Nowadays, using of automation technologies is a solution implemented in different contexts (e.g. private homes, sheltered apartments, and health care facilities) in order to help users with special needs and even persons with Cognitive Impairments (CIs). A training apartment called “Casa Satellite” was realized in Trento (Italy). It is a Smart Home (SH) with an automation system and assistive devices for people with CIs. First residents of the “Casa Satellite” project are sixteen young adults with Down Syndrome (DS) aged between 21 and 31 years who live with their families. They are individuals with mild or moderate mental retardation. They stayed in this apartment in groups of four and for four consecutive days per month for about three years. Some of these participants have been monitored as a case study. This paper describes the analysis of five Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), selected from nine monitored, but for only one user. Goal of the pilot study is to measure the improvement margin of the independence in ADLs carried out without and with home automation and Assistive AIDS (AA). A Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) has been used for a standardized assessment of the intensity of support needs. Data processing showed different trends of improvement for the monitored activities in both absence and presence of AAs although more marked in the second case. The first results of this pilot study suggest a potential training value of the “Casa Satellite”.
The past few decades several attempts have been made to get a better understanding of the diversity in appearance and expression of sustainable architecture. This paper will investigate different recent approaches to classification of sustainable residential design. Two recent student projects focusing on the contemporary context in The Netherlands will be presented to illustrate these classification approaches. First a brief summary of relevant publications dealing with recent attempts to classify the aesthetic dimension of sustainable architecture will be presented. These various taxonomy endeavors show both the variety and similarities particularly in the applied vocabulary. Led by these selected contemporary publications two recent case studies will be presented: A design project by 24 master students at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and a research project involving 14 master TU/e-students. In the design studio the assignment was to design a housing complex for 36 students located in Rotterdam. Key issue in the project was the explicit instruction to investigate the possibilities of replacing building services and devices by passive architectural and spatial solutions. Analyzing the results afterwards the designs can be related to the vocabulary derived from the classification approaches in the selected references. In the research project students investigated a self-compiled best-practice anthology of 21 recent Dutch autarkic and/or sustainable housing projects. They had the publications [1], [2], [3] to their disposal. Besides documenting the projects, part of the research were interviews with both the architect and the occupants to come to a proper understanding of autarkic and sustainability aspects of each housing project. They also compiled a method to measure autarky- And sustainability-indices for comparison. The paper concludes with investigating the correlation between scores on autarky and sustainability scales, and the position in the aesthetic spectrum as proposed in the student’s research project.
In contemporary architecture, the use of wind-catchers is neglected because of the relatively small amount of air provided by this system in traditional architecture and the emergence of modern ventilators and cooling equipment, which have impressed the people. Due to the belief of the importance and impact of natural ventilation on human health, the author has studied for more than 25 years all problems that have led architects to neglect the use of wind-catchers in their designs. On the bases of this study, new types and relatively large wind-catchers, with at least 2m2 in section, are proposed and applied in his designs. They have been accepted and appreciated aesthetically by owners of houses and succeeded in reducing air and houses inner walls temperatures during spring, autumn and summer nights. The wind catchers, however, prove to be incapable during summer day to provide inhabitants with suitable thermal comfort, since they just carry external hot air without any treatments. Thus, the authors thought of adopting the phenomenon of controlled evaporation as a way to lower the air temperature in order to achieve the possibility of making the wind-catcher a cooling radiator and transport cool air. The validity of this idea was tested by constructing a wind-catcher of 2.5∗1.8 m2 in cross section for a one-story guest house building of 60 m2. The wind-catcher walls were lined with regular capillary porcelain material (brick burned at temperatures 750-1150°C) and connected with water drop system that was placed on the upper wind-catcher nozzle. Wooden air guides were designed and placed on the wind-catcher upper nozzle to increase contact between the external hot air and the cooled lining porcelain walls. The results during the summer of 2014 showed that the process of moisturizing wind-catcher lowered air temperature about 17 degree Celsius in the day of outside temperature of 48.7 degrees.
Many residential buildings in hot climates use a huge amount of energy to run the air conditioning in order to maintain comfortable conditions for the occupants. This study of a domestic building in Libya used detailed monitoring and analysis of the measured data with a view to devising a strategy for reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.
The research aims are the investigation of the living phenomenon in relation to the population growth, the gradual urbanization of the world population and the need for new technologies for food production in urban consolidated centers. To outline the problem you need to analyze some figures: in 2050 the world population will count up to 9.9 billion people, of which 71% will live in urban areas. It will also be necessary to cultivate 1,000,000,000 acres to meet the need for food. All this inevitably has an impact on metropolitan areas development: city becomes widespread and productive places diminish. City consumes but does not produces. This ‘forces’ us to reflect on the regeneration of urban spaces that can be defined ’empty’ and on the development of new models able to cope with the problems listed above. The purpose of the research, considering the above data, is to study a new housing model that can squeeze a city portion and make it live on his own relationships, human and economic, in continuous connection with the outside world: The city, like a software can be updated through plugins. The experimentation takes place at the Tower of London in London, an area affected by recent urban expansion projects, which can be defined as ‘urban emptiness’. The social housing becomes common thread between the parties: An ‘urban emptiness’ to densify through an ‘open’ system, ready to reconnect to other empty spaces and leaving permeable contact with the surrounding urban web. The creation of a social network made up of houses, space between the houses and productive places is seen and developed as a urban ‘component’ required to respond to the problems listed above. Housing becomes the instrument through which ‘rethink’ residential housing system by introducing temporal and social set of variables so far unknown as a unique opportunity to define a ‘new habitat’ not only able to provide a service but to ensure human and social relationships,. For this ‘new urban model’ an intensive production of housing would not be enough if it wasn’t based on a complex urban public space. Considering all this I can state that this research wants to be an opportunity to define a methodology of intervention in the established urban centers responding to the rapid urbanization arising problems, and to initiate a radical debate on the listed issues.
