ASSESSING THE SIMULATION CAPABILITY OF THE ACCURATE ENGINE IN MODELLING MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ELEMENTS

ABSTRACT Simulation is often utilised in the regulatory assessment of building performance as in the case of the Australia's Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS). A recent government discussion pape

Evaluating assumptions of scales for subjective assessment of thermal environments – Do laypersons perceive them the way, we researchers believe?

International audienc

Thermal mavericks in Australia: a study of occupant preferences in dwellings of atypical construction

The preferences and behaviour of occupants are critically important in the environmental performance assessment of proposed and existing dwellings. Performance assessment should respond to both the needs of the occupants as well as societal goals, and when used as a tool in energy efficiency regulation should allow individuals to make informed choices that align with their particular housing aspirations. Within Australia, the existing approaches to meeting societal goals, expressed through the Energy Efficiency provisions in the National Construction Code (NCC), are intended to meet the perceived needs of a standardised population. This causes an incongruity when used to assess dwellings designed to meet alternative needs. To investigate these issues this research studied the preferences and behaviour of occupants within two distinct forms of housing; dwellings incorporating earth construction elements in a cool temperate climate and naturally ventilated dwellings in a hot humid climate. A review of the literature provided anecdotal evidence indicating that these occupants have alternative performance expectations of their dwellings which are not currently being met by existing thermal performance assessment methods. The research was conducted through national surveys to confirm that the cohorts’ attitudes, behaviours and preferences were distinguishable from those of the broader population. These surveys were followed by a longitudinal comfort study of 40 households from these cohorts; 20 in Melbourne and 20 in Darwin. The comfort study was complimented by the analysis of long-term household energy use records, an exploration of dwelling operation in relation to thermal conditions and, importantly, an assessment of the individuals’ environmental attitudes. Results of the national surveys confirmed that occupants of the two forms of atypical housing are identifiable cohorts whose perception and operation of their dwelling is different when compared to those of the broader population. These trends were similarly reflected across the 40 case study households. Notably, the type of fuels used and the operation of heating and/ or cooling appliances were dissimilar to typical houses in the same locations. This was seen in the considerably lower average energy consumption of the two case study cohorts when compared to the figures for households generally in those areas. Rather than choosing to control the internal temperature by using heating and/or cooling appliances the occupants demonstrated a range of means of adapting to and modifying their thermal environment across a wide range of conditions. Their acceptance and preference for diversity within their thermal environment was further revealed through acceptable thermal sensation votes cast outside of the range of the adaptive comfort model. This illustrates the disadvantage imposed upon occupants when standard methods of design assessment are applied. The occupants displayed significantly higher levels of environmental concern than the broader population, likely motivating their preferences and behaviour in relation to the operation of their dwellings. Despite the uniqueness of the two cohorts (e.g. construction characteristics of the houses, climate and use of heating and/or cooling) the relationships between prevailing outdoor conditions and the occupants’ subjective response to internal conditions were similar, as were their overall levels of environmental concern. Based on the collected data, this research offers an alternative process by which to judge the potential thermal performance of new dwellings of these typologies. The method developed is aimed at reducing energy use by demonstrating that an acceptable level of comfort is achieved without heating and/or cooling. Whilst the applicability of the proposed method is confined to the types of houses presently studied, it is expected that its application could be broadened to other forms of housing, where occupants demonstrate comparable levels of environmental concern. This research is the first in Australia of residential buildings that combines both the use of traditional thermal comfort and post occupancy evaluation methods with a measure from environmental psychology to provide contextual information about the actual operation and performance of two distinct forms of housing. Importantly, this research supports broadening the boundaries of thermal comfort parameters in situations where occupants have access to a wide range of adaptive opportunities. The implications of these findings are theorised in the proposal of alternative building performance assessment methodology in the Australian context. On an international scale, this work offers an exciting pathway towards the creation of less energy intensive built environments, not just through the rationalisation of technical systems, but also through consideration of how individuals’ thermal preferences may be informed by their value system.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture and Built Environment, 2016

The Shifting Risk of Homelessness among Persons with a Disability: Insights from a National Policy Intervention

Persons with a disability are at a far higher risk of homelessness than those without. The economic, social and health challenges faced by disabled people are addressed, in Australia, by the recently implemented National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Using nationally representative, longitudinal household panel data, we construct the Index of Relative Homelessness Risk (IRHR) to track how the risk of homelessness for disabled persons has changed since the introduction of the NDIS. We find that, overall, fewer persons with a disability face moderate risk of homelessness but that many more face high risk. We conclude that the NDIS has not effectively protected disabled people from the risk of homelessness. We reflect on the implications of these findings for policy interventions

Australian rental housing standards: institutional shifts to reprioritize the housing–health nexus

ABSTRACTA large proportion of Australia’s housing stock offered for private rental or socially let is of poor quality, which has implications for residents’ health and well-being. This problem has arisen from historically weak regulation of housing standards and under-investment in public housing services, both features of Australia’s neoliberal housing regime. In this paper, we reviewed the institutional contexts of two policy settings used to address problems of housing quality: the Homes Act 2018 (UK) and the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act 2017 (Aotearoa–New Zealand). From these two case studies, five institutional shifts required to reprioritize the housing–health nexus in Australia were synthesized: (1) policy objectives should explicitly link housing conditions and health outcomes; (2) community awareness and sector advocacy should be harnessed to overcome complex structures of government; (3) policy approaches should foster collective social responsibility; (4) mandatory requirements should be made transparent and objective; and (5) robust protocols for tracking progress should be developed and applied

The Relative Risk of Homelessness among Persons with a Disability: New Methods and Policy Insights

This paper reports on the first phase of an ambitious program of research that seeks to both understand the risk of homelessness amongst persons with a disability in Australia and shed light on the impact of a significant policy reform—the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)—in changing the level of homelessness risk. This first paper, reports on the level of homelessness risk for persons with a disability prior to the introduction of the NDIS, with a subsequent paper providing updated data and analysis for the period post the implementation of the NDIS. In one sense, this paper provides the ‘base’ condition prior to the introduction of the NDIS but also serves a far broader role in advancing our understanding of how disability and chronic ill-health affects the risk of homelessness. Our research finds that in the period prior to the introduction of the NDIS, a large proportion of people with disabilities were at risk of homelessness, but those whose disabilities affected their schooling or employment were at the greatest risk

How Does Household Residential Instability Influence Child Health Outcomes? A Quantile Analysis

At the core of housing and welfare research is a premise that stable residential environments are important to children’s health and development. The relationship between housing stability and health outcomes for children is, however, complex; stable housing situations are sometimes associated with poorer health outcomes, and some children may be more or less resilient to residential instability. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) dataset enables us to longitudinally follow the housing and health of more than 10,000 children and their families. We employ a quantile analysis technique, a currently underutilized tool for testing associations across the distribution of an outcome, to test whether exposure to housing instability has a differential impact on children’s health dependent on their initial health status. Our findings suggest that the health outcomes of residential instability are highly dependent on children’s initial health status

An Australian housing conditions data infrastructure

Abstract For the past two decades, researchers and policy makers have known very little about conditions within Australia’s housing stock due to a lack of systematic and reliable data. In 2022, a collaboration of Australian universities and researchers commissioned a large survey of 22,550 private rental, social rental and homeowner households to build a data infrastructure on the household and demographic characteristics, housing quality and conditions in the Australian housing stock. This is the third and largest instalment in a national series of housing conditions data infrastructures