Customized Visualizations of Urban Infill Development Scenarios for Local Stakeholders

Infill development has been seen as one of the solutions to urban challenges. However, it changes the dynamics and visual appearance of the neighborhood. As infill development usually requires the acceptance of local stakeholders, their perceptions of the resulting intensified housing have a significant role. In this study, customized visualizations illustrating scenarios of infill development were made from the perspective of individual apartments in neighboring residential building. The usefulness of customized visualizations for local stakeholders was studied in the Tammela test area. A 3D virtual model of the existing environment was created. Models depicting the alternative infill buildings were added to the 3D model, which was used to create customized visualizations. These visualizations were utilized in the interviews of local stakeholders. The findings indicate that the customized visualizations help stakeholders conceptualize the impact, and plan and manage the infill development. Visualizations can also be seen as a tool for a resident-driven approach to intensifying housing.

Interactive Teaching in Interpersonal Skills

Engineers are very much part of the ongoing globalization and they are encountering problems of cross-disciplinary nature Team working skills respecting other peoples＇ qualifications are required so therefore interpersonal skills are becoming more and more important, including communications skills, leadership and awareness. Consequently, educational programs for teaching engineers should work with the fact that the capability of communicating with people with different background competences is important, nevertheless the engineering education has traditionally focused on technical skills rather than on personal development. In order to reform the B.Sc. courses to guide students to become better and more efficient engineers on all levels, the DTU （Technical University of Denmark） and Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences （Metropolia） modified their education according to the CDIO （conceive, design, implement and operate） approach in the autumn of 2008. The CDIO pedagogy encouraged to develop an interactive course in interpersonal skills, where the students have to take an active part in the exercises as well as involve themselves in the interactive communication process. The course consists of various exercises from which the participants will develop their awareness and knowledge of communication. It is the intention to give the students a personal understanding and idea of a different approach to communicating between people. The students evaluated the course, and the four key questions dealing with the quality of the course show a very high satisfaction with the instruction. The grades one and two （1 best/very much, 5 worst/very little） of the responses ＂to these four questions are ranging on average from 69.5% to 88% （on a yearly basis）. The positive responses indicate that the students are very satisfied with the course recognizing the need for education on international communication.