Architecture, Volume 2, Issue 3 (September 2022) – 8 articles

This paper studies the annual rankings of professional architectural degree programs by DesignIntelligence (DI). It uses a literature review and the statistical analysis of DI rankings and program-specific data to explore the limitations of the ranking system and its impacts on programs and public opinion. According to the findings of the study, the limitations of this system are related to the data it uses, the methods it uses to collect the data, and the way it uses the data for ranking purposes. Still, the ranking system can force architectural programs into a costly campaign for better ranks. It can also mislead prospective students in choosing programs that may not match their expectations. Additionally, it does not provide a reliable assessment of the capacity of a program to serve the profession and produce public good. It is suggested that a more objective, reliable, and relevant ranking system is needed for professional architecture degree programs. For this, the ranking system should emphasize criteria and methods different from the current DI system of rankings and should allow users to personalize rankings based on their perspectives, needs, and priorities. Full article

Tsunamis pose significant challenges for disaster reduction efforts due to the multi-hazard, cascading nature of these events, including a range of different potential triggering and consequential hazards. Although infrequent, they have the potential to cause devastating human and economic losses. Effective urban planning has been recognised as an important strategy for reducing disaster risk in cities. However, there have been limited studies on urban planning for tsunami-prone areas, and there have been wide ranging strategies adopted globally. This is an international study aimed at exploring the status of urban planning in tsunami areas and better understanding potential urban planning strategies to reduce disaster risk in coastal regions. Drawing upon the work of an international collaborative research team, in this article, we present the findings of a systematic review of the urban planning literature. Using the PRISMA guidelines, 56 papers were selected, and three guiding questions informed the review. Further empirical investigations were carried out in Sri Lanka by a local research team, including twelve semi-structured interviews with representatives from agencies in urban planning, construction, and disaster management, and a focus group representing town and country planning, architecture, structural engineering, disaster management, landscape and geospatial planning, building services, green buildings and infrastructure and environmental management fields. The combined analysis reveals insights into the characteristics of the literature, as well as the nature of existing strategies for urban planning in tsunami-prone areas, grouped into six broad themes: community participation, spatial planning, soft and hard engineering;,evacuation planning, and resilience thinking. The findings also reveal limitations in existing strategies, including their failure to address multi-hazard threats and systemic risk, as well as inadequate community participation, and limited access to timely disaster risk information. The findings are used to inform an initial model of urban planning strategies in tsunami-prone areas that can be used before a hazard event occurs, during and in the immediate response to a hazard event, and during recovery and reconstruction following a disaster. Full article

Housing reconstruction is considered the backbone of disaster recovery. The increasing losses in housing due to disasters challenge conventional top-down schemes and call for people-centred approaches to acknowledge their agency and self-recovery resources. This paper examines the pathways for housing self-recovery through resident-controlled incremental housing development. This paper focuses on the Villa Verde settlement built in the Chilean city of Constitución, which was severely impacted by the 2010 Chile Earthquake. Villa Verde, designed by the Chilean architecture studio Elemental, is one of the most notable incremental housing projects worldwide that encourage residents to extend their houses within a provided structural framework. This research aims to provide clarity in the much-needed understanding of disaster-affected people’s agency to self-recover, noted by researchers as one of the crucial elements for improving the humanitarian response in the aftermath of disasters. Through capturing the evolution of incremental housing construction, this paper presents multiple complexities resulting from the variety of households’ characteristics and needs in their process of post-disaster housing self-recovery. The resident-controlled process studied evidence that the people’s capacities and dedication to self-recover challenged the established housing framework with extensions beyond the designers’ parameters requiring further evaluation of the long-term implications of self-help constructions. Full article

Building knowledge on participation successes and failures is essential to enhance the overall quality and accountability of participatory processes. This paper relates to participatory assessment conducted in four cities, where 12 participatory workshops were organized, bringing together more than 230 participants. On-the-spot feedback was collected from the participants and generated 203 logbook entries, which helped define participant-related variables. Those variables in turn unfolded unique participatory trajectories for each participant. Four retrospective focus groups were then organized to bring qualitative, in-depth understanding to the participants’ expectations and (dis)satisfactions all along the participatory processes. On the basis of these empirical data, we developed a contextual, analytical tool to review participation in a longitudinal way. This qualitative tool articulates several intertwined influences: the level of satisfaction, the level of expectations and participatory background from the participants’ perspectives, as well as the participatory maturity from the organizing agency’s perspective. We argue that evaluating participation in the long term and in a transversal way, focusing on agencies’ and participants’ trajectories rather than uniquely on on-the-spot experiences, provides additional meaning to criteria applied to participation evaluation and teaches us more about participation quality and efficiency than repeated assessments of disconnected and isolated initiatives. Full article

The concept of inclusion in design is increasingly well known and often recognizes value in a greater diversity of people when creating new buildings, spaces, products, and services. Still, uptake is said to be limited in practice. The theoretical landscape provides several definitions and concerns, but they are often paradoxical. Rather than disentangle theory, this research turns to practitioners who design inclusively. This research explores the ways people advocate for inclusion in design projects, prevailing aspects in the negotiations within multi-stakeholder projects, the motivations and mindsets that drive these aspects, and the opportunities they create for the improved uptake of inclusion. Through discussions (semi-structured interviews) with six individuals from design and architecture, aspects of inclusion from practice emerged. The data were clustered thematically and organized into three parts: general project development, working with others as a team, and designing inclusively. These explorations highlight the value of including a more diverse group of individuals in the negotiations of a design project, the value of bespoke designs, the ever-evolving nature of inclusion, the different ways to present a valuable business case, and the influence of team dynamics. Conflicting perspectives on effective uptake prevail in both practice and theory. Future research will inquire on the most prevalent and valuable aspects of inclusion and their placement within current development processes. Full article

In this paper, we focus on interdisciplinary collaboration using intuitive virtual reality interfaces and building information models in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. These systems have been a topic of research and development for the past ten years; however, there is still no widely open standard format, related software platform, or guidelines that are sufficiently mature; the complexity of such systems is very high. We review existing state-of-the-art interdisciplinary collaborative virtual reality systems, proposing solutions and standards. Thirteen state-of-the-art systems are reviewed and compared to illustrate emerging trends and insufficiencies. It is found that these systems differ significantly with respect to drawing capabilities, photorealism, construction simulation, and interdisciplinary communication. We discover trends in user interfaces that could be evolved to better standards, and provide future guidelines to developers. Combining the best aspects of existing systems, we provide a blueprint for an ideal system that combines the most advanced features for collaborative design. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted many industries on a global scale. Expectedly, the construction industry was not left out as non-essential construction was halted, strict health and safety protocols were introduced, and businesses were disrupted. New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic at its onset in the United States, and the pandemic had different impacts on workers based on their work location and role. This study utilized a survey including twenty-five statements to explore the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry in New York State, analyzing its effects on sixty-one construction industry professionals, their projects, and firms, also considering their work location and role in the construction process. The most severe impacts were on construction schedules and in-person meetings. Those who worked in New York City had more difficulty complying with the increased health and safety regulations than those who worked outside the city. Those categorized as builders indicated significantly more contract performance issues. Furthermore, a set of recommendations were highlighted to strengthen the industry’s response to future similar disruptions. This study is significant in helping researchers and businesses build more resilient operations to address current and future pandemic-related challenges facing the construction industry. Full article

From the perspective of urban planning, the history of the Town Camps of Mparntwe (Alice Springs) has made them a unique form of urban development within Australia; they embody at once a First Nation form of urbanism and Country, colonial policies of inequity and dispossession, and a disparate public and community infrastructure that reflects the inadequate and ever-changing funding landscape it has been open to. While these issues continue, this paper discusses the resilience of these communities through the Local Decision Making agreement, signed in 2019 between the Northern Territory Government and Tangentyere Council. One thing that has been critical to translating and communicating local decisions for government funding has been the establishment of an inclusive and robust process of participatory mapping—Mapping Local Decisions—where both the deficiencies and potential of community infrastructure within each Town Camp is being identified. As local community knowledge is embedded within these practices, so too are issues of health, accessibility, safety and a changing climate similarly embedded within the architectural and infrastructure projects developed for government funding. Being conceived and supported by local communities, projects are finding better ways to secure this funding, building on a resilience these communities have for the places they live. Full article