Architecture and Urban Development (IJAUD)

The dominant policy decision emphasis on urbanisation problem in developing countries is its rate of growth, ignoring the level of provision of resources, including the infrastructure, to match this growth. It is against this background that the paper undertook a broad analysis of the state of infrastructure in developing countries using such indices as access and quality of water supply, sanitation and solid waste management, to explore how their provision and improvements over time could gradually match the rate of urbanisation. Extensive literature review was adopted for data collection in articles and journals which were analysized using content analysis technique. There is significant proportion of population using unimproved drinking water sources (42%), unimproved sanitation facilities (50%) and without access to designated waste disposal sites (44%). Water, sanitation and hygiene are key to improving health and development. Providing sustainable access to these infrastructures is the most important things that can be done to reduce disease and improve human development.

In this research multiple-regression analysis with stepwise selection method was employed for investigating the effect of vertical building envelopes solar radiation (Evr) on cooling energy consumption (E cooling) in residential sector. The high capacity of solar energy in semi-arid climate (Shiraz) can provide a part of buildings required energy. Depends on house orientations in two directions of SE and SW and by using statistical data, E cooling in urban residences was analyzed. The autocorrelation in the residuals, checked by Durbin- Watson test, was not existed. By investigating the relations between average Evr and E Cooling in each group, it can be proved that climatic orientated houses can achieve lower E Cooling, owing to SE desirable orientation. The percentage of Evr in SW houses is 28.89 % and in SE it is 15.72 %, so choosing the building orientation is important to reduce energy consumption. Finally, the concluding remarks were indicated.

The human population has been growing at least at the rate of 1.2% annually since 1960 reaching up to 6.4B in 2002 and more than 7.0B in 2012. In Davao City, the annual population growth rate is running at 3.22% in year 1990, at 2.41% last 2007 and recently in 2013 at 2.36%. The alarming problem we confront today is that the increase in land area for human use does not expand in proportion to population density increase. It is the aim of this study to address the future problems on land and food shortage through the efficient integration of vertical farms on mixed-use multi-storied commercial-residential buildings in Davao City in order to provide income generating condominiums and produce organic crops for residents in an urban setting. The result of the computations showed that the integration of farms to mixed-use residential-commercial buildings in Davao City is highly feasible. The gross profit is highest using gross floor area percentage ratio combination of 50:5:20 for residential, commercial and vertical farm units respectively. (i.e., 50% of the building’s gross floor area should be allotted to residential units, 5% to commercial units, and 20% to farm units). Moreover the gross profit and ROI of the 50:5:20 gross floor area ratio also generated the highest which amounted to Php 1,785,316,198.00B compared to only Php 501,045,100.00M for the typical commercial-residential buildings in five years. This research has mainly focused on the integration of hydroponics, but the inclusion of aquaponic farms in vertical structures can also be further explored.

Buildings play an important role in the energy demand sector. Due to the increase of environmental concerns and renewable energy sources restriction, lighting control systems will play an important role in the reduction of energy consumption of the lighting without impeding comfort goals. Lighting control systems can control lighting consumption according to the type of building, adequate luminance, occupation time, scheduled time etc. Better lighting not only can reduce the energy consumption of a room, it can improve the quality of work from its occupants. The main aim of the project is to determine the energy saved by using different artificial lighting control systems and find the best one. Honeybee plug-in for grasshopper in a space as a classroom simulated six different systems in this article and electricity, cooling and heating energy consumption for these systems were compared. Results show that “Auto dimming with switch off occupancy sensor” has the best annual operation and it saves eight times more electricity energy than the worst system which is the traditional “Always on during active occupancy sensor”. Considering thermal energy consumption also proves the priority of occupancy and daylight dimming system. Selecting a suitable lighting control system in initial steps of design or after construction is very affordable and increases environment quality.

In our present research, we focus on the modeling of airflow related to natural disasters, such as sand accumulation, with urban form studies. The objective is to find which urban form can promote sand passing and reduce as much as possible stagnation of sand in the building area (streets, alleys, etc.). The urban form design will be discussed through the simulation of airflow by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In terms of simulation, we simulated the airflow behavior, which is responsible of sand stagnation in some specific configurations. A flat ground was chosen with a first configuration, which was varied to test each time a current airflow behavior in this configuration. This modeling is made possible following an appropriate turbulence model. In this study, a correlation was made between urban wind speed and morphological parameters such as aspect ratio, building geometry and building density. According to our theoretical references, this correlation shows that urban wind speed can help reduce sand stagnation with proper values of these parameters. Therefore, through the urban form study we can promote wind speed and blow away the accumulated sand till the urban limits.

Redevelopment of distressed and blighted areas are targeted by most of development policies. However, a number of policies have been changed as the result of the ineffectiveness of the previous experiences, the incompatibility of the development tools and plans, the lack of financial resources or social movements. Large-scale redevelopment projects have usually been considered as the powerful tools for urban revitalization, modernization and implementation of radical plans while many of those were criticized due to their various consequences including social exclusion, inequality, social conflicts, environmental damages, inconsistent scale, etc. Downtown of the City of Mashhad; Samen District, has experienced various physical interventions in the form of large-scale projects during the last century. Although the projects and intervention policies have been transformed during the past decades, previous faults were ignored and sometimes were iterated in these experiences. In fact, it seems that urban development solutions in the district have not been sustainable solutions and couldn’t maintain or shape a sustainable community in the historical and formerly economic urban core of Mashhad. This paper, focusing on mega redevelopment projects experienced in Samen Districst after 1920s, aims to highlight the critical aspects neglected or bent in Samen redevelopment program. Based on the nature of large-scale redevelopment projects and the current sustainability criteria, it qualitatively assesses the sustainability of the redevelopment projects through content-analysis method. According to the results, despite the competitiveness and place promotion goals of the Samen redevelopment project, the adopted approaches and policies could not lead to a state of sustainable development.

Organization of living environment is possible through a clear definition of private and public arenas and determination of a spatial hierarchy. Such defined arenas increase the sense of belonging to the environment which personalizes residential environments. Enclosure is among the quantities that play a significant role in defining the spaces. In fact, enclosure is the factor that defines a space as a ground for occurrence of other events. Enclosure is an individual subjective ground to define the space and the primary factor in conversion of space into place. One of the basic functions of a house is to determine a territory. This paper considers the concept of territory as an effective factor on the quality of the relationship between the human and his residential environment and investigates the effect of enclosure on this territory. Two residential areas including a part of Haft-Hoz neighborhood and Shahrak-e Gharb (West Town) were selected as the sample of the test. The effects of enclosure factor on the concept of territory were analyzed in common residential complexes. A qualitative research method was applied and questionnaire was used as the scientific method. According to the belief that the relationship between human and the environment depends on many different factors, this paper investigates and analyzes the concept of territory and spatial enclosure as one of the effective factors on the quality of the relationship between human and residential environment in the mentioned neighborhoods.