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STACKED: The building design, systems engineering and performance analysis of plant factories for urban food production
No full textExpanding cities across the world rely increasingly on the global food network, but should they? Population growth, urbanisation and climate change place pressure on this network, bringing its resilience into question. For decades urban agriculture has been discussed in popular media and academia as a potential solution to improve food security, quality and sustainability. The new idol in this discussion is the plant factory: A fully closed system for crop production. Arrays of LEDs provide light and hydroponics provide water and nutrients to vertically stacked layers of crops, hence the term vertical farming. The plant factory features more extensive climate control than high-tech greenhouses. The question remains whether this level of climate control is necessary, effective and/or efficient. The scope of this research is therefore to investigate the potential and limitations of plant factories for urban food production. The STACKED method was developed to address the performance of plant factories across multiple scales, from leaf to facility to city. The role of plant processes in the total energy balance was outlined first. Performance was assessed by analysing the resource requirements, including energy, electricity, water, CO2 and land area use, for the production of fresh vegetables. The impact of façade and cooling system design was analysed in detail. Lastly, the effects of local food production on the urban energy balance were assessed for various scenarios. The results of this dissertation can serve as a foundation for future studies on the application of plant factories in both theoretical and real world applications
Quality failures in Energy-saving renovation projects in Northern China
Get PDFThe energy-saving renovation of an existing building is a critical strategy in achieving a longterm energy goal in the Chinese context. However, in China, building energy renovation projects are subjected to quality failures resulting in energy wastage, a decrease in the energy efficiency of the project, an increase in project cost, and thus negatively affecting the overall performance of the renovation projects. In order to avoid them happening in the future, it is essential to find and analyse the causes of quality failures in energy-saving renovation projects. Therefore, using a four-step process, this research aims to deepen the understanding of the causes of quality failures in energy-saving renovation projects of the existing residential buildings. The first and second steps are to identify and analyse the quality failures and their causes. The deeper insights from a quality management perspective are explored in the third step. The fourth step is to investigate how the actors and their interactions affect and cause quality failures during the renovation policy implementation process. This research mainly concludes the causes of quality failures in the building energy renovation projects. It is important to state that most of the quality failures can be avoided at the management level. Some external causes originated at a policy level and outside the project. The findings of this research would be valuable for policy-makers and project coordinators both for predicting and avoiding quality failures and for developing proper action and policy interventions to ensure successful building energy renovations in the future
Land in Limbo: Understanding path dependencies at the intersection of the port and city of Naples
No full textNumerous actors have been involved in the planning of the port and city of Naples. National and local authorities—namely central government, the Region, the Municipality of Naples, and the Port Authority—act upon the port at different scales, according to diverging interest and by using different planning tools. Each entity has different spatial claims and contrastive views on what port city integration can be. Their diverse goals have led port and city to develop into separate entities, from a spatial, cultural, economic as well as administrative perspective. The different scopes of their planning are particularly visible in the areas at the intersection of land and water, where the relationship is characterized by waiting conditions across different dimensions and scales.The separation between port and city in Naples originates from history. This PhD thesis looks at the past as a resource, sometimes as a problem in the way it produces inertia, but certainly as a heritage made of signs, traces, and cultures, written and rewritten on the urban palimpsest. Using and challenging the concept of path dependence—defined here as a resistance by institutions and people to change patterns of behavior and to repeat previous decisions and experiences—this PhD thesis argues that in order to overcome inertia, it is important to recognize the interests and spatial claims of all the stakeholders involved port city planning and to identify shared goals and values as a foundation for future design
Mitigating the Risks in Energy Retrofits of Residential Buildings in China
Get PDFTo speed up residential energy retrofitting in the Hot Summer and Cold Winter(HSCW) zone, the barriers to retrofitting projects need elimination. Energy retrofitting contributes to improving building quality and living comfort, but has not been accepted by the public. It stems from poor project performance in quality, time, costs, etc. The risk is an essential factor hindering such project objectives and project success. Residential energy retrofitting in China is exposed to various risks due to uncertainties regarding finance, organization, coordination, technology, etc. This thesis thus aims to deepen the understanding of risks in the whole process of residential energy retrofitting to smoothen its implementation and develop risk mitigation strategies for the HSCW climate zone of China. The thesis adopts Transaction Costs Theory (TCT) to identify the risks in the whole process of project implementation and assesses the importance of these risks in both objective and subjective aspects. Given the importance of homeowners-related risks and the key role of the government in retrofitting projects, this research develops s series of develop strategies for risk mitigation from the viewpoints of both homeowners and the government. The thesis contributes to the body of knowledge by conducting a systematic exploration of risks in retrofitting projects. In terms of the practical contributions, it does not only enable project managers to recognize the priority of project risks, but also help the government tackle these issues at its source for promotion of residential energy retrofitting
Physical modelling of tsunami barrier and debris interaction
Get PDFTsunami events can cause vast damage to infrastructure and human lives. A self-lifting membrane barrier was proposed to limit impacts of tsunami inundation during an event while allowing permanent access to the sea. Many aspects of this novel barrier concept have not been studied yet, including its performance under debris impact. In this context, this study investigates the interaction between a self-lifting membrane barrier and tsunami-induced debris transport. Laboratory experiments in a wave flume were carried out, in which 20 ft shipping-container models were propagated by tsunami-like waves into a model membrane barrier. Varying hydrodynamic boundary conditions and amount of debris were used to study different magnitudes of surge and debris loading. The tests showed that an increased amount of debris led to decreased surge propagation upstream the barrier. Formation of a temporally stable debris dam was prevented by the dynamic character of the barrier-debris-interaction. In total, 90% of debris transport further in land was obstructed in presence of the studied membrane barrier. The self-lifting membrane barrier retains functionality under debris-loaded surge impact
Numerical investigations of ship forces during lockage
Get PDFThe evaluation of ship forces for planned or existing navigation lock systems is essential for a sound design in terms of safety, cost and speed. It is a complex task that requires knowledge in physical understanding and modelling of the ongoing hydraulic processes during the lock filling. In this case study, focus is put on the ability to analyse the magnitude of the ship forces with a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model based on the OpenFOAM software package. The inhouse state-of-the-art of the ship force evaluation during levelling with the means of three-dimensional numerical modelling is presented. The results are compared to physical model tests in scale 1:25 and discussed. The outcome showed a very good agreement in terms of flow rates and longitudinal ship forces. The results for the transversal ship forces are promising because the system behaviour is reproduced but the accuracy of the peak values is still to be enhanced. An analysis shows several possible sources for these discrepancies
Relaying Memory through a Generated Environment: A Critical Recreation of Prisoners’ Sense-Perceptions in Khiam Detention Centre
Get PDFAbstract:
Khiam Detention Centre (KDC), a detention camp established by Israel in South Lebanon in 1985, is currently under heavy political interference that aims to manipulate and monopolise the writing of its burdened history. The preservation of memory of events that took place in this prison needs to be urgently addressed in the face of multiple attempts of its erasure and biased revisions. This study surveys three types of media sources that contain the memory of KDC: 1) interviews conducted with former prisoners; 2) the data-archives of a radio programme called Nahnu Bikhayr Taminuna Ankom(We are alive, tell us if you are) and 3) the built environment mapped with a sonic device. The extracted memories are then transcluded to a generated environment that virtually relays the mnemonic site of KDC. This project was done out of an urgent need to preserve KDC’s media imprints that are prone to erasure and modification. KDC is situated on the border of South Lebanon, a territory whose land and electromagnetic field have been occupied by state and non-state political actors. Since the claims of technological sovereignty inside the territory are tenuous and rife with the risk of political manipulation, I chose the space of the internet as provisionally more inclusive environment to host the virtual environment of KDC. Through three media sources, the generated environment allows users to experiment with the limitations and imposition of sound, allowing the critical recreation of the KDC site.
Keywords:
Reconstruction of memory, technological occupation, border territories, electronic surveillance
From Cybernetics to an Architecture of Ecology: Cedric Price’s Inter-Action Centre
Get PDFThis article discusses the impact of systems thinking and cybernetics on architectural design by examining the example of the Inter-Action Centre (1970–1977) of British architect Cedric Price. The centre reflects Price’s view of architecture as part of an extensive social and environmental system, or ecology, that influences the inhabitants’ mutual interactions and their relationship with their physical surroundings. Emphasising the link between material resources, technology and individual action, the project design implied a change both in the understanding of architecture and the architect’s role: from the designer of present-day artifacts to the designer of system interventions.
Influenced by the cybernetician Gordon Pask, the systems theorist Buckminster Fuller, and the biologist and town planner Patrick Geddes, Price developed a relational approach in which architecture functions as an instrument of change within a larger system such as the city, neighbourhood or region. Following this approach, space was no longer perceived merely as a container but as the product of social interactions. Accordingly, the architect’s work represents a fundamental change in the conception of space in the arts and sciences during the 1970s, which is essential for understanding today’s design and planning practice
On Targets: Dropping in on American Bombing Ranges
Get PDFImpact range targets in military training areas can be square, triangular, rectangular, circular, and linear. Some are designed to look like other things, like airbases, villages, convoys, industrial areas, surface-to-air missile sites, and are built out of old airoplanes, trucks, tanks, cars, buses, boats, tires, mounds of earth, and empty shipping containers. Some are meant to be bombed or strafed physically, others electronically.
The most focused type of target at these ranges, the classic target you might say, is circular, like a bullseye. Its simple geometric embrace of space defines a periphery, and centre. Though largely two-dimensional when seen from above, shown as a gallery they have a cosmological air, whether a planetary hard mass pulled in by gravity, or a solar gas in a sustained continuous explosion. The tension between being drawn inwards, toward the ground, and exploding outwards, is in equilibrium.
Some people say that these days everything is a target. These, however, undoubtedly are, and they are out there for the world to see, through internet-based satellite imagery providers like Google Earth. Like framed photographs on the wall, they narrow our attention, and ask us to overlook everything else
Blockchain adoption factors for SMEs in supply chain management
Get PDFBlockchain-based applications can enhance the sharing of information in processes involving multiple types of stakeholders, as in Supply Chain Management (SCM). A supply chain network can benefit from the visibility of the flow of goods, money, and information enabled by blockchain technology. So far, only limited evidence is available on the perspective of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) on the adoption of blockchain-based applications in their business processes. This may lead to a heavily diminished role for SMEs in SCM if large consortia unilaterally decide to adopt a blockchain-based architecture to improve the performance of the entire supply chain. Therefore, we conducted a study to explore which factors influence SMEs’ intention to adopt blockchain technology. Based on a literature review into technology adoption frameworks, we derived the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) factors that can play a role in their decision-making process. We distributed a survey amongst European SMEs using the multi-criteria decision-making method of the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to elicit the relative weights of these factors. The data analyses show that in contrast to other studies into technology adoption, the SMEs’ intention to adopt blockchain-based applications is primarily influenced by organizational rather than by technological and environmental factors. This implies that SMEs are best supported by showing blockchain’s organizational benefits and by training senior executives at their company
Data sources:
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