In order to achieve holistic urban plans incorporating transport infrastructure, public space and the behavior of people in these spaces, integration of urban design and computer modeling is a promising way to provide both qualitative and quantitative support to decisionmakers. This paper describes a systematic literature review following a four-part framework. Firstly, to understand the relationship of elements of transport, spaces, and humans, we review policy and urban design strategies for promoting positive interactions. Secondly, we present an overview of the integration methods and strategies used in urban design and policy discourses. Afterward, metrics and approaches for evaluating the effectiveness of integrated plan alternatives are reviewed. Finally, this paper gives a review of state-of-the-art tools with a focus on seven computer simulation paradigms. This article explores mechanisms underlying the complex system of transport, spaces, and humans from a multidisciplinary perspective to provide an integrated toolkit for designers, planners, modelers and decision-makers with the current methods and their challenges.
The provision of open space is seen as a feasible solution in mitigating the challenges of urbanization, which accommodates the daily leisure activities of residents and contributes to sustainable development. This study aims at understanding how users perceive open space in 29-3 Park in Da Nang, Vietnam. This understanding may help to adopt a better approach to development and improvements. More specifically, it focuses on identifying roles and attributes of the space and determining those elements which affect how users of the space gather, based on their perspective. Residents’ behaviour parameters were identified and classified based on activities that occurred in this space, and were collected using a behavioural mapping survey method. The analysis of 20 in-depth interviews, and 287 questionnaires, show existing problems that need to be improved and detail 11 physical factors that have potential to impact on users’ satisfaction. These results may have the potential to play an important role in assisting designers and administrators to create successful open space in urban areas of Vietnam or other developing countries in the future.
This study determined the issues of Planning Support System (PSS) implementation in the field of urban disaster mitigation in Japan by understanding its analytical perspective through a review of Western literature, a questionnaire survey of urban planning consultant companies, and PSS implementation for a practical project in a municipality.
Regarding the instrumental perspective, there was difficulty in conducting the simulationbased PSS due to the enormous simulation time required.
Regarding the transfer perspective, the importance of the municipality’s decision of adopting the PSS to a project, securing the budget and continuous running costs, track record of the practical project, and lack of human resource for the PSS use were clarified.
Regarding the user perspective, the difficulty in data collection and update as well as importance of the cooperative system/support from the developer in the initial period were clarified.
Especially, considering the low number of implementations, a platform may be important for the promotion of PSS awareness. This may be also useful for the diffusion of PSS. It is necessary for the developers to fully communicate the benefits of PSS adoption. It is thought that a close cooperative system and support are required in the initial stage. For promoting and understanding the benefits of PSS adoption, a guideline or manual seems to be useful. This is effective for ensuring the budget and providing an explanation to high-level members of the organizations about the effect of utilizing these tools.
For the final implementation, the possibility of installation, maintenance, and operation of the PSS by the municipality was discussed.
The most fundamental struggle for realizing a sustainable built environment still lies in the use of non-renewable resources in its articulation. Although efforts have been taken to increase the use of sustainable materials the vast majority of the building sector still relies heavily on depletable resources. This article debates that the most fundamental contributors to sustainable development are the evaluation and incorporation of inhabitant capacities. Evaluating the available natural materials, inhabitant skills and tools could play a fundamental role in creating sustainable solutions. However, inhabitant capacity-models insufficiently cover all instrumental capacities into one model (both inhabitant and community). Therefore, this article describes: a framework for evaluating inhabitant capacities; how to map available resource capacities; how these capacities can be incorporated into sustainable housing development and planning. The framework was developed as a part of a support tool, which helps designers and engineers to evaluate inhabitant capacities. To describe the framework and support tool a rural Sub-Saharan community is used, as their capacities are relatively less complicated compared to a ‘western’ context. The article concludes that the framework shows great potential in reducing the use of unsustainable materials. Furthermore, that it could enable social sustainability by creating self-reliant and resilient communities.
George Town is a significant World Heritage Site in the Straits of Malacca. This paper examined the evolution of urban morphology in George Town within geography, politics, economy, and culture in a horizontal dimension and layer upon layer in a vertical dimension. In this study, to ensure the objectives are achieved, qualitative methods will be applied including several approaches such as literature review, interpretation of archives chronologically, maps study, census returns, trade directories, photographs and postcards, and urban master plan study. The research is based on the analysis of urban construction, land use, economic development, and municipal policies. First, study the urban morphology in a specific period, and construct the inner layer structure in each period. Second, an analogy is drawn among the evolution of the urban morphology by time-scale, this section focusses on the historical conjunctures and events related to the urban construction. An important contribution can be made to the conservation and management of urban built heritage in George Town, on the one hand, explaining the evolution of urban morphology by examining George Town’s physical and spatial environment, and in turn, on the other hand, understanding about the physical and spatial environment by examining the urban morphology.
Due to the increasing pressure brought by recent global environmental problems, building designers are embracing regionalism and the knowledge of traditional structures, arguing that these structures are energy efficient and highly sustainable. We observe clear evidence of the increasing interest in vernacular architecture among the research community. This study therefore aims to clarify the contents and issues raised in the studies on vernacular architecture and the knowledge and recommendations that can be derived from them. A database of the research is established by collecting many studies from primary sources. Obtained data is carefully refined and categorized into a table where synthesized information is introduced. The results of this study show an uneven geographic and climatic distribution of the studies; the trend in selecting research objectives and research objects; the choice of research methods with a clear shift towards quantitative research methods, and the generic findings from the database of the research. These results can support diverse inquiries about vernacular architecture across the world and be used as a resource or an orientation to support numerous subsequent studies.
The entire process of the Lianhuadang Farm Project, that is, from early-stage investigations to the completed construction, was documented. This project is a graduate designebuild course of the School of Architecture of Southeast University. Dingshu Town, Yixing, which has a long handicraft tradition in eastern China, is the project site. Students and craftsmen constructed six viewing facilities and renovated a toilet and a management building. We explored ways of using bamboo and traditional craftsmanship by analyzing the main teaching procedures and the key technical issues in the project. We also studied contemporary methods to expand the construction in real environments. Finally, the significance of bamboo construction for architectural design teaching was examined.
The physical environment affects people’s behavior and wellbeing. Some effects can be easily noticed through observation, whereas others require an in-depth study to be understood and measured. Although many alterations can be positive, some can also negatively influence wellbeing, decision-making, and mental and physical health. Some of these effects are not easily associated with physical space. Thus, people may be unaware of the real triggers for changes in behavior, mood, and wellbeing. Although many studies have been performed on environmental psychology, detailed research to understand the impacts of architecture on the brain using neuroscience is limited. Some difficulties experienced by researchers in this field are on the isolation of each stimulus to understand its effects individually and measurement of brain changes in people interacting with the environment because some brain scans, such as fMRI, require people to be inside the machine. Nonetheless, the several ways a space can impact its users should be discussed to understand how architecture influences individuals and to help architects and urban planners in designing efficient and healthy spaces. This study aims to describe and analyze the results of previous research works and propose a way of organizing them to facilitate further investigation on this field.
Impressive public architecture has a power to influence and imbue a space with a legend and cultural and social values and accumulate collective memories. A Palace of Culture, or Dvorets Kul’tury in Russian, represents a socialist belief, commonwealth, and people’s democracy. The monumental Stalinist Palace of Culture is a multifunctional public architecture that was built as a sociocultural epicenter in many Soviet cities. The case of the Palace of Culture in Slantsy, which is a mining town in Leningrad Region in Russia, may be an eloquent projection of this building type and its era. The edifice is currently under reconstruction after its abandonment for a long time, thereby entailing the reincarnation of citizens’ memories and the creation of new hopes and experiences.
Amman, the capital of Jordan, has been subjected to incremental spatial transformation under the pressure of the emerging migration of various refugees since the beginning of the Syrian conflict (2011epresent). Only 17% of the Syrian refugee influx to Jordan resides in camps. Amman hosts 28% of non-camp refugees (NCRs) who are living in urban areas and creating multiple forms of urban settlements. Diverse forms of NCR settlements are emerging extensively in Eastern Amman districts. These settlements are contributing to new morphological structures and leading to a gradual spatial changedsocially and physically. This research intends to contribute to the increasing amount of available data by improving the understanding of the socio-spatial patterns of Syrian NCR settlements and providing insights, forecasts, and recommendations regarding this pressing issue on the basis of overall trends. Comprehensively contextualized areas in Amman were mapped, and after considering specific siteselection criteria, Jubilee Neighborhood was selected. Jubilee was built by the government in 1985 for low-income Jordanian families. This study aims to unravel one layer of the complex multilayered Amman City. It intends to explore and describe the urban forms of NCR settlements in Jubilee Neighborhood as a case study by interrelating spatial, social, and physical concepts. In addition, this study extensively uses rigorous qualitative and traditional methods. The outcome of this study is a comprehensive and descriptive spatial analysis that can provide socio-spatial interpretations and recommend urban response policies to cope with the future spatial transformation of urban forms.
Foreign aid is a form of international relationship between countries. Building projects are a major form of foreign aid. In the past 60 years, China has constructed over 1400 buildings in the developing world, and many of them are stadiums. This study explores how China exported its overseas-aided stadiums in the developing world and considers the importance of these buildings from an architectural perspective. Through an examination of firsthand materials, this study explains the historic vicissitude of China-aided stadium architecture, analyzes the architectural features of these buildings, and presents case studies of representative examples from each historic stage. The investigation of these buildings from three periods in the 20th and 21st centuries fills a gap in the study of Chinese architecture and modern architectural history.
Currently there is renewed interest in harnessing the vast tidal resource to combat the twin challenges of climate change and energy security. However, within the UK no tidal barrage proposals have passed the development stage, this is due to a combination of high cost and environmental concerns. This paper demonstrates how a framework, such as the North West Hydro Resource Model can be applied to tidal barrages, with the Mersey barrage as a case study. The model materialised in order to provide developers with a tool to successfully identify the capacity of hydropower schemes in a specific location. A key feature of the resource model is the understanding that there is no single barrier to the utilisation of small hydropower but several obstacles, which together impede development. Thus, this paper contributes in part to a fully holistic treatment of tidal barrages, recognising that apart from energy generation, other environmental, societal and economic opportunities arise and must be fully investigated for robust decision-making. This study demonstrates how considering the societal needs of the people and the necessity for compensatory habitats, for example, an organic architectural design has developed, which aims to enhance rather than detract from the Mersey.
Despite its close connection to many of the problems related to uncloaking hidden structures of settlement aggregation in China, researchers have shown limited interest in quantifying and analyzing the social force. In this study, a sociogram approach for studying the social force in settlement aggregation was proposed and tested. Genealogies in different historic periods were used as the raw data for tracking blood relationships. The strengths of the approaches are the extraction and visualization of historical sources. Social force represents the effect of the environment on the behavior of person, and it evokes the people’s motivation to act as a reaction to information he/she obtained from the environment. It is believed that the processes of settlement aggregation are the results of the social field acting on the behavior of the person. The sociogram model calculated by computer showed that it has the capability of describing the self-organization processes of settlement aggregation.
Despite the multidisciplinary networks involved in refurbishment of complex building projects, the lack of BIM adoption signifies lack of real BIM benefits towards acceptance of BIM within Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC).
To this end, this study empirically examines the potential real benefits between traditional network and BIM network for a real-time refurbishment case study project, through agentbased simulation modelling. A social network analysis theory is adapted to model the project interaction networks and a BIM prototype network. An assessment of the main stakeholders for BIM perception is carried out. We offered three prototype interaction networks for comparison of real BIM benefit.
An agent-based Bayesian network model is used to simulate the propagation of design error within the project networks. The result of the analysis show that BIM project diffuses error efficiently, while stakeholders recovers faster and nearly at the same time than traditional network. The optimised network shows better performance to the traditional network, when there is early involvement of subcontractors. The main contribution of this study is providing a novel approach to compare real benefits for traditional method to BIM method for refurbishment project and to provide avenue for project stakeholders to optimise their interaction through adoption of BIM.