Architecture, Volume 2, Issue 1 (March 2022) – 10 articles

The identification of significant areas impacting safety performance has always been a key concern for construction management researchers. This paper aims to examine the diversified influence of sensitive sub-categories of demographic variables on construction safety climate (SC). The data relating to fourteen demographic variables and twenty-four formerly validated SC statements were collected from forty-one under-construction high-rise buildings in Pakistan. The variances in respondents’ distribution among various sub-categories of demographic variables, and influence of each sub-category of demographic variables on SC statements were analyzed using cross-tabulation, Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients, independent sample Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. The study comprehends that the employees in the age group of 20 years or below and between 41 and 50 years, engaged for over 48 h per week, having 4 dependent family members, primary education, and/or lesser working experience, attained a comparatively lower SC level. Likewise, frontline workers and foremen are observed to be employed for extended working hours, causing them fatigue. It also discovers that safety alertness level steadily declines once employees get acquainted with their tasks, thus necessitating to arrange periodic refresher safety training sessions. The study recommends concentrating on frontline workers and foremen who are less educated and fall in the age group of 41–50 years by resolving their safety concerns and providing them adequate safety training, promptly replacing their defective equipment, improving worksite conditions, and counselling them about the significance of wearing PPE and adhering to all the safety rules regardless of the difficulty in their enactment. A joint focus on the heightened personal attributes of employees and risky SC statements is expected to enhance safety performance on under-construction building projects. Moreover, the study’s results can be cautiously generalized and applied to other countries having similar work environment. Full article

Healthcare projects, like other complex projects, begin with a project definition phase, where client needs are identified, and design solutions are proposed. All decisions related to this phase have an important impact on workspace conditions. Nevertheless, traditional methods of project definition management have been proven to be inadequate. An ill-defined project might lead to an increase in hospital-acquired infections or patient mortality. Participatory approaches such as Lean-led Design—in which clients including users play an important role from the beginning—are proposed to address this problem. This paper aims to identify and analyze the advantages and difficulties of Lean-led Design during the project definition process. A single case study was used to explore these issues. The case study chosen was a mega Canadian hospital project that implemented a Lean-led Design approach. Data were collected using archive research and semistructured interviews. This paper will help AEC industry stakeholders to understand the advantages and challenges involved in implementing a Lean-led Design approach. The findings of this study could help architects as well as managers to concentrate their efforts on significantly relevant issues. Full article

Sustainability is of fundamental importance for the construction industry: in recent decades researchers focused on supplementing building components with multiple natural fibres, evaluating their mechanical performance and application fields. In this field, the common plasters are usually equipped with glass fibre mesh to avoid crack patterns due to shrinkage. Natural fibres, thanks to their high tensile resistance, can represent a green solution to solve this problem. In particular, this work investigates the properties and the mechanical characteristics of a biocompound obtained with hemp fibres. The first phase aims at identifying the ideal mixture between hemp fibres and mortar to improve workability and avoid altering the water/lime ratio. The performed physical tests provide useful information for the evaluation of the consistency and the workability of the compound. Based on these preliminary results, 10 combinations of 3 parameters, namely fibre diameter, percentage of hemp fibre in the mortar and length of the hemp braid fragments, are tested. Among the mechanical properties, bending, compressive and tensile behaviours are evaluated. For each test, the performances of fibre-reinforced samples are compared to reference specimens. From compressive tests it is noted that the best performances were obtained from fibres with diameter of 1 mm and length of 2 cm. On the other hand, from flexural tests, it is seen that braids with a length of 2 cm provide an average bending stress about 13% less than that of the control specimen. Contrarily, braids with a length of 3 cm give a mean increase of bending stress of about 8% compared to the control specimen. Full article

Widely used and disseminated, Arnstein’s ladder is considered a reference for citizen participation. It, nevertheless, involves a recurrent bias and a certain confusion when confronted with projects in the Belgian and French working-class districts of cross-border Hainaut. Characterised by fundamentally opposed management systems (one bureaucratic and hierarchical, the other democratic or even delegative), these worksites challenge Arnstein’s concepts and allow us to understand that information is not a level in the participation ladder, but the condition for the functioning of the whole system. Likewise, they also teach us that manipulation and delegation are not opposite extremes but can percolate in any level of participation. Finally, they reveal that the interlocking of powers and the interplay of stakeholders can easily turn the established participation mechanism from exemplary to revolting and vice versa. Full article

This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a college campus. While previous research has been undertaken in similar semi-private environments, this paper differs by simultaneously offering the researchers’ reflective insights in tandem with participants’ input on the research question. We begin by unpacking the challenges around Participatory Design (PD) activities that are undertaken in sensitive and private interior environments. Gathering perceptions of these sensitive spaces required methods that allowed for both anonymity and a communal approach through the use of provocative and evocative probes such as comment boxes and graffiti wall posters. This paper not only catalogues the findings of this research but also documents the difficulties in utilizing a participant-led approach, gaining access to sites and participants, and countering our own biases throughout the study’s construction. Through researcher accounts and participatory data analysis, the researchers offer a focused reflection on a possible new frontier for advancing PD methods in sensitive environments through playful probes. The contribution of this paper offers six lessons on the efficacy of using probes in semi-private environments, with playfulness as a primary driver of engaging participants. Full article

Recent research work carried out in France tends to show that calling on collectives of artists or architects to develop participatory approaches with inhabitants has become a common practice for public or private project owners. However, these interventions are still often limited to communication operations or come up against the inertia of political and professional cultures, which limits their scope. After briefly stating the circumstances that lead urban project owners in France to pay increasing attention to the skills of architectural “collectives”, this article focuses on the presentation of two experiments conducted by two of them. Articulating pedagogical and urban citizenship issues, these experiments were confronted with procedural and normative frameworks, some of which came from the world of urban production, others from the school institution. The aim of this article is to show that the coproduction of spaces that have a strong meaning for their users, but which are unthought of within strategic urban projects, can have a greater impact on the way in which the operational actors envisage their project. After summarizing the main highlights of these two experiments, this contribution discusses the lessons that can be drawn from them in terms of their implementation conditions and the extensions they may have had. From a methodological point of view, the interest of these two experiments lies in the fact that the two associations that were involved in them understood them as experiments from the outset. They thus implemented reflexive mechanisms involving researchers, of which this article is one of the concrete results. Full article

This article explores the rise of a new generation of practices combining architecture, design, and art, trying to answer the transition issues faced by society. It develops original operating procedures, including public participation. In doing so, those so-called “specialised” professions expand their sphere of operation and incorporate more immaterial dimensions and resources. The main objective of the article is an attempt to clarify how participation is embodied in specific intervention methods, within those experimental practices. The article will take as a case study a participatory project taking place in a retirement home and aimed at building a mobile third place that brought together various professionals coming from those experimental practices. The study of the participatory project will outline three devices and methods supporting the participation work, as follows: the use of permanence, the use of the prototype and self-construction, and the conception of ephemeral production. The article suggests that based on their analysis, we can understand what architects and designers “manufacture” through the agency of participation. Or more accurately, what participation “manufactures” in those experimental practices. The main result of the article is that the participatory project is more concerned with the motives and aspirations of the design activity, its methods and processes, its context and socialisation than it is with what would be classically considered as the outcome or result (the work, the realisation, the production, the built). Full article

Virtual reality has been shown to facilitate perception and navigation inside 3D models, while stimulating creativity and enhancing architect/client interaction. In this scenario, in order to better explore paths along the design space that are suggested from this interaction, it is important to support quick updates to the model while still immersed in it. Algorithmic design, an approach to architectural design that uses parametric algorithms to represent a design space, rather than a single design instance, provides such support. We present a novel architectural design process based on the integration of live coding with virtual reality, promoting an immersive approach to algorithmic design. The proposed workflow entails the use of an algorithmic design tool embedded in a virtual environment, where the architect not only creates the design but also interacts with said design, changing it by live coding its algorithmic representation from within virtual reality. In this paper, we explain the challenges faced and solutions devised for the implementation of the proposed workflow. Moreover, we discuss the applicability of algorithmic design in virtual reality to different stages of the architectural design process and the future developments that may arise from this proposal. Full article

Singapore’s public housing policies are widely known for their success in providing housing for over 80% of the residential population, with most owning homes. Extensive housing schemes generally offer a set of fixed housing layouts; yet, at the microscale of an individual dwelling, alterations to the units can be made by rearranging the floor plans to reflect the usage patterns of the household, thus adding diversity to the fixed configuration. The aim of this paper is to identify associations among a housing unit’s spatial properties by analysing fixed configurations and altered floor plans as well as determining the spatial preferences of the inhabitants. The research methodology applied in this paper has been divided into two parts: spatial network analysis and survey analysis. In the spatial network analysis, the configurations of individual housing units and altered units were compared by translating floor plans into graphs. The survey functions as a qualitative analysis to relate the lifestyle patterns of contemporary society to housing configurations. Full article

This article proposes the investigation of two case studies of 20th century residential architecture that can be considered paradigmatic due to the pioneering use of parametric thinking in architecture. It deals with Alexander Klein’s plan analysis model and Cedric Price’s research on housing through his concept of 24-hour economic living toy. Both cases are analyzed using contemporary parametric tools to digitally reproduce the results of the analog diagrams developed by both architects. The reproduction of the diagrams makes it possible to recognize and make visible the specific parameters that are used in each case, demonstrating an evolution of housing research throughout the two periods. While Klein shows an observation focused on the efficiency of form, Price pursues a recognition of the uses to facilitate the adaptability of the architecture according to optimal usability. Full article