environments as many of the social/psychological impacts on employees have not been recognized or calibrated. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between physical workplace and social behaviour.

Modelling Property Management Decisions Using 'Iconcur', Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Jim Smith

Making appropriate decisions concerning the ongoing management of existing built facilities is an important activity for property and facilities managers. This paper describes the development of a new conceptual framework for making better decisions about built assets at an early stage in the process, with a view to identifying which course of action to pursue. The resulting model, known as iconCUR, uses a weighted matrix methodology to obtain performance scores for condition, utilization and reward that are capable of mapping property decisions in 3D space over time. Via a case study of a real project in Sydney (Australia), the application …

Benchmarking Public Private Partnership Environments: East Asian Comparisons, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

The Public Private Partnerships (PPP) markets in Australia and the UK are considered to be the most sophisticated in the World and used as a model for benchmarking against other countries. In addition the global financial crisis also meant many PPP financiers became risk averse to certain projects and in particular countries. The environment for major infrastructure projects, particularly in ‘riskier’ countries, has become more difficult. Research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit for the Asian Development Bank evaluated PPP policy and programs in a number of countries in the Asia Pacific. The study benchmarks the UK and Australian PPP …

A New Framework For Post Occupancy Evaluation Of Office Buildings, Abdullah Al-Khawaja, Craig Langston, Brian Purdey

Craig Langston

Over the last three decades there has been growing interest and attention placed on sustainability and the contribution made by the built environment. Environmental auditing applied to buildings has largely been concerned with energy/water usage and waste. This paper argues that post occupancy evaluation can be a useful tool in validating the performance of commercial office buildings in terms of key design objectives of human comfort and productivity, from the perspective of building inhabitants. A new assessment framework, with post occupancy evaluation at its heart, is developed based on a double-loop (learning) cycle for continuous process improvement founded on three …

Competition Environment, Strategy And Performance In The Hong Kong Construction Industry, Yongtao Tan, Liyin Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Given a changing competition environment, strategic management has become of essential importance to construction firms. Effective strategy enables construction firms to match their activities to the changing environment and achieve superior performance in competition. Therefore, there is a need for studying contractors’ competitive strategies. This paper does that in relation to the Hong Kong construction industry. The impact of competition environment on contractor performance, and the relationship between competitive strategy and performance are examined by a questionnaire survey. The findings show that competition environment has a great impact on contractor performance, and four generic competitive strategies have been applied by …

Modelling Built Asset Preformance In 3d Space, David Copray, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

This paper describes current research into the performance ‘decay’ of built assets over time through the enumeration of physical condition, space utilization and triple bottom line reward. Applying a retrospective study of the Melbourne General Post Office (GPO) from 1841 to today, these three variables can be assessed and mapped in 3D space using Langston and Smith’s iconCUR model. An index comprising all three variables can be constructed to track the performance of this building over its life cycle to test whether traditional theoretical decay curves used in asset management have any practical value. Such an approach can be employed …

Modelling Property Management Decisions Using 'Iconcur', Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Making appropriate decisions concerning the ongoing management of existing built facilities is an important activity for property and facilities managers. This paper describes the development of a new conceptual framework for making better decisions about built assets at an early stage in the process, with a view to identifying which course of action to pursue. The resulting model, known as iconCUR, uses a weighted matrix methodology to obtain performance scores for condition, utilization and reward that are capable of mapping property decisions in 3D space over time. Via a case study of a real project in Sydney (Australia), the application …

A Casual [Causal] Relationship Between Building Maintenance Market And Gdp: Hong Kong Study, Yong-Tao Tan, Liyin Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between the building maintenance market and GDP in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach: The Granger causality test is used to investigate the lead-lag relationships between the maintenance and repair work and GDP in Hong Kong. With regression analysis, the future trend of the maintenance market is forecasted. Findings: The results show that the growth of the economy will lead to the growth of the maintenance market, not vice-versa. And the building maintenance market in Hong Kong will keep increasing with the economy growth. Originality/value: This paper shows that the growth …

High Density High Rise Vertical Living For Low Income People In Colombo, Sri Lanka: Learning From Pruitt-Igoe, Thushara Samaratunga, Daniel O'Hare

Daniel O'Hare

The Colombo Master Plan (2008) reveals that there are 66,000 households within the City of Colombo living in squalid slums and shanties unfit for human habitation. They represent 51 per cent of the total city population, and live in 1,506 pockets of human concentration identified as Under Served Settlements (USS) encumbering on state owned lands with no title. About 390 hectares of valuable prime lands in the City have succumbed to the encroachment process during the past five decades. Moreover they have engulfed all the environmentally sensitive low lying areas, canal banks and flood retention areas as well as roads, …

Introduction, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

ExtractAsk people to think of a catchment and they tend to think of large geographical areas and extensive communities, for example the Nile River and all the people who work on and around it and benefit from it. As the Nile catchment illustrates, many large catchments extend beyond the boundaries of one nation. For some of the world’s largest river basins, not just two, but many more countries can have some or all of their territory in the basin. National boundaries dissect catchments. A variety of different land uses and human occupations make diversity the norm of catchment economies and …

The Principles Of Sustainability And Economics, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

ExtractWe have already pointed out that in 1987 the United Nations’ four- year-long investigation of environmental and development matters, the Brundtland Report, came to its conclusions and put the concept of sustainable development on the agenda of governments worldwide. Five principles underpin the concept. Two are ethical constructs, rather than being science-based. The first, and best known, is the principle of intergenerational equity. At its simplest this requires us to manage the globe’s ecosystems and economies in a manner whereby future generations will be worse off than present generations. And for those presently living in poverty, it requires much improvement …

The Value Of Water, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

ExtractOur catchment is different from those that supply towns and cities with water for residential purposes and those that supply industry (for example providing cooling for power plants). It is a simple catchment, meeting simple needs - farming, oyster growing, and residential needs for drinking and washing water. We have already explained the controversy that has arisen over the proposal to change water allocation in the catchment by constructing a large dam in a corner of the upper catchment. Rather than to go immediately to the issue of the value of water if switched between users, we take the effort …

The People And Use Of Natural Resources, Tor Hundloe, Peter Daniels, Amy White, Christine Crawford

Tor Hundloe

Extract With the brief history behind us, we now start to develop our understanding of the Little Swanport catchment as it is today. While considerable time will be spent on description, never far from our mind will be the central issues and questions we have dealt with in the lead-up to our case study. If this river basin was a nation (obviously a tiny one, in the San Marino league), what would we make of its economy and society? As a river basin, could its economy and society be improved by changing its present use of water, the resource that …

The World's Great River Basins, Tor Hundloe, Amy White

Tor Hundloe

Extract All of us live, work, and manage our affairs in what we call a nation or country. We expect to find rivers and river basins, if only the most meagre ones, in all countries. The tiniest amount of rain needs to drain somewhere - unless the soil or sand is so porous that it disappears without trace. Draining water forms a rivulet. A number of rivulets fed by the same rainfall combine to form a proto-catchment or rivulet basin. Australia is a country containing many significant river basins, one large and dominant, plus hundreds of smaller ones. Our challenge, …

Introduction To Sustainability, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

ExtractWhat do we think when using the term sustainability? If we wish to sustain the ecology, the economy, and the social relationships in a river basin, what do we mean? I imagine we think of it in terms of sustaining our particular lifestyles, assuming they are enjoyable. We think of sustaining jobs - no one wishes to worry about losing paid work. This would apply regardless of how we view our work - even work we do not enjoy is valuable because it pays the bills. We want to sustain our incomes however they are earned, as profits, as wages, …

An Introduction To The Little Swanport Catchment, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

Extract

From here on, the book deals in considerable detail with one small catchment. What goes on in the catchment is described, places of interest are identified and so are some individuals. Our research took us deep into the lives of people in a small catchment. Of course, we cannot, and do not, delve far into personal matters where they must remain personal. Our interests are the social, economic and environmental relationship in a tiny catchment. Historical facts and matters of community interest that residents shared with us, and are willing to share with the reader, are here to be …

A Short History Of The Catchment Settlement, Tor Hundloe, Michelle Wenner

Tor Hundloe

Extract

As already noted, our catchment has a human history of some significance – feeding approximately one-tenth of the Indigenous Tasmanian population for millennia. Of this we know little, and so it will remain indefinitely. There are no history books to read. However, it is for our research, at the very least, to sketch the available history of the catchment, because history does matter, and there is invariably what economists call ’path dependence’ - what occurs today can be traced to what happened yesterday, the day before and the day before that, going back to some earlier ’tipping point’ in …

Economic Values Of Nature, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

ExtractIn this and the next chapter, we take up the challenge of how we might formally link the economy to the environment. First some background which follows on from our previous discussion. It has become increasingly obvious during the past 50 years that nature is being degraded through the release of pollutants and widespread over-use of natural resources, both finite and renewable. It costs polluters nothing to use and abuse the rivers, the oceans, and the atmosphere. Thor Heyerdahl, in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean more than 60 years ago, was astounded to find large blobs of pollutants …

Practical Measurements: Water As An Ecosystem Good, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

Extract

We started with the proposition that catchments (or river basins) would form ideal national boundaries. Although a river can wind through myriad sub-ecosystems (from mountains, to grasslands, to wetlands), it is the life blood of the system, falling water, running water, underground water and evaporating water, that captures our attention and presents both the opportunities and constraints that define our natural economy. If a catchment (presumably a large one) was a nation, the first thing we would do is construct a comprehensive model of its economy. Our treasury departments, in particular, and our governments in general, could not operate …

The Catchment Regional Economy, Tor Hundloe, Peter Daniels

Tor Hundloe

Extract

A catchment’s surrounding environment is not limited to towns and cities on the periphery of the catchment. It is likely that a far wider, much larger economy is associated with the catchment community and its economy. That wider economy could be the state, province or nation in which the catchment sits. Recall our discussion of the Nile River basin - the basin is Egypt, the rest is desert. Egypt would not be a country without the Nile. The Mississippi-Missouri River basin in the United States is not all of the United States, but nevertheless a great slice of it. …

Conclusions, Christine Crawford, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

Extract We have come to understand the human-environment dynamics of a small Tasmanian catchment. Our focus throughout the extended period we spent in the field (and sitting in front of computer screens) was to explore the relationships between the use of water by farmers and the needs of oyster growers. The relationship between upstream catchment activities and the quality and quantity of water downstream (in estuaries and off-shore lagoons) is the fundamental issue in catchment management. It necessitates an analysis of the value of water in different, and often competing, uses. On the face of it, that might seem a …

World Peace, Linux And Project Management Standards, Lynn Crawford

Lynn Crawford

For over a decade a group of dedicated volunteers has been working through the Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS) to provide a bridge between the different standards for project management produced by both professional and commercial organizations. The GAPPS aims to provide an independent benchmark and a basis for transportability, transferability and mutual recognition of project management standards and qualifications. GAPPS is supported by government standards bodies and agencies, professional associations, corporations and academic institutions. So what is the link with world peace and Linux? Well, achieving mutual recognition of project management qualifications often seems like a desirable …

Best Industry Outcomes, Lynn Crawford, Terry Cooke-Davies

Lynn Crawford

Best practices are all around us. But, best practices for whom and under what conditions? Best Industry Outcomes answers this critical question. This is a text for both thinkers and doers those who study and those who practice project management. Project management does not exist in a one-size-fits-all world. This research examines practices in nine industries: aerospace and defense, automotive, engineering and construction, financial services, government, IT and telecommunications, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and utilities.

Projects Success: Looking Beyond The Project Management Toolkit., Lynn Crawford

Lynn Crawford

Identification of factors that contribute to the success of projects has been a continuing interest of practitioners and a recurring theme in project management research and literature. The aim of this research is to extend the search for factors critical to success of projects, beyond the traditional project management toolkit to consider change implementation practices. Results from 160 respondents from both engineering and finance sector organizations indicate that project management, change implementation and benefits realization practices are positively correlated with perceived likelihood of project success. However, a key finding of this research is that the practices found to be most …