Space and culture: Tradition verses culture

This paper proposes to examine contemporary culture, through communication and technology, in an attempt to expose some of these new or altered spatial concepts evident in film and built form, such as ratefaction and saturation

Empowerment games : empathic design probes for user participation in community housing

This paper documents the empowering process of a group of public housing residents through different design probing exercises. These exercises worked along with existing social processes without any involvement of designers. This paper shows how a design researcher devised a series of probing tools called "empowerment games" with a group of active users. These games are self-learning tools for making the abstract language of design legible to users. The main purpose of this intitiative was to change the preconception of govenmental bodies and professional designers of the passivity of the users with regard to their designed environment. This was the first case of the application of a participatory design process in Hong Kong subsidized housing. Design empathy is a central skill when working with users throughout the whole design research project.

Adopting building information modeling (BIM) as collaboration platform in the design industry

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project aimed at developing a technological, operational and strategic analysis of adopting BIM in AEC/FM (Architecture-Engineering-Construction/Facility Management) industry as a collaboration tool. Outcomes of the project will provide specifications and guidelines as well as establish industry standards for implementing BIM in practice. This research primarily focuses on BIM model servers as a collaboration platform, and hence the guidelines are aimed at enhancing collaboration capabilities. This paper reports on the findings from: (1) a critical review of latest BIM literature and commercial applications, and (2) workshops with focus groups on changing work-practice, role of technology, current perception and expectations of BIM. Layout for case studies being undertaken is presented. These findings provide a base to develop comprehensive software specifications and national guidelines for BIM with particular emphasis on BIM model servers as collaboration platforms.

Eco-retrofitting - from managerialism to design

As all environmental problems are caused by human systems of design, sustainability can be seen as a design problem. Given the massive energy and material flows through the built environment, sustainability simply cannot be achieved without the re-design of our urban areas. ‘Eco-retrofitting’, as used here, means modifying buildings and/or urban areas to create net positive social and environmental impacts – both on site and off site. While this has probably not been achieved anywhere as yet, myriad but untapped eco-solutions are already available which could be up-scaled to the urban level. It is now well established that eco-retrofitting buildings and cities with appropriate design technology can pay for itself through lower health costs, productivity increases and resource savings. Good design would also mean happier human and ecological communities at a much lower cost over time. In fact, good design could increase life quality and the life support services of nature while creating sustainable‘economic’growth. The impediments are largely institutional and intellectual, which can be encapsulated in the term ‘managerial’. There are, however, also systems design solutions to the managerial obstacles that seem to be stalling the transition to sustainable systems designs. Given the sustainability imperative, then, why is the adoption of better management systems so slow? The oral presentation will show examples of ways in which built environment design can create environments that not only reduce the ongoing damage of past design, but could theoretically generate net positive social and ecological outcomes over their life cycle. These illustrations show that eco-retrofitting could cost society less than doing nothing - especially given the ongoing renovations of buildings - but for managerial hurdles. The paper outlines on how traditional managerial approaches stand in the way of ‘design for ecosystem services’, and list some management solutions that have long been identified, but are not yet widely adopted. Given the pervasive nature of these impediments and their alternatives, they are presented by way of examples. A sampling of eco-retrofitting solutions are also listed to show that ecoretrofitting is a win-win-win solution that stands ready to be implemented by people having management skills and/or positions of influence.

Members abroad - Australia - Brisbane and the Gold Coast

Brisbane's sub-tropical climate, vegetation and urban history as a British settlement, endow the region with many characteristics that are familiar in KwaZulu-Natal. Brisbane settlement, firstly as a penal conlony to accommodate the hardiest criminals dispatched from Sydney, was established in 1825 on a wide river, several kilometers upstream from Moreton Bay with the Pacific Ocean beyond. The penal colony was short lived and was soon opened up to free settlement in 1842. The growth of the fledgling town was characterized by brick warehouse and service buildings to the port that was established on its riverbanks, resembling those of the old Point Road area in Durban. Government and administration buildings heralded Brisbane as the captial city of the State of Queensland, annexed from New South Wales in 1859. Morphological studies reveal that Brisbane had reached its first zenith around 1930 as a commerical city of four and five storey buildings. The urban form remained stagnant until the post-1960's building boom and the developments from this period on, consolidated land amalgamations largely ignoring the urban characteristics of the established city. Public space was poorly observed, resulting in a city that had turned its back on the river. It is only in recent times that the currency of good urban design, under the custodial direction of the City Council, has fostered a re-engagemed urban realm that, enabled by the recent building boom, has delivered high quality urban environments

Members abroad - Australia : Paul Sanders

I have been an academic since joining the University of Natal in 1998 and, following a period as a visiting lecturer in Brisbane in 2001, I joined the staff at QUT on an ongoing basis in 2003. I was appointed as Architecture Co-ordinator in 2006, and this role involves the leadership of the architectur discipline of 17 full time academics. I am currently enrolled in a PhD course in the field of urban morphology. This research proposes a theory on the relevance of mapping the evolutionary aspects of historical urban form to develop a measure for evaluating architecural elements and deriving parameters for new buildings. My participation in a QUT design team contributed to a recent successful invited competition bid for an Urban Transit Centre in Hangzhou, China. The Centre will include retail, business, entertainment, residential and service components at the heart of the Binjiang district on the 11.5ha core area with 32ha surrounding urban design precinct. The project has received the approval to commence and is to be implemented over the next three years!

Distribution profiles of key weather variables in Australian capital cities : implications for energy efficient building design

Local climate is a critical element in the design of energy efficient buildings. In this paper, ten years of historical weather data in Australia's eight capital cities were profiled and analysed to characterize the variations of climatic variables in Australia. The method of descriptive statistics was employed. Either the pattern of cumulative distribution and/or the profile of percentage distribution are presented. It was found that although weather variables vary with different locations, there is often a good, nearly linear relation between a weather variable and its cumulative percentage for the majority of middle part of the cumulative curves. By comparing the slopes of these distribution profiles, it may be possible to determine the relative range of changes of the particular weather variables for a given city. The implications of these distribution profiles of key weather variables on energy efficient building design are also discussed.

Evolutionary algorithms for sustainable building design

This approach to sustainable design explores the possibility of creating an architectural design process which can iteratively produce optimised and sustainable design solutions. Driven by an evolution process based on genetic algorithms, the system allows the designer to “design the building design generator” rather than to “designs the building”. The design concept is abstracted into a digital design schema, which allows transfer of the human creative vision into the rational language of a computer. The schema is then elaborated into the use of genetic algorithms to evolve innovative, performative and sustainable design solutions. The prioritisation of the project’s constraints and the subsequent design solutions synthesised during design generation are expected to resolve most of the major conflicts in the evaluation and optimisation phases. Mosques are used as the example building typology to ground the research activity. The spatial organisations of various mosque typologies are graphically represented by adjacency constraints between spaces. Each configuration is represented by a planar graph which is then translated into a non-orthogonal dual graph and fed into the genetic algorithm system with fixed constraints and expected performance criteria set to govern evolution. The resultant Hierarchical Evolutionary Algorithmic Design System is developed by linking the evaluation process with environmental assessment tools to rank the candidate designs. The proposed system generates the concept, the seed, and the schema, and has environmental performance as one of the main criteria in driving optimisation.

Le infrastrutture viarie dismesse o declassate ed il progetto di paesaggio

Paesaggio ed infrastrutture viarie sono un binomio molto forte: il primo ha insito il concetto di accessibilità, in quanto non può esistere senza la presenza di un osservatore; la strada, invece, trova i fattori che la connotano nel suo rapporto con la morfologia su cui insiste. Le infrastrutture viarie sono elemento strutturale e strutturante non solo di un territorio, ma anche di un paesaggio. Le attuali esigenze di mobilità portano oggi a ripensare ed adeguare molte infrastrutture viarie: laddove è possibile si potenziano le strutture esistenti, in diversi casi si ricorre a nuovi tracciati o a varianti di percorso. Porsi il problema di conservare itinerari testimoni della cultura materiale ed economica di una società implica considerazioni articolate, che travalicano i limiti del sedime: una via è un organismo più complesso della semplice linea di trasporto in quanto implica tutta una serie di manufatti a supporto della mobilità e soprattutto il corridoio infrastrutturale che genera e caratterizza, ovvero una porzione variabile di territorio definita sia dal tracciato che dalla morfologia del contesto. L’evoluzione dei modelli produttivi ed economici, che oggi porta quote sempre maggiori di popolazione a passare un tempo sempre minore all’interno del proprio alloggio, rende la riflessione sulle infrastrutture viarie dismesse o declassate occasione per la progettazione di spazi per l’abitare collettivo inseriti in contesti paesaggistici, tanto urbani che rurali, tramite reti di percorsi pensate per assorbire tagli di mobilità specifici e peculiari. Partendo da queste riflessioni la Tesi si articola in: Individuazioni del contesto teorico e pratico: Lo studio mette in evidenza come la questione delle infrastrutture viarie e del loro rapporto con il paesaggio implichi riflessioni incrociate a diversi livelli e tramite diverse discipline. La definizione dello spazio fisico della strada passa infatti per la costruzione di un itinerario, un viaggio che si appoggia tanto ad elementi fisici quanto simbolici. La via è un organismo complesso che travalica il proprio sedime per coinvolgere una porzione ampia di territorio, un corridoio variabile ed articolato in funzione del paesaggio attraversato. Lo studio propone diverse chiavi di lettura, mettendo in luce le possibili declinazioni del tema, in funzione del taglio modale, del rapporto con il contesto, del regime giuridico, delle implicazioni urbanistiche e sociali. La mobilità dolce viene individuata quale possibile modalità di riuso, tutela e recupero, del patrimonio diffuso costituito dalle diversi reti di viabilità. Antologia di casi studio: Il corpo principale dello studio si basa sulla raccolta, analisi e studio dello stato dell’arte nel settore; gli esempi raccolti sono presentati in due sezioni: la prima dedicata alle esperienze più significative ed articolate, che affrontano il recupero delle infrastrutture viarie a più livelli ed in modo avanzato non concentrandosi solo sulla conversione del sedime, ma proponendo un progetto che coinvolga tutto il corridoio attraversato dall’infrastruttura; la seconda parte illustra la pratica corrente nelle diverse realtà nazionali, ponendo in evidenza similitudini e differenze tra i vari approcci.

"I'm a designer, get me out of tech class!" : closing the gap between design and technology education

The following paper explores the use of collaborative pedagogical approaches to advance foundational architectural design education, by linking design process to sustainable technology principles. After a brief discussion on architectural design education, the mentioned collaborative approach is described. This approach facilitates students’ exchange of knowledge between two courses, despite no explicit/assessable requirement to do so. The result for the students is deeper learning and a design process that is enriched through collaboration with sustainable technology. The success of this approach has been measured through questionnaires, evaluation surveys, and a comparative assessment of students common to both courses. The paper focuses on the challenges and innovations in connecting architectural design and technology education, where students are encouraged to implement lessons learnt, thereby closing the gap that these courses have traditionally represented.

Information dependencies between architects and services engineers for early design evaluation : a framework for an energy design tool for architects

Effective strategies for the design of effi cient and environmentally sensitive buildings require a close collaboration between architects and engineers in the design of the building shell and environmental control systems at the outset of projects. However, it is often not practical for engineers to be involved early on in the design process. It is therefore essential that architects be able to perform preliminary energy analyses to evaluate their proposed designs prior to the major building characteristics becoming fi xed. Subsequently, a need exists for a simplifi ed energy design tool for architects. This paper discusses the limitations of existing analysis software in supporting early design explorations and proposes a framework for the development of a tool that provides decision support by permitting architects to quickly assess the performance of design alternatives.

Motivations and intentions : a case study of design-led activism

With a focus on intention and motivation, this paper describes a study involving three organisational communities and their collective effort to develop and provide more inclusive housing for people with disabilities and their families. While many studies, such as that by Rocha & Miles (2009), focus on commercial organisations, and sustainability from an economic perspective, this study involves a not-for-profit organisation (the accommodation and service provider) as well as a research organisation and a design action group volunteering their services free of charge. From this pro-bono context, the paper describes a case study that explores the nature of the collective as a basis for creative practice and political activism and the theoretical implications and wider application in terms of emerging research in the area of collaborative entrepreneurship and design activism.

Green building, green neighbourhoods : a sub-tropical urban design handbook for planners

The Subtropical Design Handbook for Planners is primarily intended to provide advice in developing planning schemes to achieve the South East Queensland Regional Plan’s vision. This calls for ‘development which is sustainable and well-designed, and where the subtropical character of the region is recognised and reinforced’.

House as home : emotions centred design for disability

In this paper we highlight how current approaches to design for disability have failed to consider the emotional needs not only of those with disabilities but their families and other carers as well. In conjunction with this, we demonstrate through a review of literature the significance of the house, the home and home in the support and growth of the person as a whole in association with their loved ones, and the potential inequity that arises when the emotional and holistic dimensions of 'being' are neglected. With a growing trend nationally and internationally away from group and shared housing, a greater focus on the family and their home is required. However, as research has shown, home for families where a family member has a disability is not necessarily a positive experience; it can be a source of stress, work, conflict and burden, arousing emotions ranging from loss of control through guilt. As proposed in the paper, consideration of the negative as well as positive emotions demands exploration of the 'middle ground' between institutions and home-based care models. This paper outlines the beginning of one such exploration.

The bondage of an imposed visual discourse : understanding the built environment's influence on the 'oldest-old' aged care residents' sense of peace

This study investigates the influence of the built environment upon residents' sense of familiarity, concept of self and thus, their facilitation of place through the theory of "The Bondage of Imposed Visual Discourse". Simone de Beauvoir's theory "The Bondage of Feminine Elegance" provides the conceptual understanding of the visual discourse between the physicality of clothing and the wearer's personal identity. This fashion theory is transposed to explore the influence of the built environment's physicality upon aged care residents' personal identity. This paper presents findings from a study of professionals' opinions in reference to the built environment of permanent residential aged care for the 'oldest-old' of Australia. The researcher conducted qualitative interviews with four participants: an architect, occupational therapist, nursing home facility manager and an aged care lobbyist in the South-East Queensland. This study is structured towards proposing "place-focused" qualitative design principles to encourage residents' sense of place through the built environment. These proposed principles are addressed with reference to existing Standards and Principles outlined by the Australian Government.