Year: 2020

A potential solution to the growing need for building materials is the use of reclaimed and recycled building materials (RRBMs) in New Zealand. Therefore, it is important to understand the attitudes and behaviour of the key stakeholders. This paper looks at the behaviour of three key construction industry stakeholder groups in New Zealand—architects, builders and…

The UN has called for global CO2-e emissions to be reduced by 7.6% each year for a decade. The built environment is responsible for a significant proportion of emissions and consumption and most buildings (98% in Australia) already exist. Therefore, if we are to meet this challenge, we need to find ways of engaging with…

There have been multiple recent lines of quantitative inquiry into the correlations between spatial parameters of virtual enclosures, and the corresponding emotional responses in occupants. The application of such empirical approaches for occupant-specific predictive affective modeling and design assistance is, however, a very nascent domain. This paper outlines a design assistance workflow for rapid user-specific…

Population growth and climate change are imposing challenges on the built environment and urban communities, including managing growing water demand. The Wellington water supply network is vulnerable not only to rainfall variation but also earthquakes where it could struggle for water to fight fires post-quake. Rainwater harvesting for greywater would also be beneficial under water…

The conscious shift to sustainable practices in the built environment provides significant contributions to reduction in environmental pollutants. Heritage buildings due to design consideration, material availability and preservation guidelines are huge potentials for sustainability exploration. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) captures heritage building data with less intrusion to building use. Currently, traditional 2D drawings and site…

The distinctive nature of construction industry causes for numerous accidents and injuries. Safety monitoring in expressway construction projects is complex because of the extensive use of plants, equipment and workforce. Accidents and injuries can be prevented by proper safety monitoring techniques. On the other hand, the use of UAVs become common in progress monitoring in…

Smart Cities (and Smart Precincts) entails the digital interconnection of a vast array of objects. These objects include smart buildings and smart infrastructure – digital twins – and their components. Rather than starting from scratch, those involved in the development of standards for Smart Cities are looking to the development of standards for building information…

This study aims to understand the energy use performance gap of Passive House (PH) schools and nearly zero-energy schools (nZES). The study reports the results of a recent field survey conducted on thirty nearly zero energy buildings constructed between 2015 and 2020. An analysis of energy consumption (electricity and natural gas) and a walkthrough survey…

Applying the Circular Economy paradigm in the built environment requires buildings to be designed for deconstruction and material recovery. Achieving circularity is complicated by the fact that requirements for deconstruction are at odds with most current mainstream construction techniques. The widespread adoption of single-use fixings, adhesives and composite materials mean that it is rarely economically…

Abstract: As a response to an increasingly growing complexity in construction projects, more sophisticated and advanced project delivery methods are being emerged to make the construction process more efficient, productive, and reliable. The methods have evolved from the more conventional methods of design-bid-build, design-build, and construction-manager-at-risk into what are known as Lean Construction (LC), Building…

Although introducing the resilience concept into the built environment context occurred relatively late compared to other disciplines, it has been rapidly gaining ground in urban-related studies. Understanding resilience is necessary to achieve the 2030 agenda for sustainable development as it explicitly acknowledges resilience through two of the SDGs and a range of the SDGs’ targets….

With an increasingly unpredictable economy, influences of ‘Design’ must strategically expand into non-allied fields as transdisciplinary design-led practices for sailing through looming uncertainties. In recent years, ‘democratised’ methodologies like Design Thinking and Business Design have gained momentum amid the rise of the ‘Empathy’ economy where designers co-designs with non-designers. Despite the importance of collaboration, the…

This position paper describes a pathway and methodology towards creative systems in architectural design. Drawing from creativity research and strategic design methods, an agile approach to exploration of deep learning technology in the context of architectural optimisation was developed. The investigation proposed and defined the nature of a framework, which explored ways of integrating architectural…

A relatively large number of buildings around New Zealand have been certified through green building rating systems, signalling the interest of the building market to expand the use of different sustainability approaches. However, existing green rating systems are still not capturing full market potential and the attention of building professionals and/or stakeholders to foster widespread…

This paper presents an exploratory investigation of definitions, benefits, barriers, and drivers in the landscape of regenerative development (RD), mainly through international developments but contextualizes it to the New Zealand (NZ) built environment. We combined the content analysis of relevant literature with Informal Interviews and industry discussion programme involving key stakeholders from the NZ built…

This paper aims to present an investigation of definitions, barriers and systems for change in the landscape of regenerative development (RD), through semi-structured interviews to contextualize it to the New Zealand (NZ) built environment. This work informs a larger ongoing study designed to improve strategic decision-making in major public sector projects in New Zealand with…

Auckland has a temperate climate with comfortable warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Auckland school building thermal design not only focuses on winter indoor thermal comfort but also indoor health condition related to high relative humidity. A conventional Auckland school has a number of low-rise, isolated buildings with light weight envelopes. In over 90%…

The Metabolist movement of the 1960s ended with the start of the energy crisis and sustainable consciousness. Despite its failure, metabolism provides meaningful and valuable explorations and references for the future design practice. Japanese Metabolism focuses on buildings that can adapt to changes and be re-creatable, not dissimilar to sustainability concerned with the adaptation to…

This paper proposes a model that uses augmented reality for the presentation of local data on site. Due to the fact that architecture interacts directly with environmental factors, the architect needs to take into account the data about the surrounding context of the site while developing the design. Focusing on the data need of the…

The construction industry is at the core of the global economy and in New Zealand it is the fifth largest industry. One global issue with the construction industry is that it generates a large amount of waste; making it unsustainable. In N.Z., Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste is the most prevalent waste stream and contributes…

Data used to conduct a life cycle assessment, called a life cycle inventory (LCI), is rarely scrutinised and its effects on the results of an environmental assessment is understudied. Hybrid analysis is the most comprehensive technique to compile an LCI. It combines bottom-up industrial process data and top-down macroeconomic input-output data. This study compares two…

The expansion of the built environment is a significant driver of climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Subsequently, ecosystem services required for the basic survival of humans are often reduced or removed altogether in many urban contexts. There are numerous building rating tools that are used to conduct building assessments in order to reduce…

Considerable effort has been expended over recent decades to understand how the physical environment of commercial and academic buildings influences the comfort, health and productivity of the occupants. Somewhat less attention has been given to the study of the effects of distractions and interruptions on the productivity of individual occupants. In the course of their…

To achieve thermal comfort in the hot and humid climatic condition of Malaysia, house design utilizes architectural and landscape elements such as sunscreens, specific orientation of openings, and vegetation to reduce the indoor temperature. However, the green elements might reduce the visibility of the house to the residents and their neighbours which results in residential…