Build and Rebuild (Asynchronous Session)
Sydney Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nilou Vakil, Joe Colistra, Gregory Crichlow
This study illustrates the team’s design submittal to the 2019 Sydney Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge and the process utilized to develop the scheme through workshops. Named one of seven finalists, “Smart Home Sydney” introduces affordable and sustainable housing and neighborhood models. The design proposes an investment corridor through Sydney’s downtown that utilizes data collection systems to deploy population health initiatives. Housing unit designs that incorporate smart home technology as well as proposals for financing and policy to deploy such technology are also discussed. Buildings embedded with sensors and synchronized technologies are made feasible and scalable through advanced manufacturing techniques and prefabrication.These environments are able to collect human vital signs, physical activity, environmental conditions, and pharmaceutical regiments. This data can be collected and analyzed to deploy Population Health strategies to deliver health care more affordably, effectively, and sometimes before we know we need it. Device connectivity afforded by high-speed internet is critical to the proposal, however, the scheme’s goal of fostering social connectivity and supporting intergenerational living. The proposal includes a mobile apps that connect residents in much that same way that social media can, however, bluetooth beacons incentivize sustainable behavior while facilitating face-to-face interaction. The paper not only describes the housing prototype, but also outlines the innovative competition process. Unlike many solution-based housing competitions, the seven finalist teams were invited to participate in a series of workshops to engage with one another, the Sydney government, and the community in order to develop their ideas into implementable solutions.
Consensus Building Support Technology for Urban Redevelopment Using X-Realty
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Riken Homma
In urban redevelopment, it is necessary to implement sustainable area design from a broad, medium- to long-term perspective, considering land use renewal in surrounding areas. For this purpose, consensus building among various stakeholders is essential. However, there are large gaps in the technical experience and knowledge of each stakeholder, and these gaps make consensus building difficult. In particular, it is not easy for non-specialist residents to understand the future vision of their community after redevelopment. In those consensus building sessions, models and perspectives of the post-redevelopment area have traditionally been used instead of specialized planning maps and architectural drawings. In recent years, presentations using computer graphics have become the norm. Currently, xReality technology is attracting much attention, and we are now in an era where we feel familiar with these technologies. xReality technology extends vision and provides a rich user experience, and is expected to be a new consensus-building support tool in urban development. The author has been applying information and communication technologies such as GIS (Geographic Information System), VR (Online Reality), and AR (Augmented Reality) to urban planning, and has been developing a planning method that supports consensus building and provides visual technology that visualizes the future concept of the region and realizes spatial experiences. This paper discusses the construction of a consensus-building support tool for urban reopening using VR and AR, and the potential of xReality as a supporting technology for urban development through case studies in Japan.
Nostalgia, Optimism, and the Greening of Post-industrial Space in Toronto View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Loren March
This paper explores affective relations in more-than-human spaces of gentrification through an examination of greening and environmental development in a de-industrializing part of downtown Toronto. Focusing on two interconnected projects, Galleria on the Park and the Green Line, I examine how the assemblage of texts that emerges around greening initiatives – including proposals, presentation slides, advertisements, blueprints and designs – acts as a site of conjuring. It brings to life a particular imaginary of urban living through the production of an affective sensorium of nostalgia and optimism in which both gentrified natures and naturalized gentrification circulate prominently. Drawing on a combination of archival analysis and ethnographic work, I explore this assemblage, its entanglement with the lived experiences of local residents and its role in the social construction of space, asking what the more-than-human implications of such an imaginary might be. I conclude that thinking through affect enables us to understand complex, relational and more-than-human geographies of gentrification, and that affect constitutes an important dimension of how gentrification takes place.
A Comparative Examination of Design Intentions and the Lived-Experiences in Post-Tsunami Resettlements in Sri Lanka View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kapila Dharmasena Silva, Barry Ballinger
This paper presents lessons learnt from studying the planning and design decisions that housing providers (architects and donors) made when developing resettlement projects in Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami disaster and the displaced peoples’ assessment of such re-housing projects. Its purpose is to develop a sound theoretical understanding in the effective response to post-disaster resettlement that better serves communities’ needs. Most post-disaster resettlement projects reflect the ideals of providers (state, donors, and designers) rather than those of the affected. Such projects fail to provide the intended benefits for their residents. This indicates that the field of architecture is lacking integrated knowledge in post-disaster recovery planning and design. Following qualitative research approach and through literature review, interviews, observations, and document analysis, we studied five post-tsunami re-housing projects in Sri Lanka, by gathering the providers’ intentions in designing them and the residents’ feedback on their lived-experience. These data were analyzed to compare these two perspectives. Findings indicate four key lessons for sustainable resettlement designs: the need for residents’ involvement in the design process, the provision of physical and social support systems, the need for incremental growth of housing, and the use of appropriate building technology. These lessons are useful for future post-disaster reconstructions, especially in the less-affluent communities. Care should be taken though in the transfer of this knowledge, as diverse contextual factors may limit its direct application. Further work is also needed in managing the vast but disconnected extant knowledge on post-disaster recovery efforts around the world.
Investigating Methods for Determining Occupancy in Buildings: Continuing the Research Journey in Building Occupation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Avery Schwer, Donald Levi Tryon, Dale Tiller
A Bayesian method for determining occupancy in a buildings using motion and presence detectors. This was done by gathering data from different locations and then analyzing the data to determine occupancy within a certain location. The data was collected from a set of motion detectors and then compared against a presence detector to verify the results of the motion events. These motion events were then used to build the conditional tables to generate the belief from the Bayesian Network. The results were then again compared with the presence detector, along with a comparison between a clean data set and a data set with errors to view the change in the belief of the network. The preliminary results demonstrate that the Bayesian theory held true within the beliefs and that with errors, the beliefs maintained their accuracy. This is an ongoing research project in building environments.
