Urban dwelling environments : Istanbul, Turkey

Thesis. 1976. M.ArchAS--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.Microfiche copy available in Archives and Rotch.Bibliography: p. 106.by Mark Horne Butler and Nedret Tayyibe Butler.M.ArchA

Urban dwelling environments : Colima, Mexico.

Thesis. 1977. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Bibliography : p. 60.M.Arch.A.S

Sustainable construction for the future - the role of government in energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings

This paper will summarise the findings from a study that explored the link between dwelling design, or type, and energy efficiencies in sub-tropical climates. An increasing number of government and private sector development companies are initiating projects that aim to deliver enhanced environmental outcomes at both sub-divisional and dwelling levels. The study used AccuRate, a new thermal modelling tool developed by CSIRO that responds to the need to improve ventilation modelling. The study found that dwellings developed in conjunction with the Departments of Housing and Public Works have set the benchmark. It provides a snapshot of the energy efficiency of a range of dwelling types found in recent subdivisions. However, the trend toward increasing urban densities may reduce the likelihood that cooling breezes will be available to cool dwellings. The findings are relevant to regulators, designers and industry in all states interested in reducing the energy used to cool dwellings in summer

Urban dwelling environments : Goa, India

Thesis. 1976. M.ArchAS--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.Microfiche copy available in Archives and Rotch.Bibliography: p. 84.by Ravindra Kamat.M.ArchA

Causes of sprawl: A portrait from space

We study the extent to which US urban development is sprawling and consider what determines differences in sprawl across space. Using remote-sensing data to track the evolution of land use on a grid of 8.7 billion 30x30 metre cells, we measure sprawl as the amount of undeveloped land surrounding an average urban dwelling. On this measure, while the extent of sprawl remained roughly unchanged between 1976 and 1992, it varied dramatically across metropolitan areas. Ground water availability, temperate climate, rugged terrain, decentralized employment, early public transport infrastructure, uncertainty about metropolitan growth, and unincorporated land in the urban fringe all increase sprawl.urban sprawl; land development; remote sensing

Appraisers and the Fair Housing Law: Accessibility Requirements for the Disabled

In 1988 the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was amended to include the "handicapped" as being protected from discrimination in multiunit housing. The three general categories of discriminatory acts are refusal to make or allow reasonable physical modifications to a covered multiunit dwelling, refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules and practices, and failure to follow certain design and construction standards. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines, which provide technical guidance on multiunit dwelling design and construction standards. This study examines these guidelines and the impact the Act may have upon value when discriminatory practices are observed.

The Concept of Neighbourhood in Contemporary Residential Environments: An Investigation of Occupants' Perception

The dwelling occupant satisfaction is related to the efficiency of the combination of numerous factors stemming from the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the various components of the residential environment. Those components exist at a whole scale ranging from an interior space within the housing unit to the whole urban environment. This study aimed to explore the immediate social and physical environment around the dwelling unit, which is often referred to as “neighbourhood”. In addition to the physical space that the concept reminds, the term neighbourhood is also used to describe a socially distinguished area depending on residents’ perception. In the traditional sense, this physical space is outlined with virtual boundaries that are traced differently in the minds of each individual according to the life style and type of social interaction and the type of use of the physical environment. The perceptions of residents’ in relation with this neighbourhood area are also affected with both physical and social characteristics of the concerned environment. This paper aimed to investigate the situation of the neighbourhood concept in contemporary urban residential environments by making use of the data obtained from two distinct independent housing researches conducted in Turkey. The analysis and evaluation of the findings together with an overview of the literature reflecting the traditional and contemporary neighbourhood concepts in Turkish residential environments, reveals that changes are about to occur in the definition, creation and experiencing of the neighbourhood issue. The evaluation of the literature, manifestos and approaches of most housing institutions and policy builders in the contemporary world expose a rather increasing interest to the issue of neighbourhood as the concept constitutes an important component of residential satisfaction. The findings of this study indicate that the neighbourhood feeling in contemporary urban environments is now less dependent on the sharing of common close physical residential environment due to housing initiatives driven by liberal / random land use options, financial viability and profitability. The benefits expected of the use of the close physical environment is disregarded due to possibilities obtained with increasing mobility and transportation facilities. The remote activities and life styles of dwelling occupants become the basic factors that shape the social environment. The segregation of the close social environment from the close physical environment is a major source for residential environment dissatisfaction. A conclusion drawn from the findings is that the physical properties of the close built environment may act as sources of dissatisfaction if the residents’ perception of neighbourhood notion is disregarded during residential environment design. Hints to increase dwelling occupants’ satisfaction from the residential environment lies in redefining the neighbourhood concept through creating adequate, functioning, distinct, value added common spaces that ease admittance and social interaction. However, those spaces shall be a part of the urban tissue. The long-term effects of physical segregation, clustering of the residential environments, creating of sprawl type settlements shall be re-evaluated

Methodological and empirical challenges in modelling residential location choices

The modelling of residential locations is a key element in land use and transport planning. There are significant empirical and methodological challenges inherent in such modelling, however, despite recent advances both in the availability of spatial datasets and in computational and choice modelling techniques. One of the most important of these challenges concerns spatial aggregation. The housing market is characterised by the fact that it offers spatially and functionally heterogeneous products; as a result, if residential alternatives are represented as aggregated spatial units (as in conventional residential location models), the variability of dwelling attributes is lost, which may limit the predictive ability and policy sensitivity of the model. This thesis presents a modelling framework for residential location choice that addresses three key challenges: (i) the development of models at the dwelling-unit level, (ii) the treatment of spatial structure effects in such dwelling-unit level models, and (iii) problems associated with estimation in such modelling frameworks in the absence of disaggregated dwelling unit supply data. The proposed framework is applied to the residential location choice context in London. Another important challenge in the modelling of residential locations is the choice set formation problem. Most models of residential location choices have been developed based on the assumption that households consider all available alternatives when they are making location choices. Due the high search costs associated with the housing market, however, and the limited capacity of households to process information, the validity of this assumption has been an on-going debate among researchers. There have been some attempts in the literature to incorporate the cognitive capacities of households within discrete choice models of residential location: for instance, by modelling households’ choice sets exogenously based on simplifying assumptions regarding their spatial search behaviour (e.g., an anchor-based search strategy) and their characteristics. By undertaking an empirical comparison of alternative models within the context of residential location choice in the Greater London area this thesis investigates the feasibility and practicality of applying deterministic choice set formation approaches to capture the underlying search process of households. The thesis also investigates the uncertainty of choice sets in residential location choice modelling and proposes a simplified probabilistic choice set formation approach to model choice sets and choices simultaneously. The dwelling-level modelling framework proposed in this research is practice-ready and can be used to estimate residential location choice models at the level of dwelling units without requiring independent and disaggregated dwelling supply data. The empirical comparison of alternative exogenous choice set formation approaches provides a guideline for modellers and land use planners to avoid inappropriate choice set formation approaches in practice. Finally, the proposed simplified choice set formation model can be applied to model the behaviour of households in online real estate environments.Open Acces

Urban heritages: how history and housing finance matter to housing form and homeownership rates

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority and; multi-dwelling building cities where owner occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the nineteenth century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late-nineteenth century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries’ welfare systems or ‘variety of capitalism’, we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today’s urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries

Energy efficient multi storey residential developments

Worldwide, the current pattern of urban development is unsustainable and metropolitan planning and development strategies deliver poor environmental outcomes in relation to energy production. As a result, an increasing number of governments and private sector development companies are initiating projects that aim to deliver enhanced environmental outcomes rather than a ‘business as usual’ approach. This paper will summarise the findings from a study that explored the link between building orientation and energy efficiencies in sub-tropical and tropical climates. The study used a new thermal modelling software tool developed by CSIRO that responds more accurately to residential heating and cooling energy performance in those climate zones. This software tool responds to industry criticisms regarding cold climate modelling systems that do not make sufficient allowance for natural ventilation. The study examined a range of low, medium and high-density dwelling types and investigated the impact of orientation, insulation, ventilation and shading devices on energy efficiencies. This paper will examine the findings from the medium and high-density case study developments as these are relevant to residential developments in many South East Asian countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Finally, the paper will explore the potential benefits that medium and high-density residential developments have in the development of ‘solar cities’ and ‘solar suburbs’