This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree Master of Architecture (Professional) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa , in the year 2015. / Shack fires in townships have been a prevalent issue within Johannesburg, especially as the Emergency Management Services are under strain due to a lack of fi re service amenities. A significant cause of these fires includes utilizing paraffin stoves for cooking in a high dense population. This is specifically relevant to the Soweto Township in Johannesburg and results in a large number of vulnerable residents. Research aims and objectives include uncovering a new typology for Johannesburg fire stations. This typology will aim to successfully integrate the community in order to simultaneously support the community in the event of shack fires as well as educate the community in terms of safe cooking, fire prevention and fire management. This typology might become a step in the right direc on in order for fire stations to evolve into non-bureaucratic architecture which blurs with functions that will create a 24-hour opera onal mixed-use building. Furthermore this will provide a sense of security to the surrounding community. Numerous fire stations in Johannesburg were visited in order to investigate how the current and conventional fire station typology integrates into the Johannesburg context, if at all. These visits included interviewing firefighters and volunteers who are employed at the stations by means of semi-structured informal interviews. It was discovered that the architectural typology of a fire station is in essence fluid and not fixed, it evolves with society. This is evident as the various fire stations studied in Johannesburg as well as international precedents have been blurred with educational, commercial, hospitality, cultural and even private upmarket residential programmes. In Soweto it was discovered that the three existing fire stations are all small and isolated from the community. Furthermore there is no centralized or main fire station in Soweto. This is needed for training facilities but more importantly to have a centralized control room which in turn will optimize response mes to all emergencies in the en re Soweto. Fire sta ons which created a sense of awareness and belonging to the community generally had lower fi re incident rates as ci zens were aware of the dangers of fi re (CSIR & DPSA, 2012). Fire policy initiatives within Soweto and the City of Johannesburg should thus engage all stakeholders. This especially includes educating and training community members in order to potentially have a network within the community which will fight fires in conjunction with the Johannesburg fire brigade. The proposed fi re sta on in Orlando West in Soweto thus includes a public market in a public park which sells equipment and fuel for safe cooking at discounted rates should you a end the educa onal seminars in the outdoor amphitheater which doubles up as a mul -functional space. Other areas of the park will be a food market. This will result in the inversion of the current bureaucratic architecture that we often encounter with fire stations. / EM2017

Although requirements in relation to indoor environment quality (IEQ) have been made in green building rating systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and China GBL (Green Building Label) to promote occupant comfort, health and productivity, in practice, very little is known about user perception and satisfaction with IEQ in green buildings. Recruitment and post-occupancy evaluation of 10 office buildings (8 green buildings and 2 non-green buildings) and their 696 occupants for this study generated a dataset representing many potential avenues of inquiry. From the occupant’s point of view, the green offices in buildings with whole-building certification were significantly more satisfactory than the non-green offices, whereas the green offices certified only on the basis of their interiors were comparable to the non-green offices. Mixed-mode ventilation performed much better than other ventilation types (central air-conditioning and split air-conditioning). However, the mixed-mode green buildings were invariably perceived to be too cold in winter. A correlation model showed that green building users tended to appreciate a well ventilated, daylit, and quiet indoor environment for their health and productivity. The findings in the study made critical suggestions with regard to pursuing green building certification and addressing human factors in sustainable building design and research. The strengths and weaknesses of this study were discussed to inform future studies. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The global climate has been affected adversely due to the emissions of large amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and there is an urgent need for emissions reduction. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas and the reduction of its emissions is indispensable to the achievement of sustainable development. The building sector is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and one way to reduce the emissions is uplifting the energy efficiency of existing buildings by conducting sustainable building refurbishment. As cost would affect the decisions on sustainable building refurbishment strategies, it is necessary to examine the cost of various sustainable refurbishment solutions for existing buildings. Unfortunately, most of the previous studies focused on the technical side with little effort being directed to cost side. Therefore, cost analysis of sustainable building refurbishment solutions should be conducted to fill the research gap. The aim of the research is to develop a cost estimation model to facilitate decision makers to evaluate the cost of sustainable building refurbishment solutions for residential buildings in Hong Kong by considering various factors affecting the cost. The major research methods include literature review, interview and questionnaire survey. Through literature review, the current practice of sustainable building refurbishment is investigated. A variety of refurbishment solutions including improvement on building envelope, renovation of building services system and the use of renewable energy are reviewed. Cost evaluation techniques commonly used in the construction industry including qualitative techniques, quantitative techniques and intelligent methods are also identified and discussed. Due to the limitations of cost data and previous experience, it is suggested that fuzzy logic theory be adopted to develop the cost estimation model. To facilitate the development of the model, the factors affecting the cost of sustainable building refurbishment solutions are examined through literature review and interview. It is found that market price, complexity, efficiency, economy of scale and disturbance are the dominant factors affecting the fluctuation of cost. Finally, a fuzzy reasoning cost estimation model of sustainable building refurbishment solutions is developed. The model is built based on fuzzy reasoning system. Users can input the information of the project and the model is able to evaluate the cost fluctuation based on the information provided by the users. The model is then validated. The cost estimation model developed in this research provides a new way for the construction industry practitioners to estimate the cost of sustainable building refurbishment projects effectively and efficiently. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Healthcare facility designers are acknowledging the connection between environment and well-being. They, along with environmental psychologists and landscape architects, are trying to define how environment can influence health status. Research on therapeutic outcomes has helped define specific design guidelines for a garden intended to help hospital patients and staff. One aspect that has not been fully investigated, however, is the spirituality of these spaces. Often in hospital settings prayer goes hand in hand with medicine, especially in faith-based health ministries like St. Vincent Randolph Hospital (SVR). To overlook the importance and value of the spiritual aspect in a healthcare setting would be to miss the core of what SVR stands for. The purpose of this project is to identify guidelines for therapeutic gardens that support the physical, spiritual and mental health and well being of patients at St. Vincent Randolph Hospital and to apply these guidelines to the design of a garden for the patients, families, associates, visitors and the surrounding community. / Department of Landscape Architecture

In this thesis, an environmentally sound and human scale set of design principles, which values ideas like environmental friendliness, human comfort and locality, is formulated, examined and justified. These principles are inspired by experiences in Latin America and South Asia and their universal significance is illustrated through case studies from several countries around the world.In the design project, these principles are applied in a local setting, in this case a residential hall on the Ball State University campus in Muncie, Indiana. The design embraces a ‘green’ approach to campus facility renovation as part of the holistic movement to make the campus more sustainable.The design focus will be on the reuse and revitalization of materials thrown away on campus. Projects in which economic limitations enhance this specific creativity serve as role models. Through the reuse of material, the renovation process of campus facilities can be linked to the recycling program and the curriculum of the university. / Department of Architecture

Technological advancements in the second half of the century have significantly affected academic library institution. Libraries are undergoing a transition period and constantly updating their system to adapt to those advancements. However, library building is slow to adapt to the changes. This study examines those changes in academic libraries and buildings based on two main variables. namely human beings. and the medium. through which the information is transmitted The invention of first. electronic, and then digital systems significantly changed these two variables. The resulting library building is shaped by the new human Behavior and the form of information-mediums in a technology-oriented environment. The result of this study is 'five governing principles,' which explain the position of those two variables in a complex web of relations created by technological advancements. The same principles also explain the role of different variables in the future of the library building typology. / Department of Architecture

This thesis focuses on the development of design constraints for use in analyzing the capacity of the residential units' floor areas in Open Building projects. Two cases are used to demonstrate the use of these constraints: a vacant office building (Kales Building) being converted to residential occupancy; a new multi-story building the lower floors of which are hotel rooms and the upper floors are residential condominium units.The thesis suggests that these constraints and the capacity analysis of residential floor areas associated with them can assist design teams, at the beginning of similar projects; provide important "added value" to clients, and contribute to the long term "sustainability" or adaptability of buildings.The first part of the thesis addresses the question of how to design a residential base building which can accommodate an optimal number and variety of fit-out unit layouts. The answer to the question links to the need for design constraints and points to their use in capacity analysis.The second part of the thesis focuses on the deduction of "constraint-designing" for Open Building residential layout. Plumbing systems, which are one of the most significant barriers to the application of Open Building, are specifically and more deeply studied in this part. A series of constraints are developed, which can generally assist in designing and analyzing floor plate capacity. . It is akin to learning to know the rules before starting a game.The third part of the thesis focuses on the demonstration of the uses of constraints in the design process of the conversion of an abandoned office building to residential uses.The last part of the thesis demonstrates the use of constraints and capacity analysis in a new multi-story condo project.In short, the paper is initially concerned with both the design concept and its application into detail levels in one of the many issues. It is a study of methods and technical rules of designing floor plan layouts when capacity analysis is the aim. / Department of Architecture

Thesis (DTech (Civil Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / South Africa’s government is faced with the challenge of providing housing for its citizens, especially the historically disadvantaged population who seek job opportunities and improvement on their life style in urban areas. To achieve this laudable goal, the South African construction industry must be proactive in its approach to the construction of affordable housing, and must adopt construction strategies that enhances sustainable housing development. Born from this challenge is the need for research to establish how sustainable development concepts could be integrated into housing construction processes, with a view to develop strategies to achieve affordable housing that enhances sustainability, to cater for South Africans in need of decent accommodation. The study developed a conceptual model through extensive review of extant literature; South Africa housing policy and legislation, sustainable construction and development, socioeconomic considerations for sustainable building development, and strategies for sustainable building construction amongst other were reviewed. The study adopted a sequential mixed method approach for data gathering, whereby an initial qualitative pilot survey was conducted to test the existence of the research problems identified in this study and to validate the conceptual model constructs.

Thesis (MTech (Construction Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / The study investigates the predominant factors responsible for increase in the cost of building materials and the effect of this cost increase on housing delivery in Western Cape, South Africa. Sustainable housing is buildings produced to meet the present housing needs of people without conceding the ability of the future generation to meet their future needs. However, a significant increase in the cost of building materials has been a major constraint to the delivery of sustainable housings, as made evident in the literature, leading to project cost and time overruns or even project abandonment. However, building materials consume up to 65% of the total cost of construction. This factor on cost has, over the years, threatened the ability of the construction industry to deliver projects within budgeted cost, at stipulated time, and at satisfactory quality. This prompted the need to proffer solutions to these factors identified which are causing increases in the cost of building materials towards sustainable housing delivery in Western Cape. Based on this research study, housing is termed to be sustainable when it is available and affordable for the masses timely and at quality expected. The research study adopted a mixed methodological approach, involving the use of semi-structured qualitative interviews and closed-ended quantitative questionnaires administered to construction stakeholders (architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, construction managers, project managers, site supervisors and material suppliers) in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. SPSS version 24 software was used for analysing the quantitative data collected and ‘content analysis’ method was used to analyse the information collected through the qualitative interviews. The findings revealed that the major factors responsible for increasing the cost of building materials are inflation, wastages of building materials by labourers, cost of transportation and distribution of labour, design changes, client contribution to design change and change in government policies and regulation. Moreover, the research showed that fluctuation in the cost of construction and high maintenance costs due to poor workmanship also impact the cost increase of building materials for housing delivery. In addition, research findings affirmed that for optimum materials usage for the enhancement of sustainable construction, the following criteria should be considered in the selection of building materials: maintenance cost, energy consumption and maintainability. The adoption of these findings by construction stakeholders in the South African construction industry would enhance the delivery of affordable housing at reduced cost, at the required time and at the expected quality. Therefore, an adequate implementation of the framework presented in this study will enhance sustainable housing delivery.