Architecture, Volume 1, Issue 2 (December 2021) – 7 articles

The life of the 5th Duke of Portland is a story about the mental obsession to find a haven of absolute stillness, a worry-free place, and somewhere to feel safe (Pl L1/2/8/3/13: Four letters to Fanny Kemble, 1842–1845. In these letters, the 5th Duke refers to the subsoil as “shelter” and the “only safe place”, found in Manuscripts and Special Collections, Archives Nottingham University). Perhaps it is there, in the space that unfolded away from the visible world, that he found the strength to overcome his difficulties and to understand the scale of space and its intangibility; he was aware of the relationships and interaction between the human body, inhabited space, and the mind, and this information helped him in his hiding process. After his appointment as the heir to his immense estate, a series of investments on an unprecedented scale began almost immediately, which have been considered, both technically and conceptually, to be pioneers of domestic and landscape architecture during the nineteenth century. Welbeck Estate represents the construction of a double city, one that is visible and another that is concealed, but it is also a reflection of how our body and our mind interfere, dialogue, and create an architectural space that is framed in a cognitive process. Space and time were unfolded and folded into themselves in order to build this fascinating scenery, which represents the duke’s life. Full article

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) involves the managing of information, materials, cash flows, and collaboration among enterprises along the supply chain, integrating sustainable development goals. This research paper aims to determine challenges in SSCM adoption and to address related complexity using the system dynamics (SD) approach utilizing modeling and simulation techniques. This research identified challenges from the literature using content analysis. Causality among these identified challenges was determined using interviews and questionnaire surveys that led to the development of a causal loop diagram (CLD), which was used in the development of the SD model. Among the 19 shortlisted variables, CLD had IV reinforcing and II balancing loops. Moreover, CLD was used to build an SD model with two stocks, and a new stock named ‘project performance’ was added to envisage the cumulative impact of all stocks. The model was simulated for five years, and the results predict that the lack of top management commitment and corporate social responsibility adversely affects project performance. This implies that there is a need to improve numerous factors, in particular corporate social responsibility and top management commitment, which would lead to the adoption of SSCM, thus leading to a performance improvement for the construction industry (CI). The model was validated using boundary adequacy, structure, and parametric verification tests, which showed that the developed model is logical and approximately replicates the industry’s actual system. The research findings will help the CI practitioners to adopt sustainability principles in terms of the supply chain and will not only enhance productivity and performance but will also help in the minimization of delays, promote long-term relations, and reduce communication gaps and project complexities. Full article

Performance evaluation is crucial for environmental design and sustainable development, especially so for architecture and landscape architecture. However, such performance evaluations remain rare in practice. It is argued that the concerns over potential negative evaluations and a lack of funding are the two main barriers preventing the undertaking of performance evaluations. This research investigated how these two barriers were overcome in practice by studying 41 evaluation cases in the New Zealand landscape architecture field, as well as several international and architectural case studies for comparison. A range of enablers for performance evaluation practices were identified by this research, including funding sources and models that were not documented by existing literature, as well as two strategies for handling the risks of negative evaluation. All of the identified enablers share the same underlying logic—the benefits and costs of an evaluation should be well-regulated by certain mechanisms to keep the benefits of an evaluation greater than, or at least balanced with, the costs, for all the parties involved in the evaluation. Full article

Rural landscapes all over the world are subject to great transformations, first being the continuous and slow depopulation of towns and villages. It is a dramatic phenomenon that causes devastating consequences for environmental systems and for the tangible and intangible heritage of entire territories. The situation becomes more ambiguous when it comes to cultural landscapes, especially those internationally recognized as exceptional (i.e., inscribed on the UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage List). In this case, the risk is to abandon agricultural production in favor of consumerist tourist economies, which can damage the territorial authenticity. In this paper, we question the role of the landscape design in strengthening territorial resilience. In particular, a composite and interdependent action has been proposed between landscape design and implementation of a multifunctional agriculture model, oriented towards tourism. To undertake this investigation, a master’s thesis work on Landscape Architecture has been examined as an opportunity to test the research-by-design method through the didactic process. The application case is the Italian UNESCO site of Vignale Monferrato, a depopulated rural village, characterized by abandoned land and buildings. The paper concludes by outlining replicability application scenarios for the proposed model. Full article

Iconic architecture and landscape architecture are most often understood through photographic media that mediates between the idea and the reality for those learning to design. The drastic lockdown responses to COVID-19 and the limitations on local and international travel highlighted the importance of the visual and the potential of the virtual. However, visual media can also be understood as systems that go far beyond a strict representation of an object. In this climate where publicity, politics, and perception play ever more crucial roles, representations of iconic architecture and landscapes increasingly blur the boundaries between the imaginary and the tangible. This paper examines the experience of iconic architecture and landscape in four iconic European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Seville, and Lisbon) as seen through the eyes of fifty postgraduate architecture, interior architecture, and landscape architecture students from New Zealand. It compares their understanding of a building or landscape from its photographic image before engaging with the physical reality. Students were asked to first identify iconic architecture and landscape, then closely analyze and document the essential qualities which established its pre-eminence. A subsequent visit to each of the places provided the opportunity for comparison and the testing of the realities and fictions of the icons themselves. Our research finds that today’s architecture students are savvy and sophisticated consumers of technology. It also presents FABRIC (finding, assimilating, being, reflecting, introspecting, and concluding), a conceptual framework that offers additional scaffolding for educating design students through experiential learning in a time of travel restrictions. Full article

The introduction of green plants in indoor spaces has raised a great amount of interest motivated by plants’ supposed capacity to improve the quality of indoor built environments. Subsequent studies have covered a broad range of topics, testing plants in indoor environments for their climate-mitigating effects, acoustic benefits, potential energy savings and the enhancement of the indoor microbial communities. Despite the diversity of focus in these studies, no major breakthroughs have been made involving the use of plants in indoor environments after nearly thirty years of research. To identify major inconsistencies and gaps in the research, this review, of an explorative nature, presents an analysis of plant-related parameters reported in 31 cases of experimental research involving the use of plants in indoor environments. The papers were identified by searching the online databases Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Scopus and MDPI and were selected based on their relevance to the topic and diversity of focus. Two classifications in table form provide an overview of the 38 plant-related parameters used in the reviewed research. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of the tables highlight a strongly anthropocentric frame of reference across the majority of the studies, which prioritize human and experimental convenience above plant physiology, and display an overall scarcity and inconsistency in the plant-related parameters reported. Full article

The market of Adaptive Building Skins has been growing at a slow but incremental speed, as these technologies ensure better indoor climatic comfort and more efficient energy management than traditional solutions. Nonetheless, if we acknowledge the building as a system of physical qualities oriented to overall environmental performance, the resource optimization has to be extended to considering a wider range of environmental impacts along the entire building life cycle. For this purpose, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method is recognized by stakeholders as the most world-renowned standardized tool for weighting environmental impacts. The aim of this study is to scrutinize the state of the art of LCA among stakeholders enrolled in the design and manufacturing of building and adaptive facades in the Italian market. Data have been collected throughout interviews and an online survey focusing on investigating the knowledge and experience level of participants. Results not only draw the attention to develop new market models by implementing sustainable building protocols concerning adaptive technologies, but also provided a positive assessment on the usability degree of a parametric design mapping based on a systemic and life-cycle-oriented approach to achieve environmental scopes and introduce competitive factors and boost innovation in the Italian building industry. Full article