Buildings, Volume 11, Issue 4

Various concretes have been developed to meet the principles of sustainability. High volume fly ash-self compacting concrete (HVFA-SCC) is one example. The utilization of HVFA-SCC for structural applications, however, raises a concern among designers...

The “Tianzihao” colony was built by the French Jesuits in the 1890s. As one of the earliest examples of the French Catholic Church’s mission in China, as well as the only case in Nanjing, it shows the historical scenes of Western missionaries in Nanj...

Free-form concrete panel production requires an increasing amount of manpower because the molds cannot be reused. There are many limitations when it comes to reproducing accurate forms due to the many manual processes. Therefore, the current study de...

An important parameter that affects indoor climate of buildings and also ventilation heat losses and gains is the speed of air change between the outdoor environment and the interior of buildings. Indoor air quality is therefore significantly associa...

Risk identification and management are the two most important parts of construction project management. Better risk management can help in determining the future consequences, but identifying possible risk factors has a direct and indirect impact on...

The present study aims at evaluating the impact of anobiid damage on pine timber elements. Anobiid attack produces a diffuse damage of the elements with a set of tunnels in random directions and sizes, thus confusing quantification. Therefore, a meth...

New vertical housing developments in Guadalajara (Mexico) are reaching the city center as a response for redensification after many years of expansion of the urban area characterized by a suburban, low density and fragmented pattern. This horizontal...

Buildings inevitably deteriorate with time. Schools buildings are no exception and require refurbishment at times. Despite the UK Government announcing the £1 billion funding for rebuilding 50 schools over 10 years starting 2010–2021, it is common pr...

The use of timber as structural building material is growing and a greater number of firms are looking to enter this raising market. Erecting a complex timber building usually involves combining the work of architects, structural engineers, builders,...

Solar Decathlon is a showcase of cutting-edge residential buildings containing innovative solutions and technologies. This study reviewed, identified, and categorized technological innovations from past Solar Decathlon competitions. The review was ba...

This article addresses the question of collective housing from the standpoint of two key notions in the contemporary architectural debate: care and the commons. With this objective in mind, a series of analytical parameters are put forward. The aim i...

This paper deals with the design of the seismic rehabilitation of a case-study building located in Florence, Italy. The particular reinforced concrete building hosts an important operational center of the main company that manages the Italian highway...

The preservation of the authenticity of a building artifact in an archaeological area is a responsible practice. On the other hand, the need to save the building artifact from natural and anthropic degradation and ensuring the structural reliability...

The design of a building façade has a significant impact on the way people respond to it physiologically and behaviourally. Few methods are available to assist an architect to understand such impacts during the design process. Thus, this paper examin...

Educational facilities hold a higher degree of uncertainty in predicting maintenance and repair costs than other types of facilities. Moreover, achieving accurate and reliable maintenance and repair costs is essential, yet very little is known about...

The energy characterization of buildings can be done by bottom-up methods such as energy simulation models (samples or archetypes). A sample consists of the selection of real buildings and an archetype is a theoretical building that represents them....

Urban Photovoltaic (PV) systems can provide large fractions of the residential electric demand at socket parity (i.e., a cost below the household consumer price). This is obtained without necessarily installing electric storage or exploiting tax fund...

Existing reinforced concrete (RC) members, designed in accordance with obsolete codes, are often characterized by high stirrup spacing. The collapse mechanisms generated by high stirrup spacing are typically related to the buckling of longitudinal re...

Focusing on the Brussels urban environment, this paper investigates spatial mutations produced by key critical transitions to accommodate new social and living conditions for collective purposes. Using CAD re-drawings, a systematic comparison of resi...

Recently, fiber has been incorporated into concrete mixtures, where its distribution in the concrete matrix helps to improve and enhance the mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC). The aim of this study is to investigate the influen...

This essay proposes a review of current trends in the design of collective housing projects. The method for the review is based on the observation of certain conditions of contemporary society that show an immediate influence on new habitat patterns....

Condition information is essential to develop effective facility management (FM) strategies. Visual inspections and walk-through surveys are common practices of condition assessment (CA), generally resulting in qualitative and subjective outcomes suc...

Creep properties are determined in design standards by measuring the creep coefficient, noted φ, as a function of time, t, and the age of the concrete at loading, t₀. The work aims to study the validity of the analytical models proposed in the most u...

The structural design of glass curtain walls and facades is a challenging issue, considering that building envelopes can be subjected extreme design loads. Among others, the soft body impact (SBI) test protocol represents a key design step to protect...

The public housing built under the Franco regime in Spain (1939–1975) brought about the largest urban growth in the country’s recent history. It shares similar characteristics with other public housing built in Europe during the 20th century, and tod...

The majority of cultural heritage is stored in archives, libraries and museum storage spaces. To reduce degradation risks, many archives adopt the use of archival boxes, among other means, to provide the necessary climate control and comply with stri...

Biophilic design as a new design approach promotes the integration of natural elements into the built environment, leading to a significant impact on human health, well-being, and productivity. On the other hand, scholars have explored Virtual Enviro...

Construction and demolition (C&D) activities generate a large amount of waste and have significant impacts on the environment. Thus, it is necessary to implement C&D waste management (WM), which requires the involvement of stakeholders and is...

Currently, unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly being used in various construction projects such as housing developments, road construction, and bridge maintenance. If a drone is used at a road construction site, elevation information and orthoi...

Construction projects and cities account for over 50% of carbon emissions and energy consumption. Industry 4.0 and digital transformation may increase productivity and reduce energy consumption. A digital twin (DT) is a key enabler in implementing In...

Plastic materials are increasingly becoming used in the building envelope, despite a lack of investigation on their effects. In this work, an extruded Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene panel has been tested as a second-skin layer in a ventilated facade...

Comprehensive methodologies based on a fully probabilistic approach (i.e., the performance-based earthquake engineering approach, PBEE), represent a refined and accurate tool for the seismic performance assessment of structures. However, those proced...

There has been growing interest in how to foster collaborative relationships between facility managers and end-users to obtain user-centred post-occupancy data for improving design and user satisfaction. Despite this attempt, there is little understa...

This paper presents a preliminary assessment of road tunnel safety issues among respondents—specifically, real and potential users of road tunnels. We recruited a group of respondents to study their knowledge of evacuation procedures and awareness of...

Performance-based design plays a significant role in the structural and earthquake engineering community to ensure both safety and economic feasibility. Its application to masonry building design/assessment is limited and requires straightforward rul...

The purpose of this paper was to examine the community consultation practices carried out by implementing agencies when managing post-disaster housing reconstruction (PDHR) projects, identify the obstacles they face, and evaluate the effect these obs...

The test results obtained for reinforced concrete columns by several studies have revealed that the peak displacement and cumulative hysteresis energy are important parameters for evaluating the damage of columns under horizontal bidirectional and un...

Megaproject social responsibility (MSR) is a critical factor regarding the sustainable delivery of megaprojects and MSR behavior to implement MSR. However, the questions of which factors effectively promote MSR behavior and how these factors work rem...

Construction is a hazardous industry. The project-based nature and fragmentation in the industry lead to change and uncertainty requiring special expertise. To handle those, construction firms must develop strategies and action plans along with the e...

The recent growth of cooperative housing in Spain questions existing design standards and regulations as well as cultural norms of ownership, management and current housing typologies. This paper analyzes the design opportunities and challenges emerg...

Façades, as the most external building envelope component, are subject to different ex-ternal environmental loads, such as: Temperature, precipitation, damp, and wind. Therefore, the contribution of environmental actions to the occurrence of defects...

The article concerns the issue of intelligence-based design, which, during the design process undertaken by architects, signifies (according to the authors of the article) thinking about perceptual involvement in the built environment, designing toge...

The water trap seal is still the main method of protecting building inhabitants from the ingress of foul contaminated air and noxious gases from the sewer. This seal can become compromised when water is lost in the trap by processes including evapora...