Environmental Design Commons^™

Sustainability: Its Adaptation And Relevance In Remote Area Housing, Rosemary Rusch, Rick Best

Rick Best

Little consideration has been given to the context of housing in remote areas. It is important for the economic survival of many remote communities that appropriate and sustainable housing solutions are decided and implemented. This report examines housing at St Pauls, Moa Island in the Torres Strait, using site information, historical research and a review of cultural and geo-political factors to compare the current model with similar studies in self-build housing undertaken in the region between 1986 and 1992. It not only demonstrates tangible economic benefits, but also evaluates the environmental and social improvements which can be achieved with a …

Making Better Decisions About Built Assets: Learning By Doing, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Climate change presents significant challenges to society (e.g. Stern, 2006; Bouwer and Aerts, 2006). Many have concluded that climate change is the most important problem facing humankind, and indeed other life on Earth. The construction industry, which contributes 5-10% of national GDP globally, has a prominent role to play in meeting this challenge given that the built environment demands 40-50% of global resources and generates a proportional amount of waste (Langston and Ding, 2001). Climate change adaptation is about human response to this challenge, thus mitigating the impacts of a changing climate (Burton et al., 2005).

The Ark: Grafting Productive Programs Onto Contemporary Waste-Space, Caryn Brause, Carey Clouse

Caryn Brause

As the intertwined issues of climate change and resource scarcity profoundly alter the shape and scope of urban life, emerging designers must be positioned to respond in meaningful ways. This paper documents a research and design project that foregrounds several key design considerations for the future city: the expanded role of animals, the necessity for communal spaces to share knowledge, tools, and materials, and the waste-spaces that can be appropriated for that purpose. In doing so, it critically considers how we can prepare future design professionals to propose architectural and landscape program types that have yet to be invented, to …

Mcda And Assessing Sustainability, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Extract: Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a contemporary alternative social cost-benefit analysis as a means of evaluating sustainable development. It avoids the problem of converting social and environmental performance into monetary terms simply so it can be combined with tangible costs and benefits and included in a discounted cash flow.

Critical Success Factors For Building Maintenance Business: A Hong Kong Case Study, Yongtao Tan, Li-Yen Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present the critical success factors (CSFs) for engaging in the building maintenance business in Hong Kong where maintenance is a major market sector. Design/methodology/approach - In this study, CSFs are identified for the business of building maintenance based on data collected from a questionnaire survey and interviews. Findings - A total of 12 CSFs are identified, such as client's satisfaction, certification of company, reliability of service, quality of service, and company reputation, and most are related to two principal factors, namely maintenance service and organization, and project management. Originality/value - This …

Construction Efficiency: A Tale Of Two Developed Countries, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Purpose - The measurement of construction performance is a vexed problem. Despite much research effort, there remains little agreement over what to measure and how to measure it. The problem is made even more complicated by the desire to benchmark national industry performance against that of other countries. As clearly construction cost forms part of the analysis, the mere adjustment of cost data to an "international currency" has undermined past attempts to draw any meaningful conclusions. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - This paper introduces a new method for comparing international construction efficiency, tested on a data …

Adaptive Reuse Of Traditional Chinese Shophouses In Government-Led Urban Renewal Projects In Hong Kong, Esther Yung, Craig Langston, Edwin Chan

Craig Langston

Conservationists and government authorities acknowledge that adaptive reuse of historic buildings contributes to urban sustainability. Traditional Chinese shophouses are a major historic building typology found in the old districts of Asian cities. In Hong Kong, the few remaining shophouses are generally deteriorating and are increasingly under threat of demolition for urban renewal. However, adaptive reuse of these buildings has created many social concerns. In light of these concerns, evaluating adaptive reuse potential needs to incorporate a much broader sustainability framework than simply physical building conditions. This study examines the extent to which obsolescence, heritage value and redevelopment pressures have affected …

Designing For Future Adaptive Reuse, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

Extract: Existing buildings that are either obsolete or rapidly approaching disuse and potential demolition are a 'mine' of raw materials for new projects, a concept described by Chusid (1993) as 'urban ore'.

Eco Living, Chris Knapp

Chris Knapp

Combining sustainability with trend-setting design is one of the great challenges of contemporary architecture. Resource sparing living space is one of the most important themes. In addition to the increased consciousness of the interactions between the human being, his built environment and eco system, the desire to leave behind an intact environment worth living in for the next generation and to fashion a healthy environment for oneself are also factors gaining in economic significance. Depending on the building project and its circumstances, procedures and techniques of ecological building may be applied. Building orientation, shape, the type of materials and building …

Ut Bgsu Research Poster 2014.Jpg, Andreas Luescher

Andreas Luescher

Developing A Sustainable Campus Through Community Engagement: An Empirical Study, Linda Too, Bhishna Bajracharya, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Linda Too

Sustainability is increasingly a basic tenet within the organisational philosophy of many universities. While those universities that have a sustainability strategy have largely focused on operational improvements, the engagement of staff and students is equally important for creating a sustainable campus. This paper develops a 6-P community engagement framework for promoting eco-centric practices within university campuses. The objective of the study is to apply the framework to a university community in order to establish the validity of this framework. To this end, interviews with staff and students at Bond University were undertaken. The interviews reveal that the 6-P framework is …

Developing A Sustainable Campus Through Community Engagement: An Empirical Study, Linda Too, Bhishna Bajracharya, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Bhishna Bajracharya

Sustainability is increasingly a basic tenet within the organisational philosophy of many universities. While those universities that have a sustainability strategy have largely focused on operational improvements, the engagement of staff and students is equally important for creating a sustainable campus. This paper develops a 6-P community engagement framework for promoting eco-centric practices within university campuses. The objective of the study is to apply the framework to a university community in order to establish the validity of this framework. To this end, interviews with staff and students at Bond University were undertaken. The interviews reveal that the 6-P framework is …

A Fuzzy Approach For Adaptive Reuse Selection Of Industrial Buildings In Hong Kong, Yongtao Tan, Li-Yin Shen, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

With rapid economic development and restructuring, there are an increasing number of aged or obsolete buildings in large cities, such as Hong Kong. Adaptive reuse of these buildings provides an alternative for property stakeholders towards more sustainable practices instead of redevelopment or destruction. Adaptive reuse can also make great contributions to sustainable development by reducing construction waste and saving natural resources. As a result of industrial restructuring, manufacturing plants were migrated from Hong Kong to Mainland China during the 1980s and 1990s. Many industrial buildings then became vacant or under-utilised. Adaptive reuse of these industrial buildings is considered a viable …

Masterplanned Communities For Healthy Living, Bhishna Bajracharya

Bhishna Bajracharya

With increasing demand for housing in large metropolitan regions, private developers are building new masterplanned communities on the fringe of major cities. Unlike conventional housing subdivisions, masterplanned communities are large scale integrated housing developments with provision for diversity of housing, shopping, open spaces and recreation facilities (McGuirk and Dowling, 2007; Minnery and Bajracharya, 1999; Schmitz et al., 1998). Due to growing health concerns linked to inactive living, a number of new masterplanned communities in South East Queensland are creating supportive environments for physical activities.

Identifiying Adaptive Reuse Potential, Craig Langston

Craig Langston

How to adapt existing building stock is a problem being addressed by local and state governments worldwide. In most developed countries we now spend more on building adaptation than on new construction and there is an urgent need for greater knowledge and awareness of what happens to commercial buildings over time.

Sustainable Building Adaptation: innovations in decision-making is a significant contribution to understanding best practice in sustainable adaptations to existing commercial buildings by offering new knowledge-based theoretical and practical insights. Models used are grounded in results of case studies conducted within three collaborative construction project team settings in Australia and …

'Gardens Of Justice': Australian Feminist Law Journal, 2013, Volume 39, Matilda Arvidsson, Leila Brännström, Merima Bruncevic, Leif Dahlberg

Matilda Arvidsson

FOREWARD: GARDENS OF JUSTICE

Matilda Arvidsson, Merima Bruncevic, Leila Brannstrom, Leif Dahlberg

Our Gardens of Justice special themed issue of the Australian Feminist Law Journal grew out of the 2012 Critical Legal Conference in Stockholm and its theme of Gardens of Justice, a conference organised by Matilda Arvidsson, Merima Bruncevic, Leila Brannstrom and Leif Dahlberg. We issued a Call for Papers early in 2013 in which several conference theme questions were repeated. We called for papers devoted to thinking about law and justice as a physical as well as a social environment. The theme suggested a plurality of justice gardens …

Imagining Possibilities For Healthy Appalachian Communities In An Emerging Postindustrial Landscape, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

This paper explores how community might be re-imagined to promote incipient social and economic agendas born increasingly of broad-minded citizen initiatives within the Appalachian region aimed at what is generally understood as “development,” but of a form distinct from the prevailing models of a more industrial age. I would like to ask whether a city like Huntington, West Virginia can emerge as a progressive example of what we might term postindustrial, urban regeneration and perhaps what we might call community healing—specifically through grassroots movement now finding local governmental support in collective attempts to transform this place from one defined primarily …

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 3rd Edition, Mark Dekay, G Z. Brown

Mark DeKay

An updated guide to designing buildings that heat with the sun, cool with the wind, and light with the sky.This fully updated Third Edition covers principles of designing buildings that use the sun for heating, wind for cooling, and daylight for natural lighting. With 432 printed pages and a 450-page electronic book, supplemented with Digital Extras, this package supplies the preliminary design tools and strategies for achieving Architecture 2030® carbon-neutral performance targets. Using hundreds of illustrations, this book offers practical strategies that give the designer the tools they need to make energy efficient buildings.Hundreds of illustrations and practical strategies give …

Improving Energy Benchmarking With Self-Reported Data, David Hsu

David Hsu

Energy benchmarking for buildings has become increasingly important in government policy and industry practice for energy efficiency. The questions of how energy benchmarking is currently conducted, and how it might be improved using rapidly growing quantities of self-reported data, are examined. A case study of commercial office buildings in New York City demonstrates how the rapid growth in self-reported data presents both new opportunities and challenges for energy benchmarking for buildings. A critique is presented for the scoring methodology and data sources for Energy Star, one of the largest and most successful benchmarking certification schemes. Findings from recent studies are …

Satisfaction And Perception Of Residents Towards Bioclimatic Design Strategies: Residential College Buildings, Adi Ainurzaman Jamaludin, Nila Keumala Daud, Ati Rosemary Mohd Ariffin, Hazreena Hussein

Hazreena Hussein

Successful implementation of bioclimatic design strategies not only reduces energy use, but more importantly increases the resident’s satisfaction. A Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE), a form of survey method was used in assessing the satisfaction and perception of residents in two residential colleges, at the University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Both CS-A and CS-B represent the uppermost and moderate implementation of bioclimatic design strategies. The results showed that 414 questionnaires were retrieved fully filled by occupants at CS-A while 155 respondents from CS-B returned their questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on a five-point Likert scale. Respondents were asked to rate the levels …