Ecologies of housing and underlying assumptions of vulnerability

Purpose This paper is informed by a study that aimed to understand the difficulties in implementing models of housing, and to help address the lack of accessible and affordable private housing for people with disability in Australia. In responding to this aim, the study formulated an ecological map of housing models, which are examined in this paper in terms of their underlying assumptions of vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach The study involved explanation building, using a multiple case study approach, informed theoretically by an ecological framework. It included organisations, families and individuals with disability. Findings For the purpose of this paper, the study revealed a direct relationship between the nature of the housing models proposed, and assumptions of vulnerability. In the context of the study findings, the paper suggests that attempts to address individual housing needs are more likely to achieve a positive outcome when they are person driven, from a premise of ability rather than disability. Overall, it invites a ‘universalistic’ way of conceptualising housing issues for people with disability that has international relevance. Practical implications This paper highlights how assumptions of vulnerability shape environmental responses, such as housing, for people with disability. Originality/value This paper is based on a study that reconciled a person-centred philosophy with an ecological appreciation of the external and internal factors impacting housing choice for people with disability.

Conceptualizing sustainable retirement villages in Australia

The Australian ageing society with baby boomers reaching retirement age has placed a lot of pressures on housing services. The retirement village is increasingly accepted as a suitable living arrangement for older people. Ecological theory of ageing emphasizes a match between environment and older peoples’ competences. As one response to this, creating village environment in a sustainable way is on the agenda. However, it is not very clear what kinds of sustainable features should be incorporated within the village environment to fit residents’ competences, in particular given that baby boomers who have unique requirements have become the main potential customers. In present paper, a sustainable retirement village framework is proposed by building on ecological theory of ageing and triple bottom line. A two-step inductive reasoning research method is adopted in this conceptualization process. The proposed sustainable retirement village framework contains four domains, including senior-oriented basic settings, financial affordability, age-friendly social environment and environmental sustainability. These four domains are interrelated, and a sustainable retirement village stresses a dynamic balance between different domains. This proposed framework not only gives implications for village developers on creating a suitable village environment to better accommodate residents, but also paves the way for future studies on housing older people in an age-friendly manner.

Empirical investigation of factors contributing to the psychological safety climate on construction sites

Employees’ safety climate perceptions dictate their safety behavior because individuals act based on their perceptions of reality. Extensive empirical research in applied psychology has confirmed this relationship. However, rare efforts have been made to investigate the factors contributing to a favorable safety climate in construction research. As an initial effort to address the knowledge gap, this paper examines factors contributing to a psychological safety climate, an operationalization of a safety climate at the individual level, and, hence, the basic element of a safety climate at higher levels. A multiperspective framework of contributors to a psychological safety climate is estimated by a structural equation modeling technique using individual questionnaire responses from a random sample of construction project personnel. The results inform management of three routes to psychological safety climate: a client’s proactive involvement in safety management, a workforce-friendly workplace created by the project team, and transformational supervisors’ communication about safety matters with the workforce. This paper contributes to the field of construction engineering and management by highlighting a broader contextual influence in a systematic formation of psychological safety climate perceptions.

Re-valuing construction materials and components through design for disassembly

The construction industry accounts for a significant portion of the material consumption of our industrialised societies. That material consumption comes at an environmental cost, and when buildings and infrastructure projects are demolished and discarded, after their useful lifespan, that environmental cost remains largely unrecovered. The expected operational lifespan of modern buildings has become disturbingly short as buildings are replaced for reasons of changing cultural expectations, style, serviceability, locational obsolescence and economic viability. The same buildings however are not always physically or structurally obsolete; the materials and components within them are very often still completely serviceable. While there is some activity in the area of recycling of selected construction materials, such as steel and concrete, this is almost always in the form of down cycling or reprocessing. Very little of this material and component resource is reuse in a way that more effectively captures its potential. One significant impediment to such reuse is that buildings are not designed in a way that facilitates easy recovery of materials and components; they are designed and built for speed of construction and quick economic returns, with little or no consideration of the longer term consequences of their physical matter. This research project explores the potential for the recovery of materials and components if buildings were designed for such future recovery; a strategy of design for disassembly. This is not a new design philosophy; design for disassembly is well understood in product design and industrial design. There are also some architectural examples of design for disassembly; however these are specialist examples and there is no significant attempt to implement the strategy in the main stream construction industry. This paper presents research into the analysis of the embodied energy in buildings, highlighting its significance in comparison with operational energy. Analysis at material, component, and whole-of-building levels shows the potential benefits of strategically designing buildings for future disassembly to recover this embodied energy. Careful consideration at the early design stage can result in the deconstruction of significant portions of buildings and the recovery of their potential through higher order reuse and upcycling.

The technological readiness of construction contractors

The Australian construction industry is often criticized for its comparatively low productivity. The most significant future productivity gains are predicted to arise from improvement in the firm’s project management. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are thought to offer such improvement. ICT adoption is particularly poor among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Existing studies provide only a general overview of adoption and diffusion of ICTs in SMEs, with no previous research measuring their readiness to adopt ICT. This paper outlines a theoretical approach to address this gap, exploring how to improve ICT adoption in Australian construction SMEs. A review of literature is undertaken to address the research question ‘What is the best conceptual approach to understanding ICT adoption in SMEs?’ The results emphasize the efficacy of a novel Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model (TRAM) to assess SMEs’ ICT implementation readiness. The proposed model consists of four major constructs to measure readiness comprising: - (1) optimism, - (2) innovativeness, - (3) discomfort and - (4) insecurity; two major constructs to measure technological acceptance comprising: - (1) perceived ease of use and - (2) perceived usefulness; and two extension variables comprising: - (1) self-efficacy and - (2) facilitating conditions. A limitation is that the performance of the conceptual model is yet to be tested empirically. Such research is planned in the coming year by the authors.

Workplace stress and its impact analysis for strategic stress management in construction projects

Workplace stress has been an increasing concern in the construction industry. Workers are working longer hours and construction managers’ responsibilities are becoming more complex and complicated due to reduced resources and widespread stakeholder involvements. These additional pressures potentially trigger workplace stress and impact on project performance. The purpose of this study is to examine and advance understanding of stress and its impact relationships that support holistic and strategic stress management. 17 key stress sources are identified with their impact relationships on different stress types examined. Based on the research findings, this paper concludes with a Stressor-Stress-Performance relationships map.

How Australian construction contractors responded to the economic downturn

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 had a significant impact on the world economy and the construction industry was no exception. This study investigates the major impacts of the 2008 GFC on the Australian construction industry and, in particular how the Australian construction contractors responded to the economic downturn. A total of 35 senior managers from the Top 100 Australian construction companies were interviewed. The findings indicate that construction companies, particularly the large ones were not affected in any significant way but are expecting some difficult financial times over the next few years and are taking actions to minimize the upcoming adverse impacts. The most common strategy adopted by Australian construction contractors is to concentrate on core business while avoiding aimless bidding. Similarly, great focus is placed on retaining human resources in order to maintain the skill set so that the company can respond quickly when market conditions improves. The research findings will provide construction contractors with insights on how to establish and sustain competitive advantages during economic slowdown and become more resilient in the future.

Underlying knowledge of construction management consultants in China

To meet clients/owners’ multidimensional and changing requirements, construction management consultants (CMCs) ought to possess a diverse and dynamic knowledge structure. In China, although the population of CMCs has grown to the point of their being indispensable in the industry, their knowledge structure has not been explored explicitly. The study presented in this paper investigated this by first conducting a comprehensive content analysis of the curricula of the highest ranked construction management university courses in China. This was followed by in-depth interviews with experts, resulting in the identification of 22 main knowledge areas that can be grouped into technology, economy, management and law. A questionnaire survey was then conducted among 115 experienced CMCs to evaluate the current level of knowledge in these areas together with their importance and need-for-improvement. The main findings demonstrate the significance of the identified 22 knowledge areas, and they also need substantial improvement in practice. The research has practical implications for China's CMCs to develop necessary knowledge and the extent to which they need to be improved to provide a better quality of services in future.

Enhancing information about sustainability features for sustainable housing delivery

Sustainability practices in government regulations and within the society influence the delivery of sustainable housing. The actual delivery rate of Australian sustain-able housing is not as high as other countries. There is an absence of engagement by stakeholders in adopting sustainable housing practices. This may be due, in the current Australian property market, to confusion as to what sustainability features should be considered, given the large range of environmental, economic and social sustainability options possible. One of the main problems appears to be that information demanders, especially real estate agents, valuers, insurance agents and mortgage lenders do not include sustainability perspectives in their advice or in their decision processes. Information distribution in the Australian property market is flawed, resulting in a lack of return-on-investment value of ‘green’ features implemented by some stakeholders. This paper reviewed the global sustainable development concept and Australian sustainable assessment methods. This review identified the possibility of a research project which aimed at identifying and integrating different perceptions and priority needs of the information demanders, for developing a model for the potential implementation of sustainability features distribution in the property industry. This research will reduce confusion on the sustainability-related information which can influence the decision making of stakeholders in the supply and demand of sustainable housing.

Steam-cured stabilised soil blocks for masonry construction

Energy-efficient, economical and durable building materials are essential for sustainable construction practices. The paper deals with production and properties of energy-efficient steam-cured stabilised soil blocks used fbr masonry construction. Problems of mixing expansive soil and lime, and production of blocks using soil-lime mixtures have been discussed briefly. Details of steam curing of stabilised soil blocks and properties of such blocks are given. A comparison of energy content of steam-cured soil blocks and burnt bricks is presented. It has been shown that energy-efficient steam cured soil blocks (consuming 35% less thermal energy compared to burnt clay bricks) having high compressive strength can be easily produced in a decentralised manner.

BPMN process views construction

Process view technology is catching more attentions in modern business process management, as it enables the customisation of business process representation. This capability helps improve the privacy protection, authority control, flexible display, etc., in business process modelling. One of approaches to generate process views is to allow users to construct an aggregate on their underlying processes. However, most aggregation approaches stick to a strong assumption that business processes are always well-structured, which is over strict to BPMN. Aiming to build process views for non-well-structured BPMN processes, this paper investigates the characteristics of BPMN structures, tasks, events, gateways, etc., and proposes a formal process view aggregation approach to facilitate BPMN process view creation. A set of consistency rules and construction rules are defined to regulate the aggregation and guarantee the order preservation, structural and behaviour correctness and a novel aggregation technique, called EP-Fragment, is developed to tackle non-well-structured BPMN processes.

Courtyard housing as a subtropical urban design model

Through both theory and practice, this practice-based research develops and tests the idea that courtyard housing can deliver sustainable, compact housing in rapidly growing subtropical cities. It proposes a contemporary urban design model that incorporates urban design courtyard housing prototypes. These prototypes can be further developed by architects and urban designers for similar climatic conditions across the world.

Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into affordable housing 20 August 2014: De-risking development of medium density housing to improve housing affordability and boost supply

This submission addresses the problem of housing price inflation, the chronic under-supply of new housing stock, and the resultant decline in housing affordability for low and middle income households. It specifically focusses on the supply of medium density housing (multi-unit development) in Melbourne, although we believe that the observations made about housing in supply in Melbourne are relevant in other urban centres and to other types of housing supply. In terms of medium density housing (MDH) our concern also extends to the poor quality and design. Why the market tends to deliver generic apartments of poor quality and design which are uncompetitive with lower density housing and amenity despite planning objectives, and how this apparently intractable problem can be overcome is the topic of this submission...

Making apartments affordable: Moving from speculative to deliberative development

Urban planning policies in Australia presuppose apartments as the new dominant housing type, but much of what the market has delivered is criticised as over-development, and as being generic, poorly-designed, environmentally unsustainable and unaffordable. Policy responses to this problem typically focus on planning regulation and construction costs as the primary issues needing to be addressed in order to increase the supply of quality, affordable apartment housing. In contrast, this paper uses Ball’s (1983) ‘structures of provision’ approach to outline the key processes informing apartment development and identifies a substantial gap in critical understanding of how apartments are developed in Australia. This reveals economic problems not typically considered by policymakers. Using mainstream economic analysis to review the market itself, the authors found high search costs, demand risk, problems with exchange, and lack of competition present key barriers to achieving greater affordability and limit the extent to which ‘speculative’ developers can respond to the preferences of would be owner-occupiers of apartments. The existing development model, which is reliant on capturing uplift in site value, suits investors seeking rental yields in the first instance and capital gains in the second instance, and actively encourages housing price inflation. This is exacerbated by lack of density restrictions, such as have existed in inner Melbourne for many years, which permits greater yields on redevelopment sites. The price of land in the vicinity of such redevelopment sites is pushed up as landholders' expectation of future yield is raised. All too frequently existing redevelopment sites go back onto the market as vendors seek to capture the uplift in site value and exit the project in a risk free manner...

Efficient Output-Sensitive Construction of Reeb Graphs

The Reeb graph tracks topology changes in level sets of a scalar function and finds applications in scientific visualization and geometric modeling. This paper describes a near-optimal two-step algorithm that constructs the Reeb graph of a Morse function defined over manifolds in any dimension. The algorithm first identifies the critical points of the input manifold, and then connects these critical points in the second step to obtain the Reeb graph. A simplification mechanism based on topological persistence aids in the removal of noise and unimportant features. A radial layout scheme results in a feature-directed drawing of the Reeb graph. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the Reeb graph construction in practice and its applications.