A sustainable design guide has a huge potential to enhance the sustainability of the built environment. This thesis investigates the potentials of a sustainable residential design guide and develops a framework for its actualization in the three climatic regions in Nigeria. These regions are; Highland Climate Region (HCR), Tropical Savannah (TSC) and the Tropical Rainforest Climate Region (TRC). Given that Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world, and most populous in Africa, makes any statistical findings from Nigeria relevant to the rest of the world. This sub-Saharan country is also faced with a huge yearly housing shortage of over ten million units and yet little is known on the efforts and actions taken by Nigeria to ensure that expected new buildings are sustainably designed in line with the global concerns. A concurrent embedded strategy was used in the investigation processes which provided both primary and secondary data sources for this research. Tools for the investigation were; literature review, pilot study, questionnaires and interviews. A Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient value of 0.96 was achieved from the survey instrument used. The questionnaire had 283 participants and a total of 30 interviewees were interviewed. The quantitative data from the questionnaire survey were analysed using SPSS 20 software and the NVivo 10 software was used for the qualitative analysis. Findings suggested that the impacts of climate change are evident and significant across all three regions. However, temperature increase recorded a significant value of more than 0.000 significance (p) level at 0.88 across the three regions, an indication that temperature increase is common to all three climatic regions. On the other hand, flooding, desertification/drought and erosion are more prevalent in the HCR, TSC and TRC respectively. This research’s contributions to knowledge includes; identifying the climatic design parameters for each region and the development of a conceptual framework. Hence, this research is a pioneer study in the subject of climate change and buildings in Nigeria. The thesis concludes that, the framework would promote the production of sustainable residential buildings in Nigeria. Also, areas of future research were suggested to include; the use of New technologies, effective collaborations, policy formulation and testing of the framework.

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User Experience (UX) design is the process of creating products that adequately meet users’ needs and result in user satisfaction. In the context of software development, the application of UX design practices has been linked to increased profitability in organisations. Despite the financial benefit organisations stand to gain by adopting UX design practices, previous studies have revealed a low rate of adoption. One key source of resistance to the adoption UX design practices is the perception that adding new steps to an organisation’s software development process would prolong delivery timelines unnecessarily. Such resistance is compounded by the fact that a high proportion of software development projects already exceed their planned durations. The question therefore arises on how the UX design process can be optimised so that it has the least amount of impact on the speed of delivering software. It is this very question that this study answers. In this study, the UX design processes from four case study organisations and six prominent international UX design approaches were reviewed and analysed. From these analyses, commonalities and optimisation opportunities were identified for each process, then synthesised into a proposed framework. This study’s contribution to the Human-Computer Interaction body of knowledge is the proposed Graduated UX Design Adoption (gUXa) framework. The Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT) was used to explain the ability of the gUXa framework to reduce the barrier to UX process adoption due to its potential to optimise the design process for timeous systems development. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Informatics / MCom / Unrestricted

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Bill Zhang / Vibration has been a consideration in many types of structures, and as the advancement of technology has allowed steel and concrete sections to become lighter, vibration has become more of a consideration in the design of structures. This report focuses on occupant induced vibration of steel framed floors due to running as the vibration source. The history of vibration analysis and criteria in structures is discussed. However, lack of research and experimentation on running as the source of vibration exists; therefore, the history section focuses on walking as the source of vibration. The current design criteria for vibration of steel framed floors in the United States of America is the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Design Guide 11: Vibrations of Steel Framed Structural Systems Due to Human Activity. This design guide discusses vibration due to walking, running, and rhythmic activities as well as gives design criteria for sensitive occupancies and sensitive equipment. In order to apply the Design Guide 11 analysis procedure for running as the source of vibration, the Kansas State University Chester E. Peters Recreation Complex is used as a case study. The recreation complex includes a 1/5-mile running track that is supported by a composite steel framed floor. Based on the Design Guide 11 criterion, the running track is deemed acceptable. Lastly, this report discusses remedial procedures in the case of annoying floor vibration specific to floors that have running as a source of vibration. In addition, areas of further research are suggested where running is a source of vibration on steel framed floors.

O objetivo do presente estudo é fazer um levantamento da aplicação das medidas de segurança patrimonial nas edificações. A paisagem urbana tem se modificado ao longo das últimas décadas em virtude de intervenções executadas para proteção pessoal e do patrimônio. Estas modificações têm sido executadas com ausência de metodologias, legislação e normalização sobre o assunto. Ao longo da dissertação são discutidas as modificações arquitetônicas em face da violência urbana e a necessidade da participação efetiva do arquiteto no processo de planejamento da segurança patrimonial. Por meio desta pesquisa, busca-se conhecer as metodologias existentes para a elaboração do projeto a fim de obter diretrizes mínimas para o planejamento da segurança. Demonstra-se que para a elaboração de um projeto são necessários levantamentos de valores patrimoniais, riscos, ameaças e vulnerabilidades aos quais a edificação está sujeita, a fim de determinar com maior precisão o nível de segurança necessário. Em uma segunda etapa são levantadas medidas de proteção passiva e ativa, a fim de dar diretrizes ao arquiteto quanto às soluções e equipamentos disponíveis para aplicação em projeto, fornecendo ferramentas adequadas para a elaboração de um projeto de segurança patrimonial. Pelos levantamentos teóricos que formam a base para o estabelecimento do nível de segurança e do conhecimento das medidas que podem ser aplicadas, é possível elaborar um projeto com maior funcionalidade e eficácia. / The urban landscape has been modified along the last few decades because of interventions made aiming at personal and asset protection. These modifications have occurred without any kind of methodology, legislation and normalization in this regard. The objective of the present study is to do a theoretical and methodological survey as well as a survey of the application practice of security measures in buildings. The architectural modifications due to urban violence and the need of the participation of architects in the process of security planning are discussed along this dissertation. Through this research, we try to find out the existent methodologies in order to develop basic guidelines for security planning. It was proven that in order to elaborate a design it is necessary to make surveys of the patrimonial values and of the risks and vulnerabilities to which the building is subject to, in order to determine with high accuracy the necessary security levels. This research tries to show to the architect the importance of his/her contribution in determining the adoption of measures of passive and active protection as well as supplying the basic tools for its application in the design. The knowledge of the theoretical base for determining the necessary safety level and measures that can be applied allows the architect to elaborate a design with more functionality and effectiveness.

O objetivo do presente estudo é fazer um levantamento da aplicação das medidas de segurança patrimonial nas edificações. A paisagem urbana tem se modificado ao longo das últimas décadas em virtude de intervenções executadas para proteção pessoal e do patrimônio. Estas modificações têm sido executadas com ausência de metodologias, legislação e normalização sobre o assunto. Ao longo da dissertação são discutidas as modificações arquitetônicas em face da violência urbana e a necessidade da participação efetiva do arquiteto no processo de planejamento da segurança patrimonial. Por meio desta pesquisa, busca-se conhecer as metodologias existentes para a elaboração do projeto a fim de obter diretrizes mínimas para o planejamento da segurança. Demonstra-se que para a elaboração de um projeto são necessários levantamentos de valores patrimoniais, riscos, ameaças e vulnerabilidades aos quais a edificação está sujeita, a fim de determinar com maior precisão o nível de segurança necessário. Em uma segunda etapa são levantadas medidas de proteção passiva e ativa, a fim de dar diretrizes ao arquiteto quanto às soluções e equipamentos disponíveis para aplicação em projeto, fornecendo ferramentas adequadas para a elaboração de um projeto de segurança patrimonial. Pelos levantamentos teóricos que formam a base para o estabelecimento do nível de segurança e do conhecimento das medidas que podem ser aplicadas, é possível elaborar um projeto com maior funcionalidade e eficácia. / The urban landscape has been modified along the last few decades because of interventions made aiming at personal and asset protection. These modifications have occurred without any kind of methodology, legislation and normalization in this regard. The objective of the present study is to do a theoretical and methodological survey as well as a survey of the application practice of security measures in buildings. The architectural modifications due to urban violence and the need of the participation of architects in the process of security planning are discussed along this dissertation. Through this research, we try to find out the existent methodologies in order to develop basic guidelines for security planning. It was proven that in order to elaborate a design it is necessary to make surveys of the patrimonial values and of the risks and vulnerabilities to which the building is subject to, in order to determine with high accuracy the necessary security levels. This research tries to show to the architect the importance of his/her contribution in determining the adoption of measures of passive and active protection as well as supplying the basic tools for its application in the design. The knowledge of the theoretical base for determining the necessary safety level and measures that can be applied allows the architect to elaborate a design with more functionality and effectiveness.

This study focuses on the development of a new, formal method for the automated checking of pedestrian circulation rules in Courthouse Design Guide. Automated building rule checking is an automated process of design evaluation against design requirements. Since the early 1970's, when the electronic representation of building design became available, automated building rule checking, a computational process, has been a focus of study, and it continues to be a popular research area because it facilitates the design evaluation process by reducing the checking time and evaluation costs and by increasing the objectivity and the reliability of the evaluation. Thanks to the emergence of BIM (Building Information Model) authoring software, BIM became available to use in real building design, and several automated building code checking systems were developed based on BIM. In practice, the use of a rule checking system in real design evaluation may be influenced by several factors. Among the factors that affect the accuracy and the reliability of automated checking such as checking algorithms and rule interpretation is the level of completeness of the BIM in the design process, which can cause limitations in the application of a rule checking algorithm to the model. Problems caused by the incompleteness of the BIM occurred in CORENET project, a project initiated by the Singapore government in 1999 for automation of building code checking, and GSA Courthouse Design Guide Automation project (GSA), initiated at Georgia Tech in 2007 also faced with the same problems caused by incompleteness of BIM in the development stage. This thesis is a continuing research of GSA-Courthouse Design Guide Automation project (Simply, GSA project). The theoretical goals of this study are to provide a logical foundation upon which one can build an automated checking module for circulation rule checking and that is capable of outlining the rule-validation process independently from its diverse implementation. The theory for circulation rule checking is devised to represent the process of the validation of a building design in the development stage. The theory deals with issues of validation caused by the lack of data in the development of a building design.

Our world is made up by millions of colors. Everywhere we go we see a variation of colors that describes the environment. Artists use colors to give an emotion to the viewer and give a deeper meaning to the art. Companies have different colors in their logos and on their websites. For example, a red colored logo can give a feeling of passion, energy and power. But used in a different situation, a red color can implicate dangerand death. The research about colors goes very deep, but there is still alot that has not been tested or discovered. This study will examine whether companies can use colors to mediate the right feeling to their customers. The method to do this included a lot of theoretical background and knowledge about colors. When data was collected a mid-fi prototype of a website was created. This mid-fi website was then transformed into three different high-fi prototypes. The three prototypes had the same content but what put them apart was their color schemes. The tests was done face to face or over the internet. The test person had to answer a short questionnaire were the person described the feelings that appeared when using the three different prototypes. After the test a short interview with each test person took place were some expressions from the test was discussed. The result for the first and second website showed a correlation between the two websites. The users had similar answers on these websites, but they also had some comments that separated the websites. The second website was in the end the most popular website which supported the hypothesis.The conclusion from the study is that colors are a very powerful tool to use if a company wants to attract more customers. This was a quite small study and to draw the conclusion that the right colors actually gives more clicks on a website, a larger and longer study must be made. This is so that the study can compare previous years sales with the year werethey introduced the new color scheme.

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