The Complexity of Urban Infill: Case Studies of Three Apartment Buildings

<p class="Abstract" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The subject of this paper is architectural heritage of the former Socialist Republic of Montenegro (SR Montenegro) in the period between 1945 and 1980, with particular emphasis on the role of stone in <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">modern architecture</span>. Stone, as a primordial building and design material, is present in post-war modernist Yugoslav architecture, especially during the first decades, the 50s and 60s of the 20<sup>th </sup>century. It establishes the continuity of construction, which in Montenegro has two fundamental links: the first is the connection with the vernacular principles of construction in the dry, rugged Mediterranean landscape that extends all the way to the central part of Montenegro, and the second is the connection with the beginnings of the modernist architectural idiom in Montenegro in the interwar period when stone was used mainly in a classical, <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">academic manner</span>. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While the paper sheds the light on a hidden part of a very fruitful but neglected architectural heritage, standing in sharp contrast with today’s trends of neo-liberal design practices in the country, it also aims to discern an intrinsic influence of the Mediterranean ethos on the architectural and urban developments on the southern and central region of Montenegro. Although most of the addressed buildings are part of the urban context, the imprints of the Montenegrin landscape, with stone being its dominant characteristic and a certain kind of national demarcation present through its authentic use, create recognizable <i><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">genius loci</span></i>. Finally, while deconstructing this phenomenon, the paper will help to communicate the process of <i><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">retreat</span> </i>with respect to the wider tendencies of European architectural currents of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.</span></p>

Robert Carvais, Andre Guillerme, Valerie Negre, and Joel Sakarovitch, editors. Edifice & Artifice: Histoires constructives . Paris: Editions A. and J. Picard, 2010, 1277 pp., 649 b/w illus. €79 (paperback), ISBN 9782708408760 The history of construction stands out today as an exceptional area of growth, as witnessed by the number of participants in its national and international meetings and the literal weight of publications in the field.1 Construction history encompasses not only the process of building, but also the theory of structure, use of materials, evolution of techniques and professional practices, and regulations relating to all of these matters. The Construction History Society, with its modest-sized annual journal founded in 1985, has now sponsored three international congresses since 2003, with a fourth scheduled for 2012 in Paris. In terms of national organizations, the Spanish have taken the lead, with the Sociedad Espanola de Historia de la Construccion holding conferences nearly every two years since 1996, accompanied by published acts. The year 2008 saw the founding of the American Society of Construction History and a French congress in Paris. The proceedings, consisting of over 120 papers, have been published in Edifice & Artifice: Histoires constructives. The abundance of interesting information and informative insights in this volume is staggering, and the organizers are to be commended for having edited the papers to assure a consistent level of quality. The range of these essays extends from Alain Chassagnoux's three-stage periodization of brick vaulting in Persia (third- fifteenth centuries) to Giulia Marino's study of the CAF building in Paris (1953–59), with its ambitiously cantilevered floors extending out 4.5 meters and the complexities of its aluminum-frame curtain wall using the patented WALLSPAN system.2 Thanks to a broad definition of construction history, one finds articles such as Motoki Toriumi's chronicle of the emergence of a landscape aesthetic of the river view in Paris from the time of Catherine de' Medici and Henri III in the sixteenth century, and then reaching into the reign of Louis XIV, …

<strong><span lang="EN-US">Background. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US">The selection of indicators and their use for the evaluation of agricultural sustainability at the watershed level is addressed. <strong>Objective. </strong>To discuss the importance of their use and the options of existing methodological frameworks for this purpose. <strong>Main findings</strong>. the concept of indicator and its characteristics are defined; subsequently, the main methodological frameworks used in the selection of indicators are described, with emphasis on the assessment of agricultural sustainability in watersheds. <strong>Conclusions</strong>. In the evaluation of agricultural sustainability at the watershed level, it is highlighted the selection of indicators based on a methodological framework that integrates the three dimensions of sustainability (social, ecological and economic). It was considered the management and interactions of the agroecosystems with other external systems and internal subsystems within the watershed. It is emphasized the importance of selecting indicators in a participatory manner, with producers and the application of multivariate analysis that may contribute to the generation of sustainability indices</span>

The graphic design industry has undergone a significant transformation over the years, especially with the development of immersive technology and the increasing demand for branded environments. In light of this evolution, designers are expected to collaborate with other design disciplines to create a unified visual language that integrates 3D elements and design principles. However, most of the graphic design programs still follow the 20th-century curriculum, which can be limiting in preparing students for the evolving industry. To address this issue, a study was conducted to highlight the importance of 3D design skills for graphic designers and the need to incorporate these skills into graphic design education programs. The study analyzed 2D and 3D canons to uncover how elements and principles of 2D design are represented in design education resources and whether they are approached differently in design fields that focus on 2D or 3D design. The findings revealed that the 3D textbooks were more organized and unified in addressing the elements and principles of design than the 2D textbooks, which had different approaches to representing the foundational principles of design. The study emphasized the importance of designers having a clear understanding of design terms such as shape and form, scale and proportion, repetition, pattern, and rhythm to apply them confidently to their work and create a cohesive visual language. However, the study also found that some elements and principles of design were overlooked in the 2D textbooks, such as light, proportion, the relationship between color and light, harmony, variety, and unity. The survey conducted among design educators and professionals revealed that students often struggle with these elements and principles, indicating the need to improve and enhance the design curriculums. The survey also showed that the elements and principles of design are still relevant and important, but they need to be thought about creatively rather than being rigidly applied. They can expand and change depending on media, context, content, and dimensions. The most challenging element for entry-level designers was found to be space, which is the most crucial element in 3D design. Therefore, to address this challenge, the researcher created a VR prototype demonstrating how elements and principles interact in space. The VR prototype is a valuable model as a branded learning experience for institutions to use as a way to teach students how elements and principles interact together in space. In conclusion, the design industry has evolved significantly, and it's essential to update the design curriculums to meet the industry's needs. Incorporating 3D design skills into graphic design education programs can expand students' skill sets and prepare them for the evolving industry. The elements and principles of design are still relevant and important, but they need to be approached creatively and thoughtfully. The VR prototype created by the study can be a valuable tool for teaching students how elements and principles interact in space.

<p class="Abstract" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The strut-type hybrid system can be made in different geometric shapes, which are affected by: the number and arrangement of struts, the shape and position of the cable in relation to the girder, and the size and shape of the cross-section of the girder. When choosing a system, all the listed parameters can vary geometrically, which has consequences on the behaviour of the girder when carrying the load by directly affecting the change in the stiffness of the system. In addition to the geometric parameters, the stiffness of the hybrid system is affected by variations in the properties of the incorporated materials and their mutual relations. In this paper, based on a detailed parametric analysis, the principles of design, the choice of materialisation, and the possibility of further optimisation of the persistent-type hybrid systems are given, with the aim of additionally increasing the load capacity and reducing the deformability. The results of this research are presented in the form of general expressions and diagrams, which can be applied with sufficient accuracy in practice when choosing the form and materialisation of the hybrid system, as well as the possibility of further optimisation of the system by applying pre-stressing. Using the example of external pre-stressing of a glued laminated timber girder, with the assumption of ensuring the lateral stability of the system, the results of the analysis of the behaviour of such a system under load in real conditions, i.e. the influence of the environment and changes in material properties, are given.</span></p>

Increasing energy efficiency of the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch municipalities and housing associations have embraced the ambition to achieve carbon neutrality for their social housing stock by 2050. However, most deep renovation designs for increasing the energy efficiency of dwellings focus on the relatively easy portion of the housing stock: postwar row housing. Furthermore, such design solutions are mostly produced without much care for architectural quality and cultural heritage, nor for testing for consumer preferences. Yet, such aspects are of major importance in tenement housing, particularly regarding the architectural quality of the huge numbers of walk-up apartment buildings from the inter- and postwar periods owned by housing associations in the larger cities. Renovation of buildings of this typology is more complex because of, among others, technical, social, and heritage factors. To support decisions in this complex context, a General Transformation Framework and a Roadmap has been developed for generating design solutions for deep renovation of representative parts of postwar walk-up apartment buildings with the aim to increase energy efficiency; retain its architectural legibility and cultural heritage value; and allow for the presentation of (end) users, with various options for adaptation to assess their preferences.

<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">This contribution presents a part of the work and the methodology applied to it developed for the realization of an international research project aimed at the analysis and preservation of an architectural heritage characteristic of Turin's baroque architecture: the ‘a fasce’ vaults, locally named as ‘a fascioni’.</span></p><p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">This architectural solution, used by important architects, such as Guarini up to the local workers, to cover spaces of various sizes, has found in the court of Turin area a wide application in buildings atria.</span></p><p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">A considerable number of banded vaulted atria were identified and surveyed by the research group to recognize and investigate those whose bands are generated from independent arches.</span></p><p class="Abstract">The objective is the comparison of metric and geometric data between ideal models and realizations over time, to evaluate their variations and understand a constructive methodology through three-dimensional modeling.</p>

<p class="Abstract"><em><span lang="IN">Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the population of Cilacap has increased by 300,282 people over the past five years. With rapid population growth, the need for housing is becoming increasingly difficult to meet. The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) is committed to building public housing as a solution to this problem. However, to ensure that these buildings are livable and sustainable, it is important to conduct a comprehensive cost analysis. In construction projects, life cycle cost analysis is one of the efforts to prepare for the need to understand that costs are not limited to the construction phase. Construction projects often only consider initial costs, which can lead to errors in long-term financial planning. Life Cycle Cost Analysis helps in long-term planning, enabling decision-makers to consider all aspects of costs that will arise throughout the building's lifespan. This not only improves budget efficiency but also ensures that residents receive adequate housing facilities. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research on the economic value analysis of a building, specifically in the form of life cycle cost planning, for a low-cost apartment building with a 25-year lifespan. This analysis should encompass initial costs, operational costs, and maintenance and replacement costs. This research is quantitative. The method used is life cycle cost. Data collection methods include field observations and interviews. The research results indicate that the life cycle cost (LCC) planned for a 25-year lifespan amounts to Rp 20,486,745,640, comprising initial costs of Rp 13,446,741,389 (54.07%), operational costs of Rp 5,832,349,683 (23.45%), maintenance costs of Rp 1,940,837,459 (7.80%), and replacement costs of Rp 3,649,042,776 (14.67%). </span></em></p>

Designing curriculum to shape professional social media skills and identity in virtual communities of practice

“What's the brief?” is an everyday question within the graphic design process. Moreover, the concept and importance of a design brief is overtly understood well beyond design practice itself—especially among stakeholders who work with designers and clients who commission design services. Indeed, a design brief is often an assumed and expected physical or metaphoric artefact for guiding the creative process. When a brief is lacking, incomplete or unclear, it can render an already ambiguous graphic design process and discipline even more fraught with misinterpretation. Nevertheless, even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little research on design briefs and the briefing process (Jones and Askland; Paton and Dorst). It seems astonishing that, even in Peter Phillips’s 2014 edition of Creating the Perfect Design Brief, he feels compelled to comment that “there are still no books available about design briefs” and that the topic is only “vaguely” covered within design education (21). While Phillips’s assertion is debatable if one draws purely from online vernacular sources or professional guides, it is supported by the lack of scholarly attention paid to the design brief. Graphic design briefs are often mentioned within design books, journals, and online sources. However, this article argues that the format, function and use of such briefs are largely assumed and rarely identified and studied. Even within the broader field of design research, the tendency appears to be to default to “the design brief” as an assumed shorthand, supporting Phillips’s argument about the nebulous nature of the topic. As this article contextualises, this is further problematised by insufficient attention cast on graphic design itself as a specific discipline. This article emerges from a wider, multi-stage creative practice study into graphic design practice, that used experimental performative design research methods to investigate graphic designers’ professional relationships with stakeholders (Meron, Strangely). The article engages with specific outcomes from that study that relate to the design brief. The article also explores existing literature and research and argues for academics, the design industry, and educationalists, to focus closer attention on the design brief. It concludes by suggesting that experimental and collaborative design methods offers potential for future research into the design brief. Contextualising the Design Brief It is critical to differentiate the graphic design brief from the operational briefs of architectural design (Blyth and Worthington; Khan) or those used in technical practices such as software development or IT systems design, which have extensive industry-formalised briefing practices and models such as the waterfall system (Petersen et al.) or more modern processes such as Agile (Martin). Software development and other technical design briefs are necessarily more formulaically structured than graphic design briefs. Their requirements are generally empirically and mechanistically located, and often mission-critical. In contrast, the conceptual nature of creative briefs in graphic design creates the potential for them to be arbitrarily interpreted. Even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little consistency about the form that a brief takes. Some sources indicate that a brief only requires one page (Elebute; Nov and Jones) or even a single line of text (Jones and Askland). At other times briefs are described as complex, high-level documents embedded within processes which designers respond to with the aim of producing end products to satisfy clients’ requirements (Ambrose; Patterson and Saville). Ashby and Johnson (40) refer to the design brief as a “solution neutral” statement, the aim being to avoid preconceptions or the narrowing of the creative possibilities of a project. Others describe a consultative (Walsh), collaborative and stakeholder-inclusive process (Phillips). The Scholarly Brief Within scholarly design research, briefs inevitably manifest as an assumed artefact or process within each project; but the reason for their use or antecedents for chosen formats are rarely addressed. For example, in “Creativity in the Design Process” (Dorst and Cross) some elements of the design brief are described. The authors also describe at what stage of the investigation the brief is introduced and present a partial example of the brief. However, there is no explanation of the form of the brief or the reasons behind it. They simply describe it as being typical for the design medium, adding that its use was considered a critical part of addressing the design problem. In a separate study within advertising (Johar et al.), researchers even admit that the omission of crucial elements from the brief—normally present in professional practice—had a detrimental effect on their results. Such examples indicate the importance of briefs for the design process, yet further illustrating the omission of direct engagement with the brief within the research design, methodology, and methods. One exception comes from a study amongst business students (Sadowska and Laffy) that used the design brief as a pedagogical tool and indicates that interaction with, and changes to, elements of a design brief impact the overall learning process of participants, with the brief functioning as a trigger for that process. Such acknowledgement of the agency of a design brief affirms its importance for professional designers (Koslow et al.; Phillips). This use of a brief as a research device informed my use of it as a reflective and motivational conduit when studying graphic designers’ perceptions of stakeholders, and this will be discussed shortly. The Professional Brief Professionally, the brief is a key method of communication between designers and stakeholders, serving numerous functions including: outlining creative requirements, audience, and project scope; confirming project requirements; and assigning and documenting roles, procedures, methods, and approval processes. The format of design briefs varies from complex multi-page procedural documents (Patterson and Saville; Ambrose) produced by marketing departments and sent to graphic design agencies, to simple statements (Jones and Askland; Elebute) from small to medium-sized businesses. These can be described as the initial proposition of the design brief, with the following interactions comprising the ongoing briefing process. However, research points to many concerns about the lack of adequate briefing information (Koslow, Sasser and Riordan). It has been noted (Murray) that, despite its centrality to graphic design, the briefing process rarely lives up to designers’ expectations or requirements, with the approach itself often haphazard. This reinforces the necessarily adaptive, flexible, and compromise-requiring nature of professional graphic design practice, referred to by design researchers (Cross; Paton and Dorst). However, rather than lauding these adaptive and flexible designer abilities as design attributes, such traits are often perceived by professional practitioners as unequal (Benson and Dresdow), having evolved by the imposition by stakeholders, rather than being embraced by graphic designers as positive designer skill-sets. The Indeterminate Brief With insufficient attention cast on graphic design as a specific scholarly discipline (Walker; Jacobs; Heller, Education), there is even less research on the briefing process within graphic design practice (Cumming). Literature from professional practice on the creation and function of graphic design briefs is often formulaic (Phillips) and fractured. It spans professional design bodies, to templates from mass-market printers (Kwik Kopy), to marketing-driven and brand-development approaches, in-house style guides, and instructional YouTube videos (David). A particularly clear summary comes from Britain’s Design Council. This example describes the importance of a good design brief, its requirements, and carries a broad checklist that includes the company background, project aims, and target audience. It even includes stylistic tips such as “don’t be afraid to use emotive language in a brief if you think it will generate a shared passion about the project” (Design Council). From a subjective perspective, these sources appear to contain sensible professional advice. However, with little scholarly research on the topic, how can we know that, for example, using emotive language best informs the design process? Why might this be helpful and desirable (or otherwise) for designers? These varied approaches highlight the indeterminate treatment of the design brief. Nevertheless, the very existence of such diverse methods communicates a pattern of acknowledgement of the criticality of the brief, as well as the desire, by professional bodies, commentators, and suppliers, to ensure that both designers and stakeholders engage effectively with the briefing process. Thus, with such a pedagogic gap in graphic design discourse, scholarly research into the design brief has the potential to inform vernacular and formal educational resources. Researching the Design Brief The research study from which this article emerges (Meron, Strangely) yielded outcomes from face-to-face interviews with eleven (deidentified) graphic designers about their perceptions of design practice, with particular regard to their professional relationships with other creative stakeholders. The study also surveyed online discussions from graphic design forums and blog posts. This first stage of research uncovered feelings of lacking organisational gravitas, creative ownership, professional confidence, and design legitimacy among the designers in relation to stakeholders. A significant causal factor pointed to practitioners’ perceptions of lacking direct access to and involvement with key sources of creative inspiration and information; one

The design of domestic environments is fraught with decision-making, a process often dictated by fashion. The resulting inhabitation of domestic spaces blends the routine and the banal, with occasional forays into the extraordinary. The spaces of the domesticity range from single rooms to elaborate palaces. These can be functionally prescribed or open-ended, they support furniture, décor, behaviours, and narratives. The writer Georges Perec (1936–82) provides a way of looking at the domestic realm and ordinary life through his many inter-related writings on the subject. In his quest for an ‘anthropology of everyday life’, he explored notions of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘infraordinary’. In this text two important works by Perec are examined to explore how he framed and questioned notions of domesticity; can this reading be construed as a theory of domesticity?Perec’s text Species of Spaces describes a spatial continuity between city and dwelling that is characterised by spatial types, thresholds/boundaries, objects, and everyday practices often of an autobiographical nature. He begins with the page, ascends through the apartment building and the city, and ends with the world in a sequence of embedded spatial conditions. A close read of Species of Spaces uncovers a kind of sociological work, a critique or manifesto, and an evolution from Perec’s previous writings. In the text he asks the most fundamental questions, such as ‘What does it mean, to live in a room?’In his monumental text Life A User’s Manual, Perec examines the lives of residents in a typical Parisian apartment building, it remains one of the most significant imaginings of how a building, or work of architecture, can be occupied. Through the vast scope of Perec’s project the book captures the intertwining lives of the occupants of the building at 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier, in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, at precisely 8:00 pm on 23 June 1975. To accomplish this Perec devised forty-two ‘preprogrammed’ factors to structure each of the ninety-nine chapters to ensure that he covered plot, actors, and setting in a systematic way. The apartment building ultimately provides an armature for the study of the very small to the very large.Life A User’s Manual describes a domestic world, how we organise our residences into compartments of space, how we furnish the rooms, how our stories create our realities, and how the lives of people in an ordinary apartment building intertwine in so many ways. Although frozen in a moment, the novel captures the vagaries and complexities of the everyday. It describes the routines of living, unexpected happenings, the connections between people living together at close quarters, the role of interiors in defining a particular period, the histories that can support and damage a life, the common aspirations and tragedies of urban dwellers, and so on. Perec's work does not constitute an actual theory of domesticity, although it precisely describes a domestic order that provides a sense of place by attending to both the minor and major aspects of an environment.

Is Occupational Therapy Adequately Meeting the Needs of People With Chronic Pain?

Understandings of knowledge in social work, in the UK at least, are based on an assumption that theory – increasingly derived from ‘scientific’ or ‘evidence-based’ perspectives – can be abstracted and applied to practice. Essentially, knowledge acquisition and utilisation are seen as transactional, instrumental endeavours. Such a view does not fit with the realities of everyday social pedagogical practice. This article begins to develop an alternative conception of social work/social pedagogical knowledge from an Aristotelean position, within which the relationship between theory and practice happens in the domain of praxis; this is not a direct mapping of theory onto practice but operates in a constant dialectic within which one informs and indeed collapses into the other. Effective praxis requires Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of phronesis (practical reasoning or judgement). Phronesis understands practice within its wider moral purpose and foregrounds the virtues and dispositions of practitioners rather than a set of rules. Knowing and being (epistemology and ontology) therefore come together in how practitioners engage in everyday practice. This proposition challenges dominant technical and instrumental conceptions of knowledge and, more generally, of the way in which professional practice is currently understood.

Urban residential redevelopment projects in Seoul, South Korea gradually replaced the deteriorating low-rise residential fabrics with high-rise, high-density apartment complexes. Despite flat-type being the dominant style for apartment buildings, compact tower-type buildings popularised in the late 1990s to maximise density in terms of floor area ratio, ensure open green spaces and provide favourable views. However, as tower-type buildings possessed several deficiencies, such as non-southern orientation, difficulties in cross-ventilation, and comparatively higher construction costs, a compromise emerged in the 2000s. In succession, various morphologically modified and intentionally deformed buildings and their accompanying site planning configurations emerged to overcome the shortcomings of the newly built high-rise apartment complexes. This study aims to (1) track the evolving apartment building morphology and (2) identify different layout configurations in accordance with the transformed building types, specifically those constructed in redeveloped and reconstructed housing projects. Diverse building modification and relevant arrangement strategies are primarily oriented to the internal residents’ interests, while the public dimension outside the complex is inconspicuously underestimated. Thus, it is crucial to further perceive and promote awareness of the public space in ways that counterbalance the dominantly privatized pedestrian environment and neighbourhood-scape based on systematic comprehension of apartment buildings and their layout morphologies.

The quality of apartment houses has been gradually upgraded. However the changes in demographic composition of residents such as seniors, disabled persons, and etc. have not been considered in the process of planning. If apartment houses are designed on the base of the concept of universal design, their residents could live as long as they want to live in. This study evaluates the Korean standard-sized apartment housing units and the common spaces of those apartment buildings, and it's outdoor environments from the perspective of universal design. The observation and measuring was conducted with the questionnaire survey with 100 residents living in those housing units. 60 items were designed for evaluating them in relation to the principles of universal design. The results are as follows : 1) In general, the principles of universal design were relatively applied to the apartment houses. However their application needs to be broadened. 2) The number of parking lots needs to be increased and the width of individual parking lot to be increased. Also, the location of gazebo and senior center needs to be placed in easily accessible areas. 3) The shape, color, finishes of the ramp and the entrance area of the apartment building and housing unit should be made more homelike. Also, the entrance area of apartment building and housing unit needs to be made large enough for residents themselves and meeting with neighbors. 4) Among all of the rooms in a housing unit, bathroom should be improved immediately. Also, the width of doors should be at least 80cm wide and the floor should be made even.