Architecture Commons^™

The Urban Infrastructure For Sustainability: Learning From Kigali, Marwan Ghandour

Marwan Ghandour

Until 2013, when a new master plan for the city was approved, Kigali had very few urban regulations in place. Incremental constructions, usually associated with informal urbanization, were the norm rather than the exception. Most of the city fabric grew organically creating a unique configuration of urban adjacencies, which would be improbable for planners and designers to imagine. This configuration is particular to the geographic, economic and social conditions of the city as incremental urbanization slowly adjusted to the living conditions, through the actions of thousands of city residents over a long period of time. These actions were formed in …

Developing A Workflow To Integrate Tree Inventory Data Into Urban Energy Models, Farzad Hashemi, Breanna L. Marmur, Ulrike Passe, Janette R. Thompson

Farzad Hashemi

Building energy simulation is of considerable interest and benefit for architects, engineers, and urban planners. Only recently has it become possible to develop integrated energy models for clusters of buildings in urban areas. Simulating energy consumption of the built environment on a relatively large scale (e.g., such as a neighborhood) will be necessary to obtain more reliable results, since building energy parameters are influenced by characteristics of the nearby environment. Therefore, the construction of a 3-D model of urban built areas with detail of the near-building environment should enhance simulation approaches and provide more accurate results. This paper describes the …

The Impact Of Trees On Passive Survivability During Extreme Heat Events In Warm And Humid Regions, Ulrike Passe, Janette R. Thompson, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Boshun Gao, Breanna L. Marmur

Breanna L. Marmur

Communities are increasingly affected by excessive heat. The likelihood of extreme heat events is predicted to increase in the Midwest region of the United States. By mid-century (2036–2065), one year out of 10 is projected to have a 5-day period that is 13°F warmer than a comparable earlier period (1976–2005). The frequency of high humidity/dew point days (“extra moist tropical air mass days,” MT++ synoptic climate classification system) has also increased significantly during a similar period (1975–2010) and between 2010 and 2014 included 8 of 26 heat events. This impact is exacerbated by the fact that many residences in low-income …

Biobased Products And The Leed® Rating System, Meredith Chambers, Mikesch Muecke

Mikesch Muecke

At the beginning of the 20th century, over 40% by weight of all the materials consumed through the production of goods within the United States were comprised of renewable resources (Matos and Wagner 1998). In contrast, by the end of the 20th century renewable material usage had dropped to less than 8% by weight (Matos and Wagner 1998). Combined with both an increase in the overall rate at which we consume resources as well as growing awareness of the inherently finite availability of nonrenewable resources, the early decades of the 21st century may mark the beginning of a shift back …

A Period Examination Through Contemporary Energy Analysis Of Kevin Roche’S Fine Arts Center At University Of Massachusetts-Amherst, L Carl Fiocchi Jr

L. Carl Fiocchi

Studies of buildings belonging to a subset of Modernist architecture, Brutalism, have included discussions pertaining to social and architectural history, critical reception, tectonic form and geometry inspirations, material property selections, period technology limitations, and migration of public perceptions. Evaluations of Brutalist buildings’ energy related performances have been restricted to anecdotal observations with particular focus on the building type’s poor thermal performance, a result of the preferred construction method, i.e. monolithic reinforced concrete used as structure, interior finish and exterior finish. A valid criticism, but one that served to dismiss discussion that the possibility of other positive design strategies limiting energy …

Australia's First 6-Star Green Education Building: Design And Performance, Jim Smith, George Earl

Jim Smith

Bond University's Mirvac School of Sustainable Development is one where planning, property, project management, construction management and quantity surveying are integrated in a school of the urban environment in the context of sustainable development. The School is the first designated institute to fully integrate environmental, urban planning, property development, quantity surveying, construction management and facilities management disciplines with the practical issues of managing economic and social viability with societal expectations.The goal was to blend together these three aspects: ecological sustainability – indoor environment quality, transport, water, materials, emissions, land use and ecology - closely linked to economic and social sustainability.The …

Biography, Julie Elaine N. Irish

Julie Elaine Irish

Bringing Football Back To Los Angeles, Gabriel Leiner

Gabriel Leiner

Identifying a suitable parcel for a large scale professional football stadium in the greater Los Angeles, CA area, which does not conflict with current uses, environmental protection codes, or airspace rights, and also has adequate transportation access and nearby populated neighborhoods.

Gwlw Suppliers, Videos And More, David A. Bainbridge

David A Bainbridge

Super efficient irrigation systems can be made with simple materials. These can cut water use and weeding 50-90% and improve plant health, speed maturity and increase yield.

Architecture And Systems Ecology: Thermodynamic Principles Of Environmental Building Design, In Three Parts, William Braham

William W. Braham

Modern buildings are both wasteful machines that can be made more efficient and instruments of the massive, metropolitan system engendered by the power of high-quality fuels. A comprehensive method of environmental design must reconcile the techniques of efficient building design with the radical urban and economic reorganization that we face. Over the coming century, we will be challenged to return to the renewable resource base of the eighteenth-century city with the knowledge, technologies, and expectations of the twenty-first-century metropolis.

This book explores the architectural implications of systems ecology, which extends the principles of thermodynamics from the nineteenth-century focus on more …

Cities, Disaster Risk And Adaptation, Christine Wamsler

Christine Wamsler

Worldwide, disasters and climate change pose a serious risk to sustainable urban development, resulting in escalating human and economic costs. Consequently, city authorities and other urban actors face the challenge of integrating risk reduction and adaptation strategies into their work, although related knowledge and expertise are still scarce.

Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation explores ways in which resilient cities can be ‘built’ and sustainable urban transformations achieved. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of urban risk reduction and adaptation planning, exploring key theoretical concepts and analyzing the complex interrelation between cities, disasters and climate change. It further provides an overview …

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 …

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 …

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, …

Using Purchasing Power Parity To Assess Construction Productivity, Rick Best

Rick Best

For many reasons comparing construction productivity between countries is a difficult task. One key problem is that of converting construction costs to a common currency. This problem can be overcome relatively simply by using a basket of construction materials and labour, termed a BLOC (Basket of Locally Obtained Commodities), as a unit of construction cost. Average BLOC costs in each location are calculated from data obtained from a number of sources (quantity surveyors, estimators). Typical building costs obtained from published construction cost data are expressed in BLOC equivalents. Lower BLOC equivalents represent higher productivity as other inputs (largely materials) are …

International Comparisons Of Cost And Productivity In Construction: A Bad Example, Rick Best

Rick Best

In a report published in June 2012 the Business Council of Australia (BCA) reported that it costs considerably more to build a variety of types of infrastructure in Australia than it does in the US. Airports (90 per cent more costly) and hospitals (62 per cent) were quoted as the worst cases with other projects ranging from 26 to 43 per cent more. They used these figures to conclude that Australia is a high cost, low productivity environment for building infrastructure projects. These claims were based on cost/m2 figures published by a major international construction consultancy. The method used by …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Jonathan G. Cooper

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Based on review of climate projections for the …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Sally Miller

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Based on review of climate projections for the …

An Assessment Of The Effects Of Desertification In Yobe State, Nigeria, Jibril Musa Phd

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Desertification is one of the most serious environmental and socio-economic problems of our time. Desertification describes circumstances of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from the climatic variation and human activities. The fundamental goal of this thesis was to assess the effects of desertification in Yobe State, Nigeria. The present threat of desertification in the sahel has reached an alarming stage where crops cultivation and animal rearing/grazing are no more productive, soil has lost its nutrient/fertility, various infrastructure had given way because of windstorm from the neighbouring Niger Republic and sand dunes had taken over. The …

Using Remote Sensing Data To Improve Rice Production In Kutigi, Niger State, Nigeria, Jibril Musa Phd, M B. Yunusa

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

This research work looked in the used of Remote Sensing to improve Agricultural production in Kutigi, Niger State. The aim of the study is to use remote sensing to improve rice farming activities in Kutigi, Niger State. It is very important to identify such methods to improve Agricultural production because experts are always interested in new researches and findings to better the standard of living in any environment. In view of this, Remotely-sensed data could be used or employed to elevate most of these agricultural problems in Kutigi through the following objectives: Using Landsat imagery to assess the present landuse …

Building Capability For Disaster Resilience, Lynn Crawford, Craig Langston, Bhishna Bajracharya

Lynn Crawford

All levels of government recognise the widespread devastation of communities by natural or other disasters. They have responded with emergency management arrangements and policies to enhance government and community capacity to anticipate, withstand and recover from disastrous events. Although the construction industry has a significant role to play, particularly in recovery and reconstruction, it has not generally been considered as a key stakeholder in building capability for disaster resilience. One barrier to more active involvement of the construction industry in disaster response and management is that traditional methods of construction project management have been criticised as too time consuming and …

Building Capability For Disaster Resilience, Lynn Crawford, Craig Langston, Bhishna Bajracharya

Craig Langston

All levels of government recognise the widespread devastation of communities by natural or other disasters. They have responded with emergency management arrangements and policies to enhance government and community capacity to anticipate, withstand and recover from disastrous events. Although the construction industry has a significant role to play, particularly in recovery and reconstruction, it has not generally been considered as a key stakeholder in building capability for disaster resilience. One barrier to more active involvement of the construction industry in disaster response and management is that traditional methods of construction project management have been criticised as too time consuming and …

Transforming The Tourist City Into A Knowledge And Healthy City: Reinventing Australia's Gold Coast, Daniel O'Hare, Bhishna Bajracharya, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Bhishna Bajracharya

Purpose – With rapid growth of Australia’s Gold Coast into a tourist consumption city (Mullins 2008) of half a million people, Gold Coast City Council (GCCC) seeks to diversify the city’s economy, lifestyle and culture. This paper investigates this transformation by reviewing policies, projects and programs arising from GCCC visions of a healthy city benefiting from knowledge based urban development (KBUD) (Yigitcanlar et al., 2008). Secondly, the paper aims to identify opportunities and challenges in developing the emerging cosmopolitan city as a knowledge and healthy city. The paper focuses not only on larger knowledge and health nodes along major highways …

Transforming The Tourist City Into A Knowledge And Healthy City: Reinventing Australia's Gold Coast, Daniel O'Hare, Bhishna Bajracharya, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Daniel O'Hare

Purpose – With rapid growth of Australia’s Gold Coast into a tourist consumption city (Mullins 2008) of half a million people, Gold Coast City Council (GCCC) seeks to diversify the city’s economy, lifestyle and culture. This paper investigates this transformation by reviewing policies, projects and programs arising from GCCC visions of a healthy city benefiting from knowledge based urban development (KBUD) (Yigitcanlar et al., 2008). Secondly, the paper aims to identify opportunities and challenges in developing the emerging cosmopolitan city as a knowledge and healthy city. The paper focuses not only on larger knowledge and health nodes along major highways …

Public-Private Partnership In Disaster Management: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Peter Hastings, Iraphne Childs, Peter Mcnamee

Bhishna Bajracharya

Public-private partnership has important roles to play in disaster management, including building business and community resilience, developing community risk awareness and providing essential services. This paper reports on two recent initiatives in public-private partnerships on Queensland’s Gold Coast. The first is an initiative by a local community group ‘Varsity Lakes Community Limited’ to prepare a disaster management guide for the masterplanned community of Varsity Lakes with support from NRMA insurance company and the local council. The second is the ‘Community Watch’ program initiated by the Gold Coast City Council to involve local community groups in various parts of the City …

Variations In Climatic Parameters And Food Crop Yields: Implications On Food Security In Benue State, Nigeria., Emmanuel Adamgbe, Fanan Ujoh

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Agricultural production in Nigeria like in other developing countries is highly vulnerable to variations in climatic parameters which may have inverse or direct effect on the performance of food crops. This paper examines the patterns and trends of the variations in the climatic parameters and the implications of such variations on efficient yield rates of some food crops in Benue State using data on climatic variables (rainfall, temperature, sunshine) and the yield of some crops per hectare for 25 years (1986-2010). Data on the climatic variables were collected from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, AirForce Base, Makurdi while the data on …

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Sheila Conejos

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …

Dynamics Of Land Use/Land Cover Changes And Its Implication On Food Security In Anyigba, North Central, Nigeria, Tokula E. Arome, Sunday P. Ejaro (Phd)

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

This study assessed land use/land cover changes and its effect on Agricultural land in Anyigba. The objectives were to identify and delineate different land use / land cover categories, assess the rate of change that occurred and examine the impact of land use/land cover change on food security using satellite remote sensing data collected at three different years (1987 Land sat TM, 2001 Land Sat TM and 2011 Land Sat ETM). The study utilized GIS software such as Idrisi Andes academic and ArcGIS 9.3. The study area covers approximately 31.8km2, and four major land use/cover classes were utilized (built up, …

Bioretention: Evaluating Their Effectiveness For Improving Water Quality In New England Urban Environments, Mary Dehais

Mary Dehais

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is one of the leading causes of water quality problems in the United States. Bioretention has become one of the more frequently used stormwater management practices for addressing NPS pollution in urbanized watersheds in New England. Yet despite increased acceptance, bioretention is not widely practiced. This study explores and evaluates the efficacy of bioretention for protecting urban water quality. This research found that numerous monitoring methods are used by researchers and industry experts to assess the effectiveness of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) and low impact development (LID) practices that include bioretention. The two most common …