Design of Public Communication Spaces in Urban Highrises:A Case Study of Xuzhou Hanbang Square Residential Area

Highrise residences with high plot ratio meet housing needs of urban residents, improve living conditions of residents, but also show many unreasonable problems in the design of public communication spaces with a result of interpersonal indifference and lack of sense of identity. This paper took Xuzhou Hanbang Square for example to explore strategies of improving public communication spaces in highrises from the perspectives of entrance lobby, open-floor ground design, ecological garage, and three-level property management. On the one hand, the paper tries to improve quality of residential environment and service quality of public facilities; on the other hand, to enhance sense of neighborhood and identity of residents, and change the current interpersonal indifference.

Demonstration of the Nearly Zero Energy Building Concept

Nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) will become an obligatory energy efficiency standard in Europe. Following to common guidelines in European legislation, the countries investigated technical and economic framework for the preparation of detailed national technical definition of nZEB. Slovenia accepted the nZEB criteria in early 2015. This paper describes the technical and economic background for identification of economically viable concepts of highly energy efficient apartment building. The highrise demonstration building Eco Silver House revealed that meeting nZEB standards was not an easy task, not so much for technical reasons, but mostly due to the processes, inadequate skills, not fully compliant regulation and insufficient possibilities for interaction between the building and energy networks. Analysis of cost effectiveness showed that the Eco Silver House fulfilled minimal requirements of cost-optimal for apartment building with Net Present Value of 272 EUR/m2 and Primary energy use of 79 kWh/ m2?a in line with the Slovenian national cost optimal study of minimum energy performance requirements from the year 2014. At the time, the requirement of 50% share of renewables in final energy use is not fulfilled, but will be easily reached when EU2020 energy efficiency targets set in the Slovenian Energy Act regarding the RES share in district heating systems and public power grid will be gradually implemented. The demonstration project FP7 EE-HIGHRISE confirms that in spite of the barriers, the nZEB minimum requirements defined on profound theoretical studies can be met in practice.

Seismic analysis of a super high-rise steel structure with horizontal strengthened storeys

Horizontal strengthened storeys are widely used in super high-rise steel structures to improve the lateral structural rigidity.This use has great effects on the seismic properties of the entire structure.The seismic properties of the Wuhan International Securities Building (a 68-storey super high-rise steel structure with three horizontal strengthened storeys) were evaluated in this study.Two approaches,i.e.,mode-superposition response spectrum analysis and time-history analysis,were employed to calculate the seismic response of the structure.The response spectrum analysis indicated that transition parts near the three strengthened storeys were weak zones of the structure because of the abrupt change in rigidity.In the response spectrum analysis approach,the Square Root of Sum of Square (SRSS) method was recommended when the vertical seismic effects could be ignored.However,the complete quadratic combination (CQC) method was superior to SRSS method when the vertical seismic effects should be considered.With the aid of time-history analysis,the seismic responses of the structure were obtained.The whiplash effect that spectrum analysis cannot reveal was observed through time-history analysis.This study provides references for the seismic design of super high-rise steel structures with horizontal strengthened storeys.