Product Architecture Research Articles

The Influence Innovation Has on the Visual Appearance and Aesthetic Preference of Architectural Products

The importance of innovation for architectural products in the building industry increases due to global competitive markets and users’ increased value given to the visual aesthetics of products. Visual appearance is crucial in architecture and product design and influences users’ product choices in many ways. Substantial research on innovation exists concerning users’ purchasing, adopting, and recommending it to others, but little research investigates the link between product innovation and aesthetic preference. This gap in knowledge prompted our investigation. Quantitative analysis of a survey of 114 respondents from Australia was conducted in this study to examine whether innovation plays a significant role in perceiving the aesthetic preference of an architectural product more than other visual appearances. Standard multiple regression using SPSS V28 was applied for statistical data analysis. Results uncovered that innovation explained the highest percentage of variance in overall aesthetic preference, and the innovativeness of a product strongly influences the visual appearance and aesthetic preference. The findings of this study offer new insight into the level of innovation for new product development where visual appearance is of high importance.

The marble envelope of the Casa delle Armi by Luigi Moretti: documentary and experimental knowledge finalized to digital modeling

The application of digital modeling for safeguarding the built heritage is a consolidated research field and carries substantial operational interest. The methodological aspects of this application are theoretically outlined but far from being commonly applied. In the perspective of delineating a more straightforward method for implementing these practices among the built heritage, modern Italian architectural production constitutes an ideal field of investigation, both for the significance of the built heritage and for the construction problems that characterize them. Indeed, in the case of stone cladding – which is typical of the Fascist period – the decay conditions and the peculiarity of the material make the investigation specific and paradigmatic of the implementation of the above-mentioned digital methodologies. The Casa delle Armi built heritage by Luigi Moretti in Rome, which has been the research subject of the Authors for years, features a marbled envelope detailed by the designer in every aspect, not only during the design phase but also during construction. This uniqueness makes the recovery of the envelope extremely challenging, as it should not alter its extremely complex nature, while today, the marble envelope is profoundly degraded by natural and anthropogenic factors. Digital modeling appears to be an optimal operational solution for guiding the recovery, but it presents many issues illustrated in this article and to which we have begun to give answers in this contribution. In particular, we delineate the knowledge of the case mentioned above study-built heritage, pursued through documentary analysis integrated by direct and instrumental observation on site.

Genome-wide association study for milk production and conformation traits in Canadian Alpine and Saanen dairy goats

Increasing the productivity of Canadian dairy goats is critical to the competitiveness of the sector; however, little is known about the underlying genetic architecture of economically important traits in these populations. Consequently, the objectives of this study were as follows: (1) to perform a single-step GWAS for milk production traits (milk, protein, and fat yields, and protein and fat percentages in first and later lactations) and conformation traits (body capacity, dairy character, feet and legs, fore udder, general appearance, rear udder, suspensory ligament, and teats) in the Canadian Alpine and Saanen breeds; and (2) to identify positional and functional candidate genes related to these traits. The data available for analysis included 305-d milk production records for 6,409 Alpine and 3,434 Saanen does in first lactation and 5,827 Alpine and 2,632 Saanen does in later lactations; as well as linear type conformation records for 5,158 Alpine and 2,342 Saanen does. Genotypes were available for 833 Alpine and 874 Saanen animals. Both single-breed and multiple-breed GWAS were performed using single-trait animal models. Positional and functional candidate genes were then identified in downstream analyses. The GWAS identified 189 unique SNP that were significant at the chromosomal level, corresponding to 271 unique positional candidate genes within 50 kb up- and downstream, across breeds and traits. This study provides evidence for the economic importance of several candidate genes (e.g., CSN1S1, CSN2, CSN1S2, CSN3, DGAT1, and ZNF16) in the Canadian Alpine and Saanen populations that have been previously reported in other dairy goat populations. Moreover, several novel positional and functional candidate genes (e.g., RPL8, DCK, and MOB1B) were also identified. Overall, the results of this study have provided greater insight into the genetic architecture of milk production and conformation traits in the Canadian Alpine and Saanen populations. Greater understanding of these traits will help to improve dairy goat breeding programs.

ARCHITECTURAL AND URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF LARGE HOUSING ESTATE RELATED TO FUNCTIONAL DIVERSIFICATION: CASE OF KELENFÖLD IN BUDAPEST

Large housing estates (LHEs) is a global product of modern planning and architecture based on the concept of the functional city. However, during the last decades, these inherited mass housing neighborhoods have been gradually transformed in their social and physical context. Much of this change is due to functional diversification of LHEs following rising consummation demands. The objective of the research is to create a general simple typology discovering this phenomenon and providing a method to make case study analysis and comparative studies. How to classify functional diversification and morphological transformations in LHEs in general? What are the functional and morphological values that were preserved from modern development period and what are the new characteristics of contemporary transformations? What are the special characteristics of the functional diversification in a post-socialist city? Kelenföld case study from Budapest is introduced to test the typology by using local documents and fieldwork methods in architecture: mapping, morphological analysis, and photo making. Kelenföld is one of the best located and the first LHE in Budapest realized with large panel technology in the 60’s, being today intensively developed and favored by its users.

How design rules emerge and evolve: a coevolutionary architectural perspective on firm and industry organization

AbstractThis paper elaborates on how design rules emerge and evolve as firms’ micro-level choices of product and organization architectures coevolve with changes in product markets and an industry’s competitive and cooperative dynamics. We suggest that the design rules a firm adopts will vary according to firms’ strategic choices of product and organization architectures that they believe are or may become feasible in a given industry. Building on the mirroring hypothesis that product designs a firm adopts will influence the organization designs it uses, we develop a model that identifies key relationships that influence firms’ strategic choices of product and organization architectures and associated design rules. We then elaborate on key interactions between firm-level architectural choices and the architecture-enabled competitive and cooperative dynamics that obtain in an industry. Our model identifies strategically important aspects of open- and closed-system architectures and modular and nonmodular architectures that impact industry structures, interfirm interactions, and resulting industry dynamics. Drawing on these analyses, we suggest how firms’ strategic choices of architectures are influenced by their assessments of (i) the potential for capturing value through both gains from specialization and gains from trade that firms believe will be enabled by their architectural choices and (ii) both ex ante and ex post transaction costs implied by their architecture decisions. We conclude by suggesting how the perspective on firm’s strategic architectural decisions we develop here enables new approaches to understanding evolutions of both product markets and industry structures for serving product markets.

Optimal assessment of smart grid based photovoltaic cell operational parameters using simulated annealing

With the ever-increasing load demand throughout the globe, natural renewable resources integrated into the existing network architecture for sustainable energy production are gaining considerable significance. Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems is one such technique to deal with the worldwide challenge for achieving green energy and low carbon footprint while simultaneously providing emission free electrical power from solar radiations. In this paper, we consider smart grid architecture connecting the end-users and the utility power plant with solar energy sources through an effective power optimization system. Multiple performance criteria associated with solar cell operation are evaluated and analyzed using the simulated annealing algorithm. These objectives considered for optimization include the cell saturation current, photo-generated current, material band gap, cell temperature, annualized life cycle cost, fill factor and cell efficiency. The formulated optimization conditions are specified in terms of two independent variables of cell ambient temperature and cell illumination. Moreover, the adaption of distinct values of short circuit current coefficients on the light originated current is measured. Through extensive simulation experiments, two disparate annealing procedures of fast annealing and Boltzmann annealing are applied coupled with three categories of temperature update schemes, viz. exponential, logarithmic and linear.

Technology Acquisition Strategy: A Latecomer's Perspective on Integrating Component Suppliers With System Integrators

Having unique market structures divided between a few buyers (military or airliners) and a few oligopolistic producers, as well as requiring several millions of components, the aerospace industry has the typical feature of a complex structure. Due to the complexity of operational procedures, strict safety regulations, and reliability requirements, close cooperation between manufacturers and suppliers is critical in developing new products based on the operational plan that incorporates customers’ needs. Thus, it is necessary to have a systematic planning and technology acquisition procedure that considers these various aspects. However, research has paid little attention to strategic technology learning and acquisition procedures in detail and practical guidelines through which system integrators and suppliers strategically cooperate in sharing strategic development plans. In this regard, we analyzed the case of “T-50,” the first indigenous supersonic advanced trainer introduced by Korea Aerospace Industries in 2005, to investigate the associations between system integration and components in development phases. Not only did we examine how the structures of technology dependence and operations in R&D phases manifest but also identified discrepancies between system integrators and suppliers. Finally, we provided strategic actions for latecomers to effectively acquire core technologies in accordance with both technology absorptive capability and the types of product architecture. This article helps firms to build both strategic technology planning and managerial capabilities in the complex product system industry. The proposed framework provides a detailed strategic planning process in the development phase and includes technology acquisition and R&D project plans between system integrators and suppliers for creating new products.

Review: The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics, and the Human in the 1970s

Review: <i>The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics, and the Human in the 1970s</i>

Amnion and chorion matrix maintain hMSC osteogenic response and enhance immunomodulatory and angiogenic potential in a mineralized collagen scaffold.

Craniomaxillofacial (CMF) bone injuries present a major surgical challenge and cannot heal naturally due to their large size and complex topography. We are developing a mineralized collagen scaffold that mimics extracellular matrix (ECM) features of bone. These scaffolds induce in vitro human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) osteogenic differentiation and in vivo bone formation without the need for exogenous osteogenic supplements. Here, we seek to enhance pro-regenerative potential via inclusion of placental-derived products in the scaffold architecture. The amnion and chorion membranes are distinct components of the placenta that each have displayed anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and osteogenic properties. While potentially a powerful modification to our mineralized collagen scaffolds, the route of inclusion (matrix-immobilized or soluble) is not well understood. Here we compare the effect of introducing amnion and chorion membrane matrix versus soluble extracts derived from these membranes into the collagen scaffolds on scaffold biophysical features and resultant hMSC osteogenic activity. While inclusion of amnion and chorion matrix into the scaffold microarchitecture during fabrication does not influence their porosity, it does influence compression properties. Incorporating soluble extracts from the amnion membrane into the scaffold post-fabrication induces the highest levels of hMSC metabolic activity and equivalent mineral deposition and elution of the osteoclast inhibitor osteoprotegerin (OPG) compared to the conventional mineralized collagen scaffolds. Mineralized collagen-amnion composite scaffolds elicited enhanced early stage osteogenic gene expression (BGLAP, BMP2), increased immunomodulatory gene expression (CCL2, HGF, and MCSF) and increased angiogenic gene expression (ANGPT1, VEGFA) in hMSCs. Mineralized collagen-chorion composite scaffolds promoted immunomodulatory gene expression in hMSCs (CCL2, HGF, and IL6) while unaffecting osteogenic gene expression. Together, these findings suggest that mineralized collagen scaffolds modified using matrix derived from amnion and chorion membranes represent a promising environment conducive to craniomaxillofacial bone repair.

Complementary hemispheric lateralization of language and social processing in the human brain.

Humans have a unique ability to use language for social communication. The neural architecture for language comprehension and production may have prominently emerged in the brain areas that were originally involved in social cognition. Here, we directly tested the fundamental link between language and social processing using functional magnetic resonance data (MRI) data from over 1,000 human subjects. Cortical activations in language and social tasks showed a striking similarity with a complementary hemispheric lateralization. Within core language areas, left-lateralized activations in the language task were mirrored by right-lateralized activations in the social task. Outside these areas, the activations were left lateralized in both tasks, perhaps indicating multimodal integration of social and semantic information. Our findings could have important implications in understanding neurocognitive mechanisms of social disorders such as autism.

Variation architecture for reducing unnecessary variants in modular product family design by domain mapping and variant-level planning

One of the major challenges in variety management of modular product families is to prevent continuously generated variants of design elements. This paper aims to provide guidance on how manufacturing companies can reduce a large number of variants that have already increased from the existing product architectures. This paper introduces a new concept of architecture named variation architecture ( VA) in which relationships between variants in the market, design, and production domains are arranged explicitly for planning variety of a modular product family. Since the VA includes two perspectives which are domain mapping and variant-level planning, it can help companies to systematically establish complex relationships between variants across the domains. This paper describes elements of the three domains, relationship types between elements, and four categories of relationship rules called management rules at the variant-level planning. A framework is proposed for reducing variants through the VA to demonstrate its applicability. In the case study, we apply the framework to a front chassis family having a large number of variants and show that the VA significantly reduces unnecessary variants compared to the currently being produced.

Research Dialogue between Materials and Products in Architecture

The materials life cycle consists of several phases. If application areas are targeted for architecture, comprehending the demands of the end-use phase might not be clear at the research and development phase, leading to an entity appearing fragmented. The aim of this study is to help bring order to the material research or development phases. The objective is to generate a review tool, which helps to observe different areas where architecture operates, and contemplate simultaneously the aspects during the different phases of the material development. The review tool of the material life cycle consists of tracking the raw materials until the re-used raw material, resulting in eight different stages of the material life cycle. In addition, each of the eight stages of the material life cycle is possible to observe with the five different viewpoints, which are present in architecture. These eight material life cycle stages and five aspects have been formulated as a chart. The chart consists of 40 different approaches facilitating discussion between different operators during the different phases of the material development. The chart might help set goals, frame areas, and improve comprehension of the research and development processes of the materials, especially when interdisciplinarity is involved in the research process.

Notes on Urban Planning, Landscape and Architecture of Nabataean Petra Paradigm

Hellenism was a real cultural force in Nabataean Petra's urban planning and architectural products. Petra is a paradigm of our knowledge of how the Nabataeans designed and built their urban settlement. In approaching the city, one immediately notices how they planned the city to maximise and take advantage of the accessible majestic landscape topography. They created an extraordinary metropolis in the city centre and the surrounding sandstone mountains. There are many aspects of the particularity and creativity of Nabataean culture during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the Nabataean Petra paradigm, we can observe the following: cultural interaction, cultural interchange, cultural exchange, cultural adaptation, and cultural sharing, which acted as cultural links between the peoples of the east and west. Thus, creating a new expression and direction of the cultural sharing between the East and West. Metropolitan cities, as in the case of the Nabataean Petra, are focal points where these changes and their effects are experienced significantly.This paper attempts to shed light on the functional, structural, typological, and morphological conceptions and aspects of the urban development and architecture of Nabataean Petra, particularly in the public spaces of the city centre and the surrounding tomb architecture. It argues that this development and formation was the expression of the highly developed self-image of the citizens of Petra reflected in its urban planning, landscape, architecture, and cultural significance.

Templatized Fused Vector Floating-Point Dot Product for High-Level Synthesis

Machine-learning accelerators rely on floating-point matrix and vector multiplication kernels. To reduce their cost, customized many-term fused architectures are preferred, which improve the latency, power, and area of the designs. In this work, we design a parameterized fused many-term floating-point dot product architecture that is ready for high-level synthesis. In this way, we can exploit the efficiency offered by a well-structured fused dot-product architecture and the freedom offered by high-level synthesis in tuning the design’s pipeline to the selected floating-point format and architectural constraints. When compared with optimized dot-product units implemented directly in RTL, the proposed design offers lower-latency implementations under the same clock frequency with marginal area savings. This result holds for a variety of floating-point formats, including standard and reduced-precision representations.

Data Acquisition Network Configuration and Real-Time Energy Consumption Characteristic Analysis in Intelligent Workshops for Social Manufacturing

To achieve energy-saving production, one critical step is to calculate and analyze the energy consumption and energy efficiency of machining processes. However, considering the complexity and uncertainty of discrete manufacturing job shops, it is a significant challenge to conduct data acquisition and energy consumption data processing of manufacturing systems. Meanwhile, under the growing trend of personalization, social manufacturing is an emerging technical practice that allows prosumers to build individualized services with their partners, which produces new requirements for energy data processing. Thus, a real-time energy consumption characteristic analysis method in intelligent workshops for social manufacturing is established to realize data processing and energy efficiency evaluation automatically. First, an energy-conservation production architecture for intelligent manufacturing processes is introduced, and the configuration of a data acquisition network is described to create a ubiquitous manufacturing environment. Then, an energy consumption characteristic analysis method is proposed based on the process time window. Finally, a case study of coupling-part manufacturing verifies the feasibility and applicability of the proposed method. This method realizes a combination of social manufacturing and real-time energy characteristic analysis. Meanwhile, the energy consumption characteristics provide a decision basis for the energy-saving control of intelligent manufacturing workshops.

The Communicative Deviation in Contemporary Architectural Production

The Communicative Deviation in Contemporary Architectural Production

Minor Spatial Tactics from the Floating University Berlin and Agrocité Paris

Emboldened by the economic crisis of 2007 to 2008, a growing rhizome of socially and politically engaged spatial practices have resorted to alternative modes of producing architecture that focus more on its societal aspirations. Aiming to uncover some of the potentialities of the projects that emerged from this growing rhizome to introduce other modes of making architecture while resisting dominant ones, this paper considers the Deleuzian-Guattarian concept of the “minor” to propose an alternative reading of such projects as “minor architectures,” that is, critical practices that resist the canon and act in the crevices of the mainstream. Using ethnographic research methods on two empirical cases, namely the Floating Berlin designed by Raumlabor and Agrocité Paris designed by Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée, the paper identifies “minor” spatial tactics of making architecture that go beyond the limit(ation)s of the practice: (1) resisting the architectural object as a static entity, (2) fostering collective expression, (3) exploring potentialities by reterritorializing interstitial spaces, and (4) creating haptic and affective experiences. The paper reflects on the concept of the minor as an operational tool that could help break away from dominant systems of architectural production.

METHODS AND MODELS OF RESEARCH OF INVESTMENT ATTRACTIVENESS AND COMPETITIVENESS OF PROJECT-ORIENTED ENTERPRISE IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING INNOVATIVE HIGH-TECH

The subject of the research is the investment attractiveness of enterprises producing competitive products with modern component architecture. The aim of the article is to develop complex methods for research of investment attractiveness of projects on creation of new high-tech products with component architecture. Tasks to be solved are: to use component method for the analysis of innovativeness of created high-tech products; to study investment attractiveness of an innovation project with the use of expert assessments and the method of planning experiments; to substantiate the composition of a diversification project portfolio for investment taking into account the limited possibilities of the enterprise based on the method of integer optimization; to study the performance of the project portfolio using agent-based imitational modeling. Methods used are: system analysis, component design, multi-criteria optimization, expert assessment and agent-based simulation modeling in the form of applied information technology. The results have been obtained: the analysis of investment attractiveness of projects on creation of new high-tech products with component architecture is carried out. The architecture of a complex product built with components from previous positive development experience is investigated. A classification of possible components in the architecture of a complex product is created. A set of indicators for assessing the investment attractiveness of an innovative component-based product is formed. The qualitative assessments of experts for the main indicators of the component composition of the product in the form of linguistic variables are proposed. The use of multifactor experiment to assess the investment attractiveness of a project to create a complex product with a component-based architecture is proposed. An optimization model for selecting the rational composition of components in an innovative product is developed. An agent-based simulation model is built to study the performance of work on the preparation of production of innovative products on a component basis. Conclusions: The use of a set of developed methods and applied information technology for the creation of high-tech products with component-based architecture allows you to plan a diversification portfolio of projects with investment attractiveness and competitiveness of products.

Formal Mechanisms Affecting the uniqueness of urban context Architectural Products in –Mosul as a case study-

The production of unique architecture is an important trend for designers in the current era, as it is a way to show the superiority and development of the country and the city in general and the designer in particular by adding a distinctive feature within the urban context, and with the increasing in the products of this trend appeared with it the different formal methods and mechanisms that were used to reach a stable output. formally. This paper deals with the most important formal mechanisms that play a major role in the uniqueness of architectural production and tests it on the most important distinctive architectural features in the urban context of the city of Mosul.

Product evolution analysis for design adaptation using big sales data

Products are constantly evolving through design adaptations to satisfy market requirements. Efficient design adaptation via maximal reusing of existing design can improve product quality, reduce manufacturing cost, and time to market. Understanding of product evolution mechanism is required for design adaptations through rationalized modularity and interfaces. Emerging big sales data provide rich resources for product evolution analysis. To support efficient design adaptations, a framework and associated methods are developed in this work using big sales data for product evolution analysis. Reproduction, mutation, and crossover of product specifications are introduced as specification adaptation operations. Methods are proposed for identification of specification adaptations and estimation of the adaptation probability. Based on modeling and analyzing relationships among product specifications and components, different types of modules and interfaces are proposed through components clustering and their potential operation (mutation, reproduction, and crossover) probabilities. Design recommendations of adaptable product architecture with modules and interfaces are made for facilitating design adaptations. A case study of consumer Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UVAs) illustrates the proposed method. Limitations and potential extensions of the newly developed method are discussed. Further investigations of the product evolution mechanism using game theory to support competitive product development are included.