KRISIS IDENTITAS BANGUNAN DI KOTA BANDA ACEH

Kota di Indonesia sedang memperbaiki proses modernisasi yang tidak menghasilkan keunikan dan meningkatkan khasanah budaya lokalnya. Kota menjadi seragam, bahkan menjadi korban dari majalah. Kota memecahkan degradasi budaya, sedangkan arsitektural bangunannya terlalu banyak menyetujui paham-paham luar dan melepaskan filosofi-filosofi lokal. Memperbaiki struktur ruang kota yang berbeda dan memulihkan pola sosial masyarakat yang lama dipelihara. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini dilakukan untuk membuktikan krisis identitas bangunan yang telah dimulai melanda kota Banda Aceh dan membuktikan era globalisasi yang tengah gaya bangunan modern dengan identitas bangunan di kota Banda Aceh. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan sebagian besar masyarakat Banda Aceh mulai tahu tentang bangunan kuno / bersejarah di Banda Aceh mulai memfokuskan karena menyebabkan lagi menerjemahkan perkembangan gaya arsitektur modern yang lebih menarik dibahas gaya arsitektur tradisional; bangunan kuno / bersejarah yang jelas-jelas memiliki identitas kota Banda Aceh dibiarkan rusak begitu saja tanpa adanya insiatif dari pihak terkait untuk diterjemahkan; dari hasil survey yang diperoleh dari bangunan kuno / bersejarah di Banda Aceh. Bangunan yang dapat diakses di pergunakan dengan fungsi yang baru dibuat juga membantu untuk tidak menambah bangunan

CONSTRUCTION CRAFTSMEN’S AVAILABILITY AND PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN SELECTED SOUTHWESTERN STATES, NIGERIA

Construction activity plays a vital role economic growth and development of any nation by creating employment opportunities as well as housing for habitation or for conducting other business activities. The construction industry is labour intensive and the efforts of its craftsmen towards an efficient performance cannot be overemphasized. Studies in the past have established the shortage of craftsmen in the industry and lack of adequate resources is said to have compounded performance problem in the Nigerian construction industry. This study therefore investigates the availability of construction craftsmen with a view to examining its effects on construction project performance in the Nigerian construction industry by identifying the construction crafts skill categories common to the Nigerian building industry, examining the patterns of demand for building construction craftsmen, investigating the existence of shortage of skilled construction craftsmen and examining the possible effects of construction craftsmen’s availability on construction project performance. The survey study utilized both secondary data from past works and primary data sourced by administering a structured questionnaire to construction professionals of indigenous construction firms located across Oyo, Ogun and Lagos state. A total of 278 questionnaires were distributed in strata and (211) copies of questionnaires in total were filled and returned representing a 75.9% return rate across the three (3) states. The breakdown across the three states showing the numbers of questionnaire distributed and (the quantity filled out) presents; 137(88), 73(65), 68(58) in Lagos, Oyo and Ogun state respectively. A five point likert scale was used to rank factors and collected data were analyzed using Relative Importance Index (RII). The results showed that Plastering/Rendering, masonry, painting, and welding/Iron bending, are the common crafts trade in the Nigerian building construction industry. Results also established series of demand pattern for building craftsmen. In corroboration to previous studies, this study confirmed that shortage of building construction craftsmen still exists, but on a contrary to previous studies about its severity, the shortage is presented to be less severe. The study also established a directly proportional relationship between the availability of building construction craftsmen and building construction project performance indicators of time, cost, quality and productivity

An object-relational prototype of a GIS-based disaster database

Natural disasters cause billions of dollars of property and infrastructure damage, unexpected disruption to socio-economic activities and tragic loss of human lives each year. The importance of collecting and maintaining detailed and accurate records on disastrous events for an effective risk assessment and disaster mitigation has been widely recognised. Considerable efforts have been directed towards the establishment of databases on historic disasters but many disaster databases built are primarily a set of lists of historical disaster events. Disaster phenomena vary dramatically with both space and time. It is therefore important to integrate spatial-temporal dimensions of disaster events in a disaster database to support efficient and interactive querying and reporting operations. It is also important to make such a database readily accessible by a variety of users from government agencies, non-government organisations, research institutes and local communities, to enable effective and efficient emergency response, impact and risk assessment, and mitigation planning. This thesis presents a study that investigates effective and efficient geographical information system (GIS) based approaches to the representation, organisation and access of disaster information - including logical data models for representing disastrous events, the object-relational approach to database implementation, and internet-based user-interfaces for database queries and report generation. Key aspects of a disaster event, including the spatial-temporal dimensions of the hazard and its impacts, are considered in the development of data models and database implementation in order to support user-friendly querying and reporting operations. The technological strengths of GIS, database management systems, and Internet-related toolboxes are leveraged for developing a prototype of a GIS-based, object-relational disaster database with an Internet-based user interface that supports multi-mode (including map-based) database queries and flexible facilities for report generation