This paper presents the relevance and the potentials of self-formed, small-scale architecture for sustainable habitations. Three aspects interact in one integrative approach to achieve a minimized impact on nature concerning the whole life time cycle of buildings: Firstly, the use of regional material only. Second, the philosophy of micro-architecture based on the approach of Richard Horden, and as a third point, self-formation to simplify the assembling process of wooden lightweight structures. Complex site-responsive geometries can be realised out of straight wooden members, which are bent into statically self-interlocking configurations reducing material- and energy-consumption to the maximum.
The Regional Spatial Plan for the Algarve, approved in 2007, was the first spatial plan made in Portugal which has included an innovative participatory process to support the formulation of the regional development strategy. A Multicriteria Decision Aid (MCDA) approach involving all the relevant public sector institutions and NGO was adopted to identify and prioritize the policies adequate to achieve the proposed Vision. This approach proved to be fruitful in ensuring not only the true involvement of all stakeholders, but also the understanding about the specific scope of each decision area and each set of policies and its operational objectives, but also of the concrete actions/measures that detail each policy. Each policy was evaluated by panels though a series of decision conferences which allowed quantifying the value of the direct and cross impacts of each policy, based on the elicitation of qualitative panel judgements about the relative benefit of those impacts. Also based on qualitative judgements, this decision conferencing process has also included the quantification of the level of ‘doability’ of each policy, considering technical, financial, institutional, and political constraints affecting their implementation. Finally, a debated formulation of recommendations about the more attractive policies was made, considering the extent to which they contribute to achieve the objectives and their ‘doability’. More specifically, the MACBETH multi-criteria approach was used to elicit the qualitative judgements by the experts of the several panels, for each sub-set of policies, and reconcile them to automatically generate two ratings for the policies. On the one hand, a rating designated by impact-value measures the value of each policy in terms of the contribution (of its impacts) to the achievement of each objective. These were weighted also using MACBETH in order to reflect their relative importance for the achievement of the Vision, therefore enabling to calculate overall impact values of the policy measures to support the final decision process. On the other hand, a 0 to 1 ‘doability’ rating enabled to the establishment of priorities from the ratio level between the overall impact values and the effort (the complement to 1 of the doability rating) required to implement each policy. The resource allocation process was made by the planning team only after the establishment of priorities, both in terms of budget(s) and agents. The actions programming (very short, short, medium and long terms) was the outcome of this process.
Since after the World War II, local municipalities, local housing corporations and Urban Renaissance Agency (formerly known as Japan Housing Corporation) had long contributed to housing affordability by constructing a substantial number of public houses in Japan. Today, their role has shifted to the management and redevelopment of the stocks. This paper, based on documentary and statistical analyses, interviews and case studies of 6 typical projects, describes current states and issues of public housing redevelopment projects with Public-Private Partnership approach in Japan, which for financial reasons have been carried out as a combination of rebuilding of existing public rental houses on reduced site area and new constructions by private developers on the surplus lots. As for the latter, lots are either sold or leased to private enterprises, and they build condominiums, detached houses for sale and/or medical/welfare facilities. From the viewpoint of public interests which public housing has long secured in social and spatial aspects in the neighborhood, it is crucial how communities can be integrated after the development, how profit oriented developers can contribute to making public spaces in cooperation with public bodies. Considering the growing number of housing privatization projects, this paper summarizes the lessons from past/ongoing practices.
High-performing public transport shall be effective to meet user’s mobility and accessibility needs and, at the same time, use resources efficiently. This paper presents the optimisation of an urban transport network as part of a study implemented within the municipality of Pombal, located in the Centre Region of Portugal. The study aimed to answer effectively local demand through satisfying quality management criteria such as comfort and safety, origin-destination travel times compatible with user’s daily mobility needs and to contribute to social inclusion and economic development. The strategic objectives of the study can be described as follows: a) to promote sustainable mobility within the municipality and the region; to improve the efficiency of the bus network (Pombus); b) to adjust bus timetables in accordance to user needs; c) to increase the number of daily passengers served; d) to use the existing vehicles fleet in a more efficient way by addressing actual and potential demand needs; e) to adopt a multimodal perspective by integrating bus services with other transport modes such as rail; f) to improve energy efficiency; g) to value the social dimension of the bus network by assuring access to public service with quality for all. The optimisation algorithms developed accounted for the demand profiles obtained through the mobility surveys implemented, the location of the set of obligatory stops, the quickest routes taking into account congestion, demand distribution along the day, bus occupancy rates and existing supply and energy consumption. An experimental period of five months was set to test the optimised bus network solution. Results from bus operation showed that it was possible with the same resources to enlarge the bus catchment area to cover a higher number of users and to adjust timetables to meet user daily mobility needs (trips to school of the youngsters, trips to other daily services of the elderly, etc.). The follow-up surveys to the population, as part of the public participation process, showed that the solution implemented contributed to reinforce the role of the bus network (Pombus) as a key element for achieving sustainable mobility in the municipality of Pombal: it accounted for social equity issues in accessibility, met expectations and needs of the local population, minimised energy consumption and improved the financial sustainability of the bus operation.
Geometry and shape have notoriously great influence not only on the aesthetic but also on the performance and the engineering of every building. This particularly when the dimension and the volume become pretty high as well as the geometry is unconventional. Tall and huge buildings are currently based on pyramid or conic shapes, while spherical buildings are very uncommon, though they offer very interesting perspectives in terms of urban, functional, architectural and engineering solutions. An innovative and very promising design step is to consider this particular kind of tall and huge buildings, as large containers for some smaller multifunctional buildings, to be built inside their volume upon special platforms working like ‘sphere’ floors. Moreover one of the great advantages provided by a ‘sphere’ is the concentration of several buildings within a single volume, so reducing the land use as well. These topics have been recently investigated within CIS-E of Politecnico di Milano. The present paper reports on the results concerning the study performed on the functional design, the indoor distribution, the natural lightning modeling and the envelope design and maintenance, as well as the problem of their energetic planning and building services integration, with particular focus on those aimed at energy consumption reduction, maintenance and exploitation of renewable energy sources.
