Impact of the Built Environment on the Mental Health of the Inhabitants in High-Rise Collective Housing in Algeria

For everybody, the house or the accommodation （and its environment） is a secure place, a haven space, which protects people from constraints of the everyday life. Unfortunately, and more or less everywhere in the third world, accommodation is for a great number of people a source of stress caused by daily obligations that people have to deal with. In Algeria, the majority of the high-rise collective housing estates through the country offers all the ingredients of a constrained urban environment for the inhabitants. For the most of the population, the accommodation appears as a vital need rather than a negotiable good. As a matter of fact, in the third world in general and particularly in Algeria, most of people live in communities where there is a shortage of accommodation and in which the social housing and its environment are often below the standards. Constructed on policies and a conception of housing which does not integrate at all the criteria of the sustainable development, millions of fiats have already been built. Millions are going to be built in the future, and will be of high-rise collective type. As underlined in this paper, it seems reasonable to think that such a degraded built environment will be unfavorable to the inhabitants and will have a negative impact on both their mental and physical health. The attempt is to demonstrate that there are evidences according to which the housing conditions, inside and outside the accommodation, contribute to create psychological distress and physiological diseases.

Metropolitan Housing Development in Urban Fringe Areas-A Case Study of Three Metropolitan Cities of South Africa: Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane

Purpose:The metropolitan cities of Johannesburg,Ekurhuleni and Tshwane play an important role in the economy of the Gauteng province in South Africa.The region constitutes to 22.4 percent of the total population of South Africa and has a strong presence and contributes in areas of manufacturing sector,financial and business services,retail and wholesale trade,etc.The rapid urban population,increase in the informal settlements and socio-economic opportunities has resulted in considerable urban sprawl in and around the urban fringe areas of these metropolitan cities.The urban fringe areas of these metros often come under the influence of rapid urbanization process and pressures.Coupled with the economical and potential land dynamics and lack of priority of spatial development guidelines,these areas attract rapid and haphazard development from communities and developers.Research Design/Methodology:This research is based on a qualitative approach through a comprehensive literature review that included content analysis of key documents on housing sector such as IDPs(Integrated Development Plans),Municipal Annual Reports,Growth Development Strategies,and among other sectoral documents on housing sector.Some of the key priority issues considered in the housing sector included:eradication of housing backlogs,spatial restructuring of housing,provision of choice in terms of location,tenure and housing typology.Findings:The current paper discusses the approaches of metropolitan housing development processes in three metropolitan cities of South Africa from Gauteng region,namely:Johannesburg,Ekurhuleni and Tshwane.The paper discusses the existing housing sectoral scenario along with the fringe areas in three cities with focus on:formal and informal settlements,housing segregation and the backlogs,current institutional arrangements,role of public private participation,and scope for alternate mechanisms.The paper concludes in discussion on sustainable development options for housing development in urban fringe areas.

A Stroke-Limitation AMD Control System with Variable Gain and Limited Area for High-Rise Buildings

Collisions between a moving mass and an anti-collision device increase structural responses and threaten structural safety.An active mass damper(AMD)with stroke limitations is often used to avoid collisions.However,a strokelimited AMD control system with a fixed limited area shortens the available AMD stroke and leads to significant control power.To solve this problem,the design approach with variable gain and limited area(VGLA)is proposed in this study.First,the boundary of variable-limited areas is calculated based on the real-time status of the moving mass.The variable gain(VG)expression at the variable limited area is deduced by considering the saturation of AMD stroke.Then,numerical simulations of a stroke-limited AMD control system with VGLA are conducted on a high-rise building structure.These numerical simulations show that the proposed approach has superior strokelimitation performance compared with a stroke-limited AMD control system with a fixed limited area.Finally,the proposed approach is validated through experiments on a four-story steel frame.

Study on Evacuation Strategy of Commercial High-Rise Building under Fire Based on FDS and Pathfinder

With the development of economy and society and the growth of population,the high-rise and multi-function of commercial buildings have become an international trend.But it also poses huge fire hazards.Most of the existing studies’research objects are predominantly high-rise residential buildings,without considering the impact of different functional zones(Standard floor,entertainment zone,office zone,equipment room and so on)and personnel distribution of commercial buildings evacuation.And the influence of using elevators to carry evacuees on the refuge floor on personnel evacuation is rarely studied.In this work,the fire scenario of the Yangtze River InternationalConferenceCenter,a high-rise commercial building,is simulated with the Pyrosim programto get the necessary parameters under various fire scenarios and to calculate the available evacuation time TASET.At the same time,according to the complex functional zone of the commercial high-rise building and the distribution of people in different time periods,a reasonable evacuation strategy is developed and simulated by Pathfinder software.The results indicate that unorganized evacuation will lead individuals to take the erroneous evacuation route,resulting in a vast region of congestion;comprehensive consideration of the time staggering and the reasonable distribution of evacuation routes can significantly improve evacuation efficiency,and the TRSET of night and working hours is 36.6%–55.3%and 49.9%–79.6%of unorganized evacuation,respectively.For the night fire,60%of the people use elevator-refuge floor to evacuate is the optimal strategy;for the fire during working hours,half of the people on standard floors use the elevator to evacuate and people on multifunctional floors evacuate in four batches is the best plan.The results of this study can provide viable solutions and a foundation for analyzing the fire evacuation and safety of big commercial high-rise buildings.

A novel control strategy for reproducing the floor motions of high-rise buildings by earthquake-simulating shake tables

To enable the experimental assessment of the seismic performance of full-scale nonstructural elements with multiple engineering parameters(EDPs),a three-layer testbed named Nonstructural Element Simulator on Shake Table(NEST)has been developed.The testbed consists of three consecutive floors of steel structure.The bottom two floors provide a space to accommodate a full-scale room.To fully explore the flexibility of NEST,we propose a novel control strategy to generate the required shake table input time histories for the testbed to track the target floor motions of the buildings of interest with high accuracy.The control strategy contains two parts:an inverse dynamic compensation via simulation of feedback control systems(IDCS)algorithm and an offline iteration procedure based on a refined nonlinear numerical model of the testbed.The key aspects of the control strategy were introduced in this paper.Experimental tests were conducted to simulate the seismic responses of a full-scale office room on the 21^(st)floor of a 42-story high-rise building.The test results show that the proposed control strategy can reproduce the target floor motions of the building of interest with less than 20%errors within the specified frequency range.

Microstructure and properties of 35 kg large aluminum alloy flywheel housing components formed by squeeze casting with local pressure compensation

The squeeze casting method with local pressure compensation was proposed to form a flywheel housing component with a weight of 35 kg.The numerical simulation,microstructure observation and phase characterization were performed,and the influence of local pressure compensation on feeding of thick-wall position,microstructure and mechanical properties of the formed components were discussed.Results show that the molten metal keeps a good fluidity and the filling is complete during the filling process.Although the solidification at thick-wall positions of the mounting ports is slow,the local pressure compensation effectively realizes the local forced feeding,significantly eliminating the shrinkage cavity defects.In the microstructure of AlSi9Mg alloy,α-Al primarily consists of fragmented dendrites and rosette grains,while eutectic Si predominantly comprises needles and short rods.The impact of local pressure compensation on strength is relatively minimal,yet its influence on elongation is considerable.Following local pressure compensation,the average elongation at the compensated areas is 9.18%,which represents a 44.90%higher than that before compensation.The average tensile strength is 209.1 MPa,and the average yield strength is 100.6 MPa.The local pressure compensation can significantly reduce or even eliminate the internal defects in the 35 kg large-weight components formed by squeeze casting.

Emergency Housing Solutions after Earthquakes:Innovative Technologies and Resilience Strategies

The international research project,developed through the collaboration between the University of Chieti and Pescara“G.d'Annunzio”and theÉcole Nationale d'Architecture of Marrakech,aims to explore new strategies for emergency housing,with a focus on technological innovation and the resilience of temporary shelters.The main goal of the research is to define a more efficient housing module for post-earthquake scenarios,based on the analysis of the most advanced international solutions for first-response shelters.This study has made it possible to identify both the strengths and weaknesses of existing proposals,leading to the development of a housing model capable of improving living conditions during emergency phases.The objective is to propose an innovative housing module that not only addresses immediate post-disaster needs but is also adaptable to the specific socio-cultural characteristics of the affected populations.As a result of this work,the“DIVA-Variable Dimension Emergency Shelter”project was developed.This housing model stands out for its ability to adapt to the needs of different emergency phases,offering a versatile and customizable solution that effectively addresses post-earthquake challenges while ensuring respect for cultural specificities and improving quality of life.

Industrialization,Efficiency and Social Housing:Sustainable Prefabrication for the Colombian Social and Cultural Context

This research aims to generate processes of industrialization and qualification of social housing in Colombia through prefabrication,low energy consumption and high environmental quality to reduce the current deficit and improve the quality of life in communities with fewer economic resources.Modular coordination and the use of materials with thermal behaviors,appropriate to the country’s climatic characteristics,reduce production costs,avoid waste and improve the architectural and environmental quality of social housing.Passive cooling strategies,such as controlling solar incursion and generating natural cross ventilation eliminate energy consumption and allow reaching desired standards of comfort.In a context in which traditional construction systems have still not resolved the social housing deficit in Colombia and which generate high costs for energy consumption in the search for thermal comfort,industrialized and efficient construction with high environmental quality provides solutions according to the economic,geographic,social and cultural context in Colombia.

Living in a Condominium Regime:Neighborhood Conflicts in Low-Income Housing,Tijuana,Baja California-A Secondary Publication

This paper analyzes neighborhood conflicts arising from the condominium property regime,under which social housing promoted by Mexican government institutions and private developers is acquired.This regime has facilitated access to housing for the salaried population,but it is far from contributing to the attainment of the right to housing.The research takes as case studies housing complexes located in the city of Tijuana,Baja California,Mexico.The analysis included a mixed methodology.Firstly,similar case studies were analyzed;secondly,a review of the Condominium Property Regime Law was carried out in order to understand its implications.In view of the pandemic situation,a virtual survey was applied to the inhabitants of these areas,as well as interviews with presidents of neighborhood committees of these complexes.From the above,it was found that this form of ownership generates conflicts,reflected in the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants with their housing,disagreements and controversies in their organization and coexistence.The inhabitants have to collectively solve the problems they face,related to the maintenance and use of common areas,insecurity,and cleanliness,among others.In addition,there is a lack of support from local authorities.With this,it is concluded that although the inhabitants have a space that solves their housing problem,it does not manage to be a space that adequately guarantees their right to housing.

A Triple Nexus Water-Energy-Housing (WEH) Framework Modelling towards Improved Decision-Making in Humanitarian Operations

Given the challenges facing most humanitarian operations worldwide, a change of approach is needed to ensure greater sustainability of humanitarian settlements right from the planning stage. Some studies attribute unsustainability to inadequate provision of basic resources and highlight the apparent bottlenecks that prevent access to the meaningful data needed to plan and remedy problems. Most operations have relied on an “ad hoc ism” approach, employing parallel and disconnected data processing methods, resulting in a wide range of data being collected without subsequent prioritization to optimize interconnections that could enhance performance. There have been little efforts to study the trade-offs potentially at stake. This work proposes a new framework enabling all subsystems to operate in a single system and focusing on data processing perspective. To achieve this, this paper proposes a Triple Nexus Framework as an attempt to integrate water, energy, and housing sector data derived from a specific sub-system within the overall system in the application of Model-Based Systems Engineering. Understanding the synergies between water, energy, and housing, Systems Engineering characterizes the triple nexus framework and identifies opportunities for improved decision-making in processing operational data from these sectors. Two scenarios illustrate how an integrated platform could be a gateway to access meaningful operational data in the system and a starting point for modeling integrated human settlement systems. Upon execution, the model is tested for nexus megadata processing, and the optimization simulation yielded 67% satisfactory results, demonstrating that an integrated system could improve sustainability, and that capacity building in service delivery is more than beneficial.

手机Housing检包线平衡分析及优化设计

针对某电子企业手机Housing检包线目前存在的生产效率低下、劳动成本上升的问题,依据作业测定技术所获得的数据,结合Flexsim仿真技术分析检包线瓶颈,运用方法研究分别从作业方式和工站布置两个方面,对检包线进行平衡分析和优化设计,并通过Flexsim建立优化后的检包线仿真模型验证其有效性,采用新方案后,在成本降低的情况下,达到了平衡各工站负荷、提高生产效率的目的。研究表明,工业工程理论方法与仿真技术相结合,可使制造系统的改善更加有效。

Field survey of indoor thermal comfort in rural housing of northern China in heating season

This paper introduces a field measurement of an indoor thermal environment in rural housing in suburban Beijing from December 2008 to March 2009.The indoor environment parameters such as air temperature,mean radiant temperature（MRT）,airflow velocity and relative humidity are measured.A questionnaire survey of the occupants＇ thermal sensations in these surveyed houses is conducted and their daily activities and clothing conditions are recorded.The results show that the thermal neutral temperature of rural housing is 18.4 ℃,and the lower limit of acceptable temperature range can be extended to 10.9 ℃.The comfortable indoor temperature is affected by the occupants＇ clothing and lifestyle.Therefore,the indoor temperature standards of space heating for suburban housing cannot be simply duplicated from that for urban housing.Compared with occupants in suburban Beijing,it is found that the occupants in rural Hunan province feel colder at the same operative temperature due to the high relative humidity in Hunan province.

Simulation of urban affordable housing land-use evolution based on CA-MAS model

In order to simulate the evolution of affordable housing land use a dynamic model that combines cellular automata CA and a multi-agent system MAS is established.This paper aims to utilize the approach of decision factors on site selection of affordable housing through a literature review to construct a hierarchy model of those factors identifying the weight of each factor by an analytic hierarchy process AHP .Based on those weight factors the CA-MAS model is designed. Nanjing city is taken as an example to verify the feasibility of the model.The results show that the CA-MAS model is pragmatic and effective in simulating evolution of affordable housing land use which also promotes the fundamental understanding and perception of the development of affordable housing and urbanization.

国外“合作居住”(Co-Housing)社区开发过程解析

"合作居住"社区是20世纪60年代最早出现在丹麦的一种新型居住模式。总体上说,其开发过程可以归纳为开始阶段、编制发展计划阶段、编制设计及施工文件阶段以及建造阶段。文章将介绍"合作居住"社区开发的开发模式、主要流程、居民参与过程、建筑师的职能和开发过程中通常使用的一些关键性策略,对这些开发经验加以分析和整理,希望对中国房地产开发提供一些参考。

Relationship between Housing Price and Land Price Based on Grey Relational Analysis

In recent Years, China＇s real estate market has been rapid developed, and real estate has become a hot spot of consumption and investment. In some large and medium-sized cities there has been a rapid rise in housing prices. The rapid rise in housing prices has led to difficulties in the purchase of houses in some cities and towns, and this phenomenon has aroused the attention and con- cern of all walks of life. Housing is the basic human life needs. Housing problem is not only an economic problem, but also a social problem. The relationship between house price and land price and the effective control of housing prices have become the focus of government and scholars. Thus, grey relational analysis is used to ana- lyze the relationship between housing prices and land prices, and the grey relational coefficients are calculated.

CHINA'S URBAN HOUSING SYSTEM IN TRANSITION

This paper discusses transition of urban housing system andhousing policy issues in China. It focuses on China's urban housing systemand future housing policies Some of the main contexts to be discussed are:(1) the process and characterstics of housing development in new China, (2)the weaknesses of the old urban housing system; (3) reforms of the urbanhousing system; (4) China's housing markets in transition; (5) Current urbanhousing reform policy dilemmas; (6) experiences from developed countries;(7) main housing policy issues in the western world, and (8) ways to dealwith the dilemmas.

Quantitative investigation on collapse margin of steel high-rise buildings subjected to extremely severe earthquakes

Reponses of structures subjected to severe earthquakes sometimes significantly surpass what was considered in the design.It is important to investigate the failure mechanism and collapse margin of structures beyond design,especially for high-rise buildings.In this study,steel high-rise buildings using either square concrete-filled-tube（CFT） columns or steel tube columns are designed.A detailed three-dimensional（3 D） structural model is developed to analyze the seismic behavior of a steel high-rise towards a complete collapse.The effectiveness is verified by both component tests and a full-scale shaking table test.The collapse margin,which is defined as the ratio of PGA between the collapse level to the design major earthquake level（Level 2）,is quantified by a series of numerical simulations using incremental dynamic analyses（IDA）.The baseline building using CFT columns collapsed with a weak first story mechanism and presented a collapse margin ranging from 10 to 20.The significant variation in the collapse margin was caused by the different characteristics of the input ground motions.The building using equivalent steel columns collapsed earlier due to the significant shortening of the locally buckled columns,exhibiting only 57% of the collapse margin of the baseline building.The influence of reducing the height of the first story was quite significant.The shortened first story not only enlarged the collapse margin by 20%,but also changed the collapse mode.

A GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Analysis Approach for Mapping Accessibility Patterns of Housing Development Sites: A Case Study in Canmore, Alberta

This paper presents a Geographic Information System (GIS) based multicriteria decision analysis approach for mapping accessibility patterns of housing development sites in Canmore, Alberta. The approach involves integrating two multicriteria decision methods (Analytical Hierarchy Process and Ordered Weighted Aver-aging) in a raster GIS environment, and incorporating the linguistic quantifier concept as a method for ob-taining the order weights. The approach facilitates a wide range of location (decision) strategies to be gener-ated and examined. The aim of the study is to help the housing development authorities in addressing the uncertainty involved in the decision making process, achieving a better understanding of the alternative ac-cessibility patterns. It also assists the authorities in evaluating and prioritizing the potential housing devel-opment sites in terms of accessibility levels.

Vibration Control of a High-Rise Building Structure:Theory and Experiment

In this study,an innovative solution is developed for vibration suppression of the high-rise building.The infinite dimensional system model has been presented for describing high-rise building structures which have a large inertial load with the help of the Hamilton’s principle.On the basis of this system model and with the use of the Lyapunov’s direct method,a boundary controller is proposed and the closed-loop system is uniformly bounded in the time domain.Finally,by using the Smart Structure laboratory platform which is produced by Quancer,we conduct a set of experiments and find that the designed method is resultful.

Barrier-free Design of Public Rental Housing

With the aging of society,special groups have had increasing needs of integrating into social life,and higher requirements on life quality,and the society has attached increasing importance to barrier-free design.Taking public rental housing for example,both circulation space and furniture design have to fully consider needs of special groups such as the seniors and the disabled.Barrier-free design in living spaces can help improve their ability of self-care,reduce their dependence on family members,fully demonstrate the"human-centered"design concept of public rental housing,and show the designers’sense of social responsibility.