Abstract

The design of all spatial scales in a manufactured environment is part of the architectural skills and knowledge. Therefore, an architectural design should be drafted to reduce the vulnerability of humans and buildings against unexpected events, such as terrorist attacks and bombardments. Human casualties and equipment destruction inside the buildings could be prevented by designing a suitable architectural space. This study addresses the absence of a codified and detailed criterion to evaluate architectural spaces and their design. Hence, all proposed indices for architectural spaces have been extracted using the ideas of experts in the field of architecture and explosives. Questionnaires were presented to 25 experts to weigh the effective indices using the analytic hierarchy process method. The human-oriented (ergonomic) characteristics of the building space is found to be the most important factor in facilitating crisis management, followed by the location of critical spaces.

Abstract

Due to the climate change debate, a lot of research and maps of external climate parameters are available. However, maps of indoor climate performance parameters are still lacking. This paper presents a methodology for obtaining maps of performances of similar buildings that are virtually spread over whole Europe. The produced maps are useful for analyzing regional climate influence on building performance indicators such as energy use and indoor climate. This is shown using the Bestest building as a reference benchmark. An important application of the mapping tool is the visualization of potential building measures over the EU. Also the performances of single building components can be simulated and mapped. It is concluded that the presented method is efficient as it takes less than 15 min to simulate and produce the maps on a 2.6 GHz/4 GB computer. Moreover, the approach is applicable for any type of building.

Abstract

Specifically, the use of vinyl ester resins has been studied profusely in both the maritime and industrial sectors and with less time, in the use of reinforcement in civil engineering structures and architecture as passive reinforcements. The resin used in the present work is novel, and still little used. It is vinyl ester resin of bisphenol-A segment modified with urethane. This presents a greater resistance to chemical agents such as those of the petroleum industry, alkaline agents and vapors; together with a lower exotherm that facilitates the manufacture of thick laminates.

A thermal and mechanical characterization has been carried out through the techniques of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Thermogravimetry (TGA) of said resin reinforced with high grammage (780 g / cm2) fiber of E glass to evaluate the degradation of the composite and its mechanical properties to the interlaminar shear and bending. The influence of the contact with self-compacting concrete (HAC) on said material, imbedded inside its matrix as a reinforcement, as if it were a passive reinforcement, as well as an accelerated aging study in solution simulating the exudation liquid of the concrete pores (LPH) through said characterization. With the obtained results, it is evaluated and compared, from the point of view of degradation-stiffening vs. mechanical properties, with the traditional Bisphenol-A (VEBA) resins, as well as its suitability for the aforementioned applications, resulting in a resin with better properties than the VEBA.

Abstract

Since the industrial revolution, the economic development of Western Europe and North America was characterized by continuous urbanization accompanied by a gradual phasing-in of urban land property rights over time. Today, however, the evidence in many fast urbanizing low-income countries points towards a different trend of “urbanization without formalization”, with potentially adverse effects on long-term economic growth. This paper aims to understand the causes and the consequences of this phenomenon, and whether informal city growth could be a transitory or a persistent feature of developing economies. A dynamic stochastic equilibrium model of a representative city is developed, which explicitly accounts for the joint dynamics of land property rights and urbanization. The calibrated baseline model describes a city that first grows informally, with the growth of individual incomes leading to a phased-in purchase of property rights in subsequent periods. The model demonstrates that land tenure informality does not necessarily vanish in the long term, and the social optimum does not necessarily imply a fully formal city, neither in the transition, nor in the long run. The welfare effects of policies, such as reducing the cost of land tenure formalization, or protecting informal dwellers against evictions are subsequently investigated, throughout the short-term transition and in the long-term stationary state. Document type: Book