Tools to quantify environmental impact and their application to teaching: projects City-zen and HEREVEA

This article presents several strategies to teach university students and professionals in the sector how to reduce the environmental impact of our cities. Firstly, the European City- zen project is summarized and its application to the city of Seville, more specifically to Tirode Linea, a working class neighbourhood, is described; the viability and functionality of the neighbourhood are analyzed and improvements are proposed so that it can become an area that attains zero emissions. Secondly, the HEREVEA project is presented, which developed software for the feasibility analysis and proposals to improve neighbourhoods. Its usefulness is discussed in a case study carried out in the same neighbourhood. Finally, the experience of how to transmit all this knowledge through university teaching is presented

The sensitivity of binocular rivalry to changes in the nondominant stimulus

The nature of rivalry suppression was investigated by examining the effects of changing one of the rivalling stimuli at the beginning of its phases of suppression. The stimulus was an obliquelyoriented grating whose phase, spatial frequency and contrast could be changed without altering its mean luminance. Such changes were found to disturb the course of rivalry and, more specifically, to cause the reappearance of the stimulus within 20 msec. Suppression is thus shown to be selective and not to render the subject insensitive to all classes of stimulus change

A case-based methodology for investigating urban comfort through interpretive research and microclimate analysis in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand

This paper explores how an interpretive case-based research strategy can reveal new empirical and theoretical insights into microclimate design. Innovative fieldwork in Christchurch, New Zealand investigated the nature and social meanings of urban comfort in a city with a seasonal climate featuring microclimatic variability, and with a physical landscape undergoing rapid change following a series of major earthquakes. Ethnographic methods were combined with microclimate measurements in four Christchurch-based case study locations to identify ways in which people adjust their cultural and lifestyle values and expectations to the actual microclimatic conditions. The field investigation had to capture data relevant to the microclimatic variability and be suitable for rapidly changing urban settings. Results suggest this integrative methodology successfully adapts to challenging physical contexts, and is able to provide a coherent body of evidence. Important insights revealed through this methodology may not have become apparent if only conventional microclimate methods were used