It has recently appeared that third world countries, given the causes of poverty and the weakness of the potential governmental institutional as illustrated map of the distribution of slums on the flat world, are where the highest proportion of the slums are stationed.

This research is a pilot research study in the way of the treatment and technical implementation of the study itself. It assesses and takes advantage of the application results for assessing the requirements and material and physical resources. The crisis of dissemination is applied to a flat section which is the Middle district of Alexandria as a first stage for strategy city planning.

The aim of this special issue is to;

-Develop a scientific approach applied to the study and analysis of the slum entity to get to the strengths and weaknesses without tearing the physical and social fabric.

-Achieving the sustainability of the region's urban slum community in the social, environmental and economic aspects.

-Using Research as a pilot research standard module to determine the physical needs and financial requirements for the development of slums. It is also used to determine the standard unit for measuring the cost-effective utilitarian to the slum community to be the index of the development for other similar areas within the same region in the common characteristics of environmental, social and economical.

Impacts of climate change are likely to cause conflicts for society, such as where people want to live and where they can live safely. This could negatively impact our ability to continue to develop built environments to support some of our lifestyle aspirations. There is a need to start responding to the impacts of Climate Change within our built environments – however these are not insurmountable. This paper discusses the meaning, history, evidences of climate change together with environmental impact of climate change on the built environment. Case studies of innovative building materials and technology effectively utilised on selected buildings in managing the problems of climate change were carefully investigated. Also, the study unfolds appropriate responses of these materials to the challenges of climate change in the studied area. Examples of such buildings that demonstrated the intelligent use of these materials were documented. The paper concluded by recommending continuous regular training of professionals and maximisation of contributions of building materials in projects designs and execution towards achieving sustainability in the built environment in this era of prevalent climatic changes.

Maximising the contribution of building materials to the design of buildings that will be adaptable to the climate throughout this century nevertheless falls within the realm of scientific analysis, and therefore technological realization.

Sustainability is increasingly a basic tenet within the organisational philosophy of many universities. In line with this trend, many universities around the world have taken initiatives to make their campus communities more sustainable. While those universities that have a sustainability strategy have largely focused on operational improvements, the engagement of staff and students is equally important for creating a sustainable campus. The purpose of this paper is to present and test a framework for engaging staff and students in developing a sustainable university campus. Interviews with staff and students at Bond University are conducted to investigate the extent to which the factors identified in the framework affect their decisions relating sustainability within the university campus. The paper first describes the framework and the factors encapsulated within the framework. The research methodology is then described. Following this, the paper cross-maps the interview findings to the factors identified in the framework in order to evaluate its applicability to university staff and students. The framework is useful as a template for other universities in developing a community engagement strategy to fit into the vision of a sustainable campus.

During the last 20 years, new methods and materials have been used by architects and developers, which resulted in increased maintenance cost. It has become essential to study and take care in design, choice of materials, specifications, and construction to reduce maintenance cost to a minimum. A large number of country’s resources are being employed on corrective or remedial measures to buildings and their services due to design and construction defects. Inherent maintenance problems in facilities are heavily attributed to design limitations, lack of construction knowledge, inadequate inspection or maintenance and material limitations. In this regard, lack of cooperation among the parties, especially the contactor and the designer, at the design stage, may be the major contributors to the problem.

This paper aims at exploring the potential of maintenance factors in achieving sustainability of structures. In other word, in the light of some synthesis and analysis, this research identifies certain factors and practices of maintainability and tries to correlate them with sustainability issues.

This special issue of “Architecture Research” journal intends to span the traditional understanding of architectural theory. The journal invites critics, practitioners, and theorists – beyond the boundaries of cultures, and disciplines – to join a broad discourse on the relationship of theory and architecture. This issue interweaves interdisciplinary understandings with different practices, intentions, and ways of knowing the theory. Investigating the relationships between current critical issues, the legacy of past debates, and the continued reconfiguration of continuing concerns in architectural theory are the main objectives for this collection. The issue aims at establishing a bridge between theory and practice in the fields of architecture in its broad sense including design research, urban planning, and built environment studies.

In view of that, articles, discussions, and review essays concerned with the contemporary state of architectural theory are called for submission. In this issue, however, architectural theory expands outward to interact with adjacent discourses such as urbanism, conservation, spatial practices, and sustainability too. Specific case studies providing a critical, interpretive, and speculative enquiry into the relevant debates in architectural theory are also welcomed.

The idea to allocate this special issue to housing and urban planning in Syria and Jordan came out of three factors ; first the major deterioration of the housing situation as a result of painful events, war and migration, still going on, in Syria, and the second may be a follow-up to the trend taken in a former special issue allocated for housing in the Gulf States and the third is to benefit of my academic relationships with a good number of researchers in both countries.

Housing is a system of energy and environment and required to accommodate wants and needs of individuals and society, which are usually considered to be diverse and dynamic. The 'needs' factor often reflects minimum quality of end-user products (i.e. housing) and may embrace 'adequacy' being prescribed in conventional codes, while the 'wants' may be satisfied only if they are defined clearly by stakeholders (e.g. house-users and builder/developers) at the design decision making stage. 'Mass Customisation' is an oxymoron or, perhaps, a paradigm case of a systems approach to identifying the aforementioned wants and needs that should be incorporated into the design of end-user products (or homes). Albeit increasing market demands for achievement of social, economic and environmental sustainability in housing today, conventional homebuilders (and housing manufacturers alike) who are often reluctant to spending extra time, money and effort for information gathering of new products and services are still barely able to adopt recently emerging innovations including mass custom design approaches to the delivery of sustainable affordable homes.

Acording to projections presented in the Green Economy Report (UNEP, 2011), the investment of 1/10 of the percentage of the annual global PIB estimated as the minimum necessary to foster the transaction from the so called “brown economy” to the “green economy” (which is 0.2%), has the potential to provoke a reduction of the worldwide CO2 emissions caused by the building sector by 2050 to values lower than the ones registered in the decade of 1990. Such performance is equivalent to 43% less than the emission values estimated for the business as usual cenario. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing that those figures refer to the global cenario, which means that national ane regional values have to be recalculated based on local and specific economic activities and development needs.

Regarding the specific environmental impact of the building sector, the perspective of growth of comercial building in the developing world and emergent economies (LEVINE M. et al, 2007), with its high energy consumption rates, couple with a alarming and growing housing defict also in this part of the world (UN-DESA, 2009), demand an urgent environmental strategies, involving public policies and design solutions. In addition to that, the risks brought by the uncertainties and defficiencies of urban infrastructure associated with the provision of energy and other basic utility services in cities of the emergent and developing world, which has been facing in the past couple of decades a process of fast transformation with the expasion of the urban territory and building stock, raise concerns about the future value their buildings and the quality of life in cities. The growth of informal settlements in the developing world, in particular, and its links with environmental issues of public health is a topic of global concern, whilst the consolidation of the informal city in urban areas of emergent economy nations gives us clues about localized promising solutions, with invaluable lessons to be learnt.

Going back to the issue of energy in buildings, although the reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions of this specific sector is a global objective, the means to achieve that in different countries, regions and cities of the world is not the same, in other words: there is no one single magic policy of technical solution. Different degree of urban and socioeconomic development alongside different environmental and climatic conditions will inccur in different political, design and technical strategies. In general, it is known that the population and economic growth of developing and emergent countries will lead to a dramatic increase in global energy demand, without the garantee of adequate quality and healthy environments.

It is also known that besides the influence of the climate, the energy demand from air conditioing and heating systems, as well as the artificial lighting systems in buildings, is directly related to the design project, the efficiency of the technical systems and life style. Changes in life style and in the working culture of contemporary societies are key factors that affect the environmental and energy performance of buildings, being not only the problem, but also the opportunity for improvement. As stated in the theories and proved by the practice, design aspects and occupation patterns constitute variables that play a key role in the final and real energy consumption and environmental quality of buildings. The potential of environmental design strategies make energy savings become a consequence of enviromental quality in buildings. As a result, the reformulation of environmental values generate the plataform for a paradigmatic transformation of the built environment, of better quality and less energy demand.

Considering the environmental assessment of buildings, a key barrier for further progresses is the gap between theoretical data versus performance-based data, especially regarding the energy consumption. Although predictions about energy performance of buildings are an essential part of “greenering” the building stock, the most important data is the operational energy measured after a period of occupation (minimum advisable of two years). This is because the energy performance of a building in operation is affected by factors beyond design, including management routines, occupants’ behaviour and climatic changes. However, there is little real life data, or operational data, available in the public domain to substantiate a great deal of claims of low-energy consumption and “green” buildings. The lack of project specific feedback on actual environmental performance of buildings is a major obstacle in furthering the understanding of the effectiveness of specific design features.

Whilst the economic advantages associated with buildings of better environmental performance has been proved in the Green Economy Report (UNEP, 2011), the real potential of environmental design has not been explored yet neither discussed enough to divert political and market forces towards a truelly better environmental building culture. Having said that, revist conventional theories, “old fashion values” and design methods, as well as discussing real life data and exploring design and technical creative solutions is the way forward.

Bibliographic references:

LEVINE M. et al. Residential and Commercial Buildings in Climate Change 2007: Mitigation, Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdon and New York NY, USA, 2007.

UN-DESA, World Population Prospects: The 2008 revision. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York, 2009. Disponivel em: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2008/wpp2008_highlights.pdf. Acessado em: Dezembro 2010.

United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP. Buildings: investing in energy and resource efficiency. In: The Green Economy Report. 2011b. Disponivel em: http:www.unep.org/greeneconomy/ Acessado em: 14 de junho de 2011.

The following proposal is intended to focus on a series of utopian plans sprung from an anti-urban ideology which at intervals and under different forms crosses at least eight decades of the XX century. The common trait of these radical proposals is the rejection of the idea of the traditional compact city, which becomes the starting point for the construction of new forms of settlement characterized by varied degrees of dispersion and different territorial organizations.

In the last years a lot of scholars devoted their studies to discuss the wide range of future cities, alternative and radical spaces, new kind of society that these proposals attempted to envision. Yet very few of these works, while questioning, discussing, interpreting the images and ideas drafted by the utopian projects, actually focus on the process of visual representation these images and ideas originate from. It seems in fact worth being investigated the fact that the authors of these plans managed the construction of a specific visual imaginary effective to powerfully portrait and disseminate their utopian visions. The ultimate aim of this proposal therefore is to maintain a close focus on the very “representation effect” proper of this utopian lan¬guages. The idea is to cut a particular line into the group of these utopian plans able to point out how they were characterized by a systematic use of diagrams rather than other traditional representation modes, and how eventually the use of this diagrams became the very essence to fashion the visual language of utopia.

From the very first radical proposals of social utopians to Howard’s Garden City, from Taut’s Dissolution of Cities to Soviet Disurbanists’ Linear City, from Le Corbusier’s Functional City to Constant’s New Babylon, diagrams always suited to envision the virtual rather than the real, to evoke worlds other than that which exists. By this point of view diagrams characterize the elaboration itself of utopian thought in terms of a specific visual device powerful enough to succeed in the task of performing a pre-figuration of a reality far away to come. Actually what distinguishes all the utopian imaginary is its peculiar status in between abstraction and realism, virtual and real, to look precise and at the same time imprecise. The real strength of modern utopia stems from this “representation effect” which is activated essentially by the very nature of its images as diagrams.

Two series of questions seem central to further investigate the role of these “diagrams of utopia” in the construction of a visionary ground. One addresses the way these diagrams are conceived as tools to evoke more than to represent. How do diagrams activate the process of visual elaboration of an utopia? What are the essential traits that turn diagrams into a powerful device to sound the unknown? The other relates to the re-evaluation of diagrams into a critical fashion. Are diagrams now obsolete being a legacy of an utopian tradition already out of fashion? Or on the contrary are they still a topical and effective tool in the design discourse today? What kind of definitions do suit to assess the significance today of such graphic abstractions suspended between form and word, space and language, the virtual and the real? Eventually questioning the very nature of these diagrams would allow to frame better the experimental side of utopian discourse, and to reconsider utopia, no longer as a set of ideas about future societies, but as a form of representation, as a great attempt to provide an evocation of realms yet to come.

Colors are part of the process of architectural perception and urban conformation, reflecting not only the formal aspects, but also the cultural, social, and historical ones of the place and the population who live in it. It can be said that they are key elements in creating the sense of place, or belonging, among the dwellers of urban centers. Understanding the chromatic relations of a city is a fundamental step so as to be able to intervene either in the preparation and insertion of architectural designs or in the development of public policies.

Colors and their relationship with light, have an important influence on the way we perceive interiors spaces , and the way we respond to them. In this context, the aim of this special issue is to integrate research papers about color in architecture, its insertion in the urban space and color in the interior architecture.

There has been a growing number of papers in journals and/or conferences on BIM education in undergraduate courses, following the publication teaching initiatives by Sacks & Barak (2009). The majority of these publications refer to US universities, mostly engineering. There have been almost no reports regarding the introduction of BIM in undergraduate and graduate courses in developing countries. And even in the developed countries there has been few works describing transfer of knowledge and experiences between Practitioners and Scholars. Design or Construction companies tend to consider knowledge gained as competitive advantage and resist transferring their accumulated experience to potential competitors, including academia. Despite the possibility of interaction with vendors and academia, professionals oftentimes recourse to inadequate or inefficient practices, Teachers on the other hand, have either made available BIM software plus vendor provided tutorials to undergraduate students (and advertise this as having BIM in their school’s curricula) and/or teach BIM from a researcher’s perspective (purely theoretical). There is clearly a gap between professional practice (reality) and academia (what is taught).

Contemporary cities in developed countries face multiple and increasingly complex challenges in regards to urban management, regeneration, and resilience. The examination and solution of most of these challenges require the development and implementation of innovative methods towards better communication between stakeholders, integrating community participation, for building consensus in urban planning decision-making. This special issue would integrate research articles on:

1) Examination of innovative methods to foster local community engagement in the decision-making of regeneration and city making processes, such as new technologies and workshop methodologies;

2) Analysis of the importance of the involvement of local communities for the success of architectural and urbanistic projects: the importance of co-design for the future of cities

The rapid urbanization and population growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries that include Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman have resulted in an increased demand for affordable housing units from low- and middle-income households. Estimates from the United Nations show that the number of people living in the cities of this region is growing by an average of 2.1 per cent every year, while the region’s population is continuously booming and is expected to reach 52.9 million by 2020. Faced with the enormous challenge of providing decent living to the target income groups, the governments of the GCC states have implemented massive social housing projects, various housing subsidy programs, and accessible loan mechanisms to meet the high demand.

For instance, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took large steps in the residential markets with over 10,000 housing loans toward the construction of 12, 000 affordable homes across the Kingdom. UAE continues to be an undersupply in the affordable or middle-income segment for Emiratis of more than 10,000 units, across the UAE, though some housing projects deliveries scheduled for 2014 could ease the situation in that segment. Qatar has developed certain areas such as Abu Hamour and Bu Sidra for its social housing projects. In 2012, the Qatari government constructed around 18,000 residential units. Additional 10,000 units were built in 2013. In Bahrain, the government recently allocated more than BD2 billion ($5.29 billion) towards the development of social housing and aims to build over 50,000 units over the next five years. Oman and Kuwait too have executed similar projects to solve the housing deficit in their areas.

On the other hand, there have been many initiatives in the GCC countries that aim at encouraging realizing sustainability on the housing and other urban development sectors on planning and design levels. These include, for example, Pearl Community Rating System [PCRS] in Abu Dhabi, initiated by Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, Green Building Codes in Dubai, Qatar Sustainability Assessment System [QSAS] established by the Green Building Council Qatar. The primary objective of these initiatives is to create a sustainable built environment that minimizes ecological impact while addressing the specific regional needs and environment.

The question now is: to what extent are these two efforts of both building massive social housing on the one hand and achieving sustainable built environment on the other hand intersect? Answering this question is the aim of this special issue through investigating the challenges that currently face addressing sustainability in this widely developed type of housing in the GCC region and how could the recent sustainability initiatives contribute to the attainment of the sustainable social housing. Research papers reflecting analysis of the status que, case studies and theoretical thoughts are welcome to contribute to this issue according to announced topics of interests.

The topic of the special issue can be Sustainable Architecture. This is a very broad based topic and can cover many topics under it, such as Energy efficiency in Buildings, Sustainable Construction, Sustainable Materials, Low Energy Traditional Architecture, Climate Responsive Architecture. The issue will be significant and relevant to the current energy crisis and with the context of global warming, since buildings consume significant amount of energy.

The potential readers will be Faculty members in different colleges & universities, Research scholars. Scientist, Academicians and Architects.

In the architectural media, the interdisciplinary relationships between architecture and programming on computer, complex algorithm information, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, microelectronics, robotics and nanotechnology are frequently discussed. Through these relationships free forms can be constructed, the buildings that were described as utopia in the past can be transformed into reality and buildings can be designed like a living organism by new materials and technologies. Also different living areas like seas, mega structures, and horizontal cities are researched with the rising population; moreover, constructing colonies in other planets can be visualized beyond the limitation of our planet. Many fields of science, especially microelectronics, genetic, nanotechnology and molecular engineering, represent a new frontier in architecture day by day. However, architects have thought about a better and sustainable environment and space quality in the future because sources of the world have become restricted and ecology has gained more and more importance. Therefore, architects who have been supported by researches in other scientific areas have developed alternative approaches for the future of architecture in cooperative work with scientists. When these approaches are evaluated, it can be claimed that cooperation between science and architecture could started a radical revolution. And as a result, architecture could reach a very different stage from now. In this context, this issue aims to evaluate the effects of scientific and technological developments on contemporary architecture and to question that how the architecture of future will be.

The global energy context makes it necessary to rethink about more efficient production of urban habitat, in terms of energy and environment improvements. This confronts us with new challenges related to economic activity and current consumption patterns, as well as with policy management, social structure and collective and individual awareness. In this sense, it is proposed that this approach will be considered essential for the production and planning of urban habitat, so that it is capable of encouraging cultural change in terms of energy consumption in the cities. In some regions, institutional and collective awareness on energy and environmental situation is starting to gain importance and, in some instances, prospective guidelines are beginning to arise in order to ensure that necessary resources will be available for future generations.

In this context, the aim of this special issue is to foster a brainstorming of ideas in relation to the growing environment and energy problems that almost all regions around the world are facing, and the stimulation in incorporating energy and environmental guidelines for a more efficient production of urban habitat focused on improving energy efficiency in the building scale, as well as in urban scale.

Cities have been described metaphorically as mechanical objects, historical solidified time in space, and biological organisms. While the vision as machine focuses on cities as composed of interacting and interdependent components, the historic theory understands them as physical archives and stone documents of the past and present human civilizations and cultures as a continuous time series. The organic theory in particular emphasizes that cities are composed of living cells which can grow, decline, die and resurrect through renewal strategies. The 21^stcentury cities, especially of developing nations, are grossly inadequate as dwelling machines, not fully prepared as future sage entities and currently dying as organic objects. These conditions call for trouble-shooting, appraisal and diagnosis to enhance higher efficiency of cities as dwelling machines, prepare them for the future challenges and heal the sick fabrics of today’s cities respectively. These cannot be achieved without a knowledge-based approach realizable through state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research. Therefore, the aim of this special edition of Architecture Research is to approach these issues empirically through grounded theoretical underpinnings towards suggesting sustainable solutions. Submissions should address specific research problems identified in the study areas.

Professor J.A. Fadamiro
Department of Architecture,
University of Lagos,
Nigeria
joechrisdamiro@yahoo.com

Department of Architecture,
The Federal University of Technology,
Akure, Nigeria
niranadedeji@yahoo.com