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This licentiate thesis investigates architectural competitions and quality assessment  of architecture in an early phase. The project is developed out of a need of knowledge about the role of architectural competitions in design quality improvement and their outcomes in society. It focuses on a central part of the competition: the jury’s judging process and how jury members discuss and evaluate entries in order to select and award a winner. Usually, a competition jury comprises of both architects and laypersons. The architects have the responsibility to guide the non-professional members through the entries. Therefore, the architect members are forced to explain and justify their professional opinions about the design aspects of the entries. The discussions of architecture become pedagogical and straightforward, which facilitate my observations and understanding of the entire process. Besides showing a professional assessment of architecture, the jury situation reveals preferences in a more obvious way than discussions among only architects. The study strives to accumulate knowledge of architectural competitions, jury judgment and evaluations of architectural design quality. It is keen to find out: How is an architectural competition conducted and organized? How does the jury process work? How do they appoint a winner? Is the design assessment a matter of expertise or personal preferences? What is the architect’s role in a competition? Which are the jury’s central problems? Triangulation of obtained data as well as research methods has been used in order to secure the project’s credibility. The survey has been made in four steps by a feasibility study, an analysis of criteria and two case studies. The research is mainly carried out by using mixed methods of investigation. Analysis of the situation, document studies and case studies are shaping the important empirical foundations. The first step was a feasibility study of the architectural competitions in the Nordic countries.1 The study is made together with Dr. Magnus Rönn and Dr. Reza Kazemian and published in two scientific reports. (Kazemian, et al., 2005; Kazemian, et al., 2007) Three different methods of data gathering were used. 1) A comparison of the competition rules between the four countries. 2) Statistics extraction and interpretation of the competitions in the four countries from January 1999 to December 2000. 3) Interviews with 18 key-persons with experiences from competition juries, arrangements of competitions and competition secretaries. The research results from the study have been quite unique and informative. One was the development of a preliminary model of a jury judgment process and how it is conducted. The study also indicated that the selection of casesshould be made at least by one open and one invited competition in order to get a variation-rich foundation. The second step was an analysis of evaluation criteria in competition assessments. Documents from nine competitions in different scales (town-planning, building design and furniture design) are investigated. They are compared to a checklist of evaluation aspects from a guide booklet to jury members published by the Competition Secretariat at the Swedish Association of Architects. The study indicates that a set of fundamental criteria exists, and is used in in various scales of professional design evaluation. The feasibility study and criteria analysis provides important information that are useful in the organisation and conduction of the case studies. Based on these premises, two project competitions were selected as case-studies, one was an open competition and the other was an invited competition. The first study was the open competition ”Visans hus i Västervik”2 in the south-east of Sweden. The major task of the competition was to design a building that should be used for conferences and cultural events in Västervik. The jury consisted of eight persons: four architects, two politicians and two experts in musical performance and music festival arrangement. The jury needed five meetings to find a winner among the 97 entries that could best meet the requirements of the competition program. The assessment process started with an out-sorting of entries and a gradual and thorough analysis of the remaining ones. The study showed how rhetoric influence the jury’s work. The entries contained both visual rhetoric in the way they were graphically organized and presented in written rhetoric in the way the texts were prepared. The jury members used verbal rhetoric in their discussions. The different types of rhetoric revealed the preferences and points of interest from the actors in a competition. The architects behind the entries directed themselves toward different parts of the jury. The jury members had different aims with the competition and different interests to look after. By the fourth meeting, the jury came to a critical point when no entry seemed to be good enough. Then in the last meeting the jury studied the entries in a scalemodel. This made them finally agree upon one entry that appeared as fitting in the surroundings. It was the eye that finally settled the competition. The second case study was the invited competition called ”Bildnings- och kulturcentrum i Hagfors.”3 Hagfors is a small town in Sweden. The task was to re-design an existing school. The building should be expanded and rebuilt to give space to the pupils from four other nearby schools that were facing to be closed down. The competition was used by the Hagfors municipality to find appropriate architects to cooperate with, as well as to promote the municipality through its attractive architecture. This project appeared to be controversial and created a debate among the inhabitants of Hagfors who were complaining about the closing down of the four schools in their town. The jury in Hagfors consisted of nine persons: two architects, one professor in education (pedagogy), three politicians, the technical director of Hagfors municipality, the principles from the affected schools and one representative from the Swedish Teachers’ Union. There were four competition entries, and the jury used three meetings in order to select a winner. In this process, two different strategies of assessment appeared. The experienced decision makers in the jury were in favour of an effective selection procedure that meant sorting out entries and using criteria in order to reach a final decision. The architects in the competition carried on their evaluation through architecture criticism. Their strategy was to compare and analyze all the entries in order to reach a common solution. The time pressure made it difficult for the jury members to see the other points of view. But by the last meeting, the jury succeeded to agree upon a winner. The four studies on different aspects of the competition system provides insights of the architectural competitions in Sweden, quality assessment of architecture and the decision making process of the jury. The study provides a complex and informative picture of architectural competitions. The research  findings can be concluded as follows: • The jury’s judgment of the entries in an architectural competition is a creative process that follows general directions in combination with the unique competition’s preconditions. A general model of assessment has to be adjusted to the actual competition. The jury’s meeting with the entries cannot be fully predicted. • The architects’ particular way to assess architectural design aspects in its early evaluation phases can be questioned by other non-architect jury members due to time pressure. The assessment process must contain quick decisions as well as in-depth analyses of the entries. • In spite of the fact that the jury’s decisions are made behind closed doors, the assessment can be influenced by the external debate. The jury’s works, is in this respect dependent to the context. • There are some fundamental evaluation criteria that have decisive impacts on how the jury evaluates proposals in competitions. These evaluation criteria indicate a common ground of professional thoughts and understanding of design quality among architects. • In jury assessments, a positioning between architects and laymen that represent the arranger can appear. This is due to different professional belongings among the jury members as well as to differences in the interests and aims of the competition. In spite of this, the studied juries succeeded to find a winner. • There is a genuine insecurity inherent in the assessment and decision making process of a competition. This is due to the fact that there can always be more than one good solution for a design task.  1 Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland 2 ”The house of the song in Västervik” (my translation) 3 “Educational and cultural centre in Hagfors” (my translation) / QC 20101124

Purpose: Several cultural-historical buildings are chosen to be teared down instead of researching the opportunities of maintaining the cultural-historical buildings due to the difficulties of with accessibility adaption in cultural-historical buildings. The lack of antiquarian expertise can be related to the lack of taught antiquarian knowledge in the higher education level regarding construction and architectural engineering.  Furter more enlightening the importance of utilizing the existing buildings and the need of antiquarian expertise of building conservation to create knowledge and possibilities to conduct the existing buildings. Analyzing the question formulations that administrators are challenged with regarding reconstruction and change of buildings that can occur in cultural-historical buildings.  Method: Strategy for data collection has been done with qualitative methods, such as research interviews, literature studies and observation. The Göta Court of Appeal ́s court building has been chosen as a case study due to the building ́s historical starting point, as one of the oldest states listed buildings in Sweden. e  Findings: Question formulations showed that administration, renovations and adaptions have a correlation to each other that has an important starting point in the education regarding higher education. The study shows the importance of teaching proper education are being issued at the university in order for new students to take on the challenges that awaits when they graduated. Challenges such as preserving the existing housing stock.  Implications: Completed study shows the need of overlooking the educations content and length of the construction and architectural engineering programs. Further research is needed to ensure that the university programs contain the right content to give better conditions to take care of the existing house stock. Reviewing the course’s content related to how the society develops and provide guidance regarding sustainability, economic, social and cultural values.  Limitations: The public agency National Property Board Sweden (SFV) are responsible for managing valuable cultural-historical properties, hence the research interviews with SFV are the most essential for this study due to their area of expertise. The study will not discuss rationalizing the energy efficiency in older buildings regarding indoor environment and heating. Neither will the study cover the fire precautions of the Courthouse.  Following areas are examined through an observation of the courthouse where accessibility measures are verified as easily remedied obstacles: entrance and external staircase, external and internal elevator, thresholds and ramp at the entrance. / Syfte: I nuläget finns en viss problematik med tillgänglighetsanpassning i statliga byggnadsminnen som ses tydligt när bristen av antikvarisk kompetens i yrkeslivet lett till flertal felaktiga rivningar av kulturhistoriska byggnader. Den bristande kunskapen av antikvarisk kompetens kan kopplas till bristen av antikvarisk kunskap i dagens byggtekniska högskoleutbildningar.  Målet är att upplysa vikten av att ta tillvara på det befintliga bostadsbeståndet samt behovet av antikvarisk kunskap inom byggnadsvård för att skapa möjligheter att förvalta befintliga byggnader. Syftet är att analysera frågeställningar som en förvaltare ställs inför beträffande ombyggnationer och ändring av en byggnad som kan uppstå i statliga byggnadsminnen.  Metod: Strategi för insamling av data sker med kvalitativa metoder, såsom forskningsintervju, litteraturstudier och observation. Göta hovrätts domstolsbyggnad har valts som fallstudie på grund av byggnadens historiska utgångsläge, som en av de äldsta statligt byggnadsminnesmärkta byggnaderna i Sverige.  Resultat: Resultatet av frågeställningarna visar att förvaltning, ombyggnationer, renoveringar och anpassningar har en korrelation till varandra som har en viktig utgångspunkt i dagens lärande vid högskolenivå. Studien visar vikten av att rätt lärande ges ut för att som nybliven student förhålla sig till de utmaningar inom bevarandet av det befintliga bostadsbeståndet som kan uppkomma i arbetslivet.  Konsekvenser: Genomförd studie visar behovet av att se över utbildningars innehåll och längd på högskolenivå. Fortsatt forskning och undersökning behövs för att säkerställa att utbildningar som ges på högskolenivå är av rätt innehåll för att ge bra förutsättningar att ta hand om det befintliga bostadsbeståndet. Kursers innehåll behöver ses över med tiden i korrelation med hur samhället utvecklas, och ge rätt vägledning i frågor som rör hållbarhet, ekonomiska, sociala och kulturella värdena för människa och natur.  Begränsningar: Statens fastighetsverk har ansvar att förvalta en del av statens egendomar, därav har forskningsintervju valts att endast utföras med SFV då det är enbart deras åsikter och erfarenheter som är relevanta i studien. Studien kommer inte behandla hur en äldre byggnad energieffektiviseras kring inomhusmiljö och uppvärmning, eller ge svar på hur brandskyddet ser ut i domstolsbyggnaden.  Följande områden undersöks genom en observation av domstolsbyggnaden där tillgänglighetsåtgärder kontrolleras som enkelt avhjälpta hinder: entré och utvändig trappa, utvändig och invändig hiss. trösklar vid vindfång, samt ramp vid entré.

The Swedish National Board of Housing, Buildings and Planning has proposed a law that requires new buildings to declare the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the building has generated during the building phase of the building’s lifecycle. The law is proposed to come into effect in January 2022. To be able to declare the amount of greenhouse emissions a building generates during the building phase of the building’s lifecycle, it needs to be calculated. This is supposed to be calculated during the design phase of the building process, therefore it is possible that designing consultants will be affected by the law. It is possible to calculate emission of greenhouse gases in an 3D environment by utilizing BIM-based LCA. Research about BIM-based LCA shows different perspectives regarding what level of development (LOD) the model need to obtain before the emissions of greenhouse gases can be calculated. The calculated greenhouse gases could be valuable for designing consultants to evaluate design alternatives in order to reduce greenhouse emissions in housing. The purpose of the study is to further explore the knowledge and possibilities of calculating greenhouse emissions in housing. The aim of the study was to answer the research questions, in order to fulfill the purpose. The research questions in the study were: ·       How does the calculated greenhouse emissions vary in architectural models with different level of development as base?   ·       What pros and cons exist in conducting BIM-based LCA in three different stages of the design process?   ·       How could calculated greenhouse emissions be used to affect the design process? The study was carried out by calculating emitted greenhouse gases for a building, and conducting a discussion in a focus group under the frame of a case study. A literature study was carried out as well to define key concepts and processes relevant to the study. The results show that the emitted greenhouse gases vary heavily throughout the design process. Furthermore, calculating emitted greenhouse gases early in the design process does not give an accurate indication of where the buildings final amount of emitted greenhouse gases will end up. However, there is a greater possibility to make changes to accommodate a design with less emitted greenhouse gases in early stages of the design process. In order to make changes in the early stages of the design process, premade templates of different building parts must be linked with both data regarding emitted greenhouse gases and costs.

Green roofs can help with stormwater management and reduce the risk of flooding. Most studies on the hydrological abilities of green roofs have been conducted in temperate climates. There is therefore a need to also investigate this in cold climates. The purpose of the thesis is therefore to clarify whether the capabilities of green roofs also work in the Nordic climate. This was done by studying runoff data from two green roofs located in Umeå, and Kiruna. Modeling was also used to study factors that are difficult to change and test in practice. Precipitation and runoff data from the green roofs were analyzed to calculate their retention abilities during precipitation events. The retention ability is defined as the percentage of precipitation that does not flow through the green roof. When analyzing precipitation and runoff, an "event-by-event" method was used, which meant that the data was divided into different events based on predetermined criteria. 109 events were identified. The factors evaluated through modeling were roof slope, substrate depth and width. Simulations were carried out in the EPA SWMM software where the different factors were varied in a model of the green roof in Umeå. Differences in runoff during the simulations were noted to draw conclusions about which values of the various factors result in the best retention. The study of the two green roofs results in an average retention capacity of 63.1% for the green roof in Umeå, as well as 68.5% for the roof section KB1 and 59.7% for KB2 in Kiruna. It can therefore be concluded that both roofs can reduce the flow of runoff water in the event of precipitation. The simulations result in the green roof's retention capacity being positively affected by a higher substrate depth. However, the retention capacity of the roof is not affected by its roof slope or width.

Thesis: M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1980 / Bibliography: leaves 119-120. / by Stephen Robert Oppenheimer. / M.S. / M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

ABSTRACT In 2014, Sweden became the world's first self-defined feminist nation and a place where gender equality has a strong ideal within the country's national identity. However, the issue of gender equity remains unaddressed in some area across Sweden. Sätra district in Stockholm located between Bredäng and Skärholmen is one of those examples that women usually suffer from inequality. By considering social equality as a fundamental principle of good urbanism, the need for feminist urbanism feels necessary in this context today. Through the lens of feminist urban planning, mainly focused on women in Sätra and tried to reflect women's voices in every urbanization policies. The study is going to examine the role of gender in public space, its socio-spatial implications and create feminist participatory strategies to empower women. In this research, Mothers considered the effective groups of women as their educational role in their family and their central role in the community awareness raising is undeniable. In this way, strengthening mothers role in urban settings can have a powerful multiplier effect on urban development. So that's what has been considered in the whole process of decision-making. This would make an inclusive and women-friendly public space for girls and women where is safe and secure and responsive to the needs of all kinds of people. So that's what has been considered in the whole process of decision-making. This would make an inclusive and women-friendly public space for girls and women where is safe and secure and responsive to the needs of all kinds of people. So that's what has been considered in the whole process of decision-making. This would make an inclusive and women-friendly public space for girls and women where is safe and secure and responsive to the needs of all kinds of people.