Understanding pressures on the future of roads: A sustainable built environment National Research Centre Discussion Paper

According to the Australian Government, when combined with expected population growth and internal migration, expected changes in temperature and rainfall are expected to increase road maintenance costs by over 30 percent by 2100. This presents a significant future economic risk, in response, this paper will discuss the potential for roads to improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change and other key pressures. The paper will also highlight how such measures can inform state and national main road infrastructure planning and reduce future associated risks and costs.

Occupant health and productivity : an Australian perspective

The issue of whether improved building services such as air quality, provision of daylight, thermal comfort etc, have a positive impact on the health and productivity of building occupants is still an open question. There is significant anecdotal evidence supporting the notion that health and productivity of building occupants can be improved by improving the quality of the indoor environment, but there are actually few published quantitative studies to substantiate this contention. This paper reports on a comprehensive review of the worldwide literature which relates health of building occupants with the different aspects of the indoor environment which are believed to impact of these issues, with a particular focus on studies in Australia, The paper analyses the existing research and identifies the key deficiencies in our existing understanding of this problem. The key focus of this research is office and school buildings, but the scope of the literature surveyed includes all commercial buildings, including industrial buildings. There is a notable absence of detailed studies on this link in Australian buildings, although there are studies on thermal comfort, and a number of studies on indoor air quality in Australia, which do not make the connection to health and productivity. Many international studies have focused on improved lighting, and in particular the provision of daylight in buildings, but again there are few studies in Australia which focus in this area.

Situating Design Research within Social Framework

This paper explores the expertise in industrial (product) design and contribution of knowledge generated trough the design research. Within this approach the research is situated within the social structure that constitutes people, activity, context and culture where an artifact is seen to be a mediator for the generation of new knowledge and its application. The paper concludes about the importance of research and practice integration and points out that situating the research around the artifacts, as mediators of knowledge, is transferable to Human-Computer Interaction field and any other area of the design research