Academic literature on the topic 'Buildings and site'

This creative project examines trends in school planning and design at both the community and site levels. At the community level, two trends have shaped many of the decisions made in school planning: consolidating schools into mega-sized schools and placing schools on the periphery of development. These practices contribute to sprawl, urban disinvestment, racial and social segregation, environmental degradation and educational inequality. Alternatives in school planning such as school renovation and schools as community centers, are examined through case studies.At the site level, schools are typically built on acres of land covered by lawn, sports fields and asphalt parking. Research shows that school grounds can serve as valuable educational resources when designed as learning landscapes. A conceptual master plan for Storer Elementary School in Muncie, Indiana illustrates how a bland school landscape can be transformed into an educational resource to improve learning, environmental quality, safety and health.<br>Department of Landscape Architecture

The reconstruction of historical buildings has been debated by preservationists, archeologists and historians, both with each other and within their own fields. But no matter how intensely scholars discuss and disagree on the subject, professionals at historic sites still continue to reconstruct historical buildings. The questions surrounding historical reconstruction include: is it ethical to reconstruct historical buildings? Is it worthwhile to reconstruct historical buildings for the benefit of the general public? I surveyed historical site workers from across the country and visitors from Red Hill National Memorial, the last home of Patrick Henry. From the survey, visitors seem to remember where they have seen reconstructions, sometimes what happened to the original buildings and learn about the history and preservation of the historic location. Sites that continue to reconstruct and follow all the preservation laws and regulations and inform the public on why the site reconstructed the building(s) are getting it right.

Thesis (M.S. in civil engineering)--Washington State University, 2004.<br>Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Nov. 6, 2005). Pages 1-5 appear in duplicate. Includes bibliographical references (p. 158-168).

Thesis (M.S.)--Michigan State University, Construction Management Program, 2007.<br>Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 12, 2008). Available through UMI ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 284-286).

Thesis (S.M. in Building Technology)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2013.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Vita. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-121).<br>Natural ventilation in buildings is capable of reducing energy consumption while maintaining a comfortable indoor at the same time. It is important that natural ventilation is taken into consideration in the early design stage, probably through simulation program. However, existing simulation programs are limited because of their model assumption, simulation efficiency and user friendliness. In this document a simulation program, CoolVent, is presented. It implements a multi-node, thermal and energy coupled model to simulate natural ventilation in buildings. The program is validated to be effective and efficient in simulation. Combined with the DOE building database, CoolVent evaluates the performance of different ventilation modes in different types of building and weather conditions. The second half of this thesis includes a detailed on-site monitoring study of a naturally ventilated building in Boston. It details the post-occupancy system characteristics. The monitoring results have also been compared with CoolVent. The simulation results are verified by comparing with the monitored ones. The program is then used to evaluate the potential of improved operation.<br>by Haofan Cheng.<br>S.M.in Building Technology

Significant site-amplification effects have been observed in various historic centers following the recent seismic events in Italy (e.g., L'Aquila 2009, Emilia 2012, Central Italy 2016-17), but also examples of Soil Foundation Structure (SFS) interaction in ordinary unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. In the past, SFS interaction effects were usually considered for masonry buildings only in slender or massive URM monumental structures. Following the latest observed evidence, this research aims to further investigate the role of site amplification and SFS interaction in the seismic response of URM residential structures. The final goal is to provide an effective procedure to consider these effects in large-scale risk assessment as well. The first part of the research validated the numerical approach to analyze the SFS interaction by reproducing the seismic response of the Visso school affected by the earthquake sequence in central Italy. This school constituted a very emblematic case study, since it was permanently monitored by the Italian Department of Civil Protection and suffered very severe damage, allowing validation even in a highly nonlinear phase. The procedure is based on the decoupled approach. Therefore, the input motion of the foundation is calculated from the site response analyses and the structural performance is analyzed through a structural model with springs at the base and characterized by equivalent damping. This school's validated procedure and numerical model were exploited to derive fragility curves that include site effects and SFS interaction under different subsurface conditions. The predicted damage probability was also compared with the results obtained from different amplifications of the simplified Code-compliant approach. Finally, the research was further generalized by considering multiple building types and different soil profiles. The structural types were inspired by the most frequent building types in the municipality of Visso, consisting of aggregate masonry structures. The set of derived fragility curves was finally applied to an urban scale to develop damage scenarios. In particular, the resulting damage under ground motion of the Central Italy earthquake was compared with that observed and predicted by existing faster and less accurate approaches, to assess the potential of the developed tools also to support possible future large-scale mitigation policies.

Information presented in site investigation reports has a strong influence in design, project costs and safety. For this reason, both the quality and the reliability of site investigation reports are important. However in our country, geotechnical engineering is relegated to second place and site investigation studies, especially parcel-basis ground investigation works<br>do not receive the attention they deserve. In this study, site investigation reports, that are required for the license of design projects, are examined and the missing/incorrect site investigations, laboratory tests, geotechnical evaluations and geotechnical suggestions that occur in the reports are catalogued. Also, frequency of each mistake is statistically examined<br>for geotechnical engineers, recommendations and solutions are presented to help them avoid frequent problems.

Background The improvement of energy efficiency in buildings is widely promoted as a measure to mitigate climate change through the reduction of CO2 emissions. Thermal regulations worldwide promote it, for both new and existing buildings. Among the existing stock, traditional and historic buildings pose the additional challenge of heritage conservation. Their energy efficiency upgrade raises the risk of provoking negative impacts on their significance. Aims and Methodology This research used an approach based on impact assessment methodologies, defining an inital baseline scenario for both heritage and energy, from which the appropriate improvement solutions were identified and assessed. The measures were dynamically simulated and the results for energy, CO2, cost and comfort compared with the initial scenario, and then being further assessed for their heritage impact to eventually determine the most feasible solutions. To test this method, ten case studies, representative of the identified typological variants, were selected among Oporto’s traditional buildings located in the World Heritage Site. Findings and Conclusions The fieldwork data revealed that the energy consumption of these dwellings was below the European average. Additionally, the households expressed that their home comfort sensation was overall positive. The simulations showed that the introduction of insulation and solar thermal panels were ineffective on these cases in terms of energy, cost and comfort. At the same time, these measures pose a great risk to the buildings’ heritage value. The most efficient solutions were obtained from behavioural changes and DHW retrofit. The study reinforced the idea that traditional buildings performed better than expected and can be retrofitted and updated at a low-cost and with passive solutions. The use of insulation and solar panels should be disregarded.

The traditional method of construction involves erecting buildings through assembling the bricks, blocks and scaffolders onsite. For many years, this has been the most common method of construction used in the construction industry. The major challenges associated with this traditional method are well documented. They include requiring time extensions; increased construction costs; high worksite accidents, and difficulties around the disposal of construction waste. Against this brief background, Off Site Manufacturing (OSM) appears to be a sound alternative method of construction. OSM is increasingly considered by researchers and some construction professionals due to its benefits, as evidenced from experiences in a variety of countries. However, despite OSM’s superiority over the traditional method of construction, in terms of time/cost savings, better quality control and enhanced safety performance, its uptake has been slow and rather limited. Reasons behind this slow uptake are varied and have been widely reported. A major reason appears to be the inability of OSM stakeholders (i.e. Clients, Developers, Manufacturers and Designers) to ascertain the short and long-terms Value that OSM will contribute, for a particular construction project, compared to that of the traditional construction method. To complicate matters further, project stakeholders, as one would expect, perceive the Value aspects of OSM differently. A critical literature review established the presence of a large number of Value aspects: 1) Product Value (e.g. usability, flexibility, etc.); 2) Process Value (e.g. profitability, customer satisfaction, etc.); and 3) Sustainability Value (e.g. life cycle costing, return on investment, waste generation, embodied energy, etc.). It is a certain combination of these Value aspects that may represent the source of motivation for stakeholders’ adoption of OSM. In a step towards addressing this challenge, this thesis presents a robust approach to assist decision-makers (i.e. project stakeholders) to make an informed decision about whether or not to adopt OSM for a particular construction project. In doing so, the thesis utilises the well-established Analytical Network Process (ANP) for determining Value aspects weightings, where each Value aspect is individually compared to other aspects, and the results are entered in a matrix for evaluation. To provide a user-friendly interface, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming was employed. This programming language is the mechanism behind the functionality of the developed decision-making tool which generates relative weights and ranks, as well as benefit-to-cost ratios for both OSM and traditional method of construction for performing an objective comparison. In order to confirm the functionality of the developed decision making tool, validation tests were carried out using two hypothetical scenarios. This is to demonstrate that the tool conforms to the aims of the research. The validity criteria were based on the comparison of the manual calculations with the output of the decision making tool. The results from the hypothetical scenarios indicate that the tool functions are both correct and reliable.<br>Thesis (Masters)<br>Master of Philosophy (MPhil)<br>Griffith School of Engineering<br>Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology<br>Full Text