Population explosion, irresponsible consumerism, environmental catastrophes, tremendous market-based urban development and the dedication of cities to cars and concrete rather than citizens and environment has put a big question mark over the future of the world's developing countries. Urban sustainability has emerged as the only solution to the environmental, social and economic challenges facing our cities. In recent years in countries struggling with the concept of urban sustainability, such as Iran, academic circles and the state have had heated debates over sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current situation of sustainable development of the built environment in Iran. The focus is on recognition of urban governance, policies and regulations. The paper examines the scope of sustainable technologies employed in Iran in terms of the development of energy efficiency and renewable energies. This is followed by an investigation of urban sustainability assessment methods through which the paper tackles policy, technology and assessment mechanism issues from a perspective of sustainable built environment development in both theoretical research and practical development in Iran.
Life-cycle costing (LCC) plays a very important role in the cost estimation and control of a building project. Although a number of LCC software tools have been developed in various CAD systems, the LCC applications based on interoperable data models, which can enhance comprehensive use of design information and historical data generated in various CAD systems, is still rare. The development presented in this paper focuses on interoperability issues in IT-based LCC applications and on improving LCC decision-making based on cost performances of various options of constructing techniques and materials, excluding energy calculations This is a part of the pilot studies of the nD modelling project, which aims to explore a series of IT-based multidisciplinary building design and analysis applications that are associated with an integrated model through an interoperable data standard-Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). The LCC tool is fully compliant to the system architecture of the nD modelling tool, and is based on the integrated nD modelling interfaces, which are IFC compliant and integrated with an interactive virtual reality environment. The functions of the LCC tool also provide integrated costs, database management and automatic calculations of some complicated LCC algorithms. These demonstrate potential solutions to the conventional problems to the LCC-data store and retrieve and calculation. The details of this development, including the functions, interfaces and auxiliary tools supporting this development, are described throughout the paper.
An accessible or inclusive building design does not disable any user; it should enable the independent and equal use of a facility by all. With the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), the consideration of issues such as access and inclusive design become even more important. Space analysis is an important aspect of the current accessibility assessment. Existing space analysis techniques, such as space syntax, have tackled the local and global accessibility of a building layout using graph theory. However, there are difficulties in the automatic transfer of design information from architectural drawings into a space analysis tool. With the recent development of the building information model and Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs), it is now possible to automate the transfer process. This paper demonstrates the automation process and how it can be used in accessibility analysis.
Mock-up simulation is a design or human factor research method to help designers identify key design issues and factors of a product or environment. This paper discusses physical mock-up (PMU) and digital mock-up (DMU) applications in healthcare building development through a narrative literature review. The following questions are addressed in this paper: what would the purposes of using PMU or DMU simulations be? At which phase of a hospital design would a PMU or DMU simulation be used? What methods can be used to conduct PMU and DMU simulations? The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these two mock-up methods and highlights the importance of clinical staff’s involvement in mock-up simulations. It gives recommendations for the design practitioners or project managers of healthcare building development recommendations to implement these two mock-up methods in healthcare building development projects.
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