Exploring the use of new school buildings through post-occupancy evaluation and participatory action research

This paper presents the results of the development and testing of an integrated post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approach for teachers, staff, pupils and community members using newly constructed school buildings. It focusses on three cases of UK secondary schools, demonstrating how users can be inspired to engage with the problems of school design and energy use awareness. The cases provided new insights into the engagement of school teachers, staff and young people regarding issues of sustainability, management, functional performance and comfort. The integrative approach adopted in these cases provided a more holistic understanding of these buildings’ performance than could have been achieved by either observational or more traditional questionnaire-based methods. Moreover, the whole-school approach, involving children in POE, provided researchers with highly contextualised information about how a school is used, how to improve the quality of school experiences (both socially and educationally) and how the school community is contributing to the building's energy performance. These POE methods also provided unique opportunities for children to examine the social and cultural factors impeding the adoption of energy-conscious and sustainable behaviours

Improving contemporary approaches to the master planning process.

Master-planning has had a strong revival in recent years. However, significant demographic and social changes are on-going amidst the constraints of the current economic stagnation, the policy of reduced public spending and the drive to respond to environmental imperatives. These conditions challenge the feasibility of the application of past master-planning practice. The way we conceive of master-planning now requires re-visiting. The traditional perspective of master-planning as a design-led activity concerned with the architectural form of buildings, spaces and infrastructures is out-dated and inadequate to coordinating the plural processes of negotiating sustainable place development which, in addition to realising a visually pleasing townscape, critically satisfies social, functional, economic and environmental requirements. Masterplanning requires both a business planning component, without which there is no delivery, and a governance component, without which the physical strategy has no legitimacy. A more adaptive master-planning approach is required. The paper proposes how a flexible master-planning process can provide a basis of a suitable approach for the development of sustainable settlements. Published in Proceedings of the ICE - Urban Design and Planning, Vol 167, Issue 1, October 2013. Permission is granted by ICE Publishing to print one copy for personal use. Any other use of this PDF file is subject to reprint fees.</p

The importance of green spaces to public health: a multi-continental analysis

As green spaces are a common feature of liveable cities, a detailed understanding of the benefits provided by these areas is essential. Although green spaces are regarded as a major contribution to the human well‐being in urbanized areas, current research has largely focused on the cities in developed countries and their global importance in terms of public health benefits remains unclear. In this study, we performed a multiple linear regression using 34 cities in different regions across the globe to investigate the relationship between green spaces and public health. Our analysis suggested that for richer cities, green spaces were associated with better public health; whereas a greater area of green spaces was associated with reduced public health in the poorest cities. In contrast to previous studies, which typically found positive relationships between green spaces and health benefits, we demonstrate that health benefits of green spaces could be context dependent.Southampton University’s Institute for Life Sciences Fellowship (project code 511206105) Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship (PIIF-GA-2011-303221) Isaac Newton Trust (15.23(s)) The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment The Kenneth Miller Trus

By design Urban design in the planning system; towards better practice; a summary

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/27051 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

De-professionalised, automated construction procurement

The industry has been completely transformed over the last 20 years. Construction professions and building contractors have changed beyond recognition. The concept of public service has been replaced by a powerful cult of managerialism. Royal charters have been abolished. Knowledge is more important than judgement. Institutionalism has triumphed over professionalism. There is a glut of graduates with knowledge, but no judgement. The institutions now occupy themselves as qualifying bodies, providers of career development courses and writers of standard procedure manuals. At every step, the professional institutions saw these changes as advantageous, and did everything they could to further these developments. Capital acquisition has been replaced with service rental, and private finance has become the only option for procuring major facilities. Those who build and provide these facilities soon sell them to pension funds, releasing huge quantities of cash for further investment. The pressure to restructure the business processes in construction led to the development of collaborative working practices. These practices developed into integrated procurement systems which were firmed up as strategic alliances, followed by vertical integration and consolidation of the market into a few major players with massive investment capability. The systematic design and delivery of buildings has led to the displacement of architectural design by engineering design. This is a more convenient way for the new conglomerates to serve their clients. The service providers have turned to mass-customization as an easy way to meet demand for buildings. This industry is dominated by a few major conglomerates offering a complete service in which the role of the independent professional is simply irrelevant. Electronic procurement and automated contract negotiation enable bargains to be struck quickly, instantly launching a semi-automated procurement process. Automatic construction procurement is based on system-building coupled with electronic bargaining; multiple-use planning permission on large areas of development land held speculatively by service providers. Their output is evaluated and paid for on the basis of performance. There is no aesthetic requirement and no need for imaginative solutions. Few people have the skill or the money to maintain the old, manually constructed, bespoke buildings. So the stock of old buildings is being quickly replaced by shiny new standardized products that can be maintained by a semi-skilled workforce. A few highly experienced architects remain. They work on expensive, tailor-made, one-off projects for very rich clients, but they have minimal involvement in the mainstream of the construction sector

Better places for sport A client guide to achieving design quality

Title from coverAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:m03/25127 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo