Open House International

Hurol, Yonca

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0001

There is an article in this issue about the contribution of balconies to thermal comfort in Indonesia. This article presents how the balconies have been used in very different ways in Indonesia. Finally, the authors suggest designing balconies for the sake of thermal comfort. This article was accepted by the founder and editor of Open House International-Nicholas Wilkinson-before he passed away, because he was very interested in the use of balconies in Cyprus. When I read this article about balconies in Indonesia, I remembered our conversations regarding balconies.

AlSadaty, Aliaa

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0002

The relationship between collective memory and the built environment is a complex relationship. Though the concept of memory is fragile, the maintenance and continuation of urban memory are essential to maintain groups' identities and to support the sense of place and place attachment between community members and the architectural settings they use and/or reside in. Preserving the physical aspects of buildings, spaces and settings that are linked with memory, is important to preserve the memory, however, the mere preservation does not guarantee the continuation of memory. The maintenance and continuation of memory is a process that depends on several factors, where the preservation of the physical aspects is only one among several. This paper aims at a better understanding of the intricate relationship between collective memory and the built environment, focusing on the processes of formation, stimulation and consolidation of memory. The paper sheds the lights on historic houses that are embedded with significant meanings and memories to their social contexts. It claims that historic houses can easily shift from ‘potential cultural memory' to ‘actual cultural memory' that could act as pillars of memory to their surrounding community, if the conservation process is done comprehensively, that is to include not only the physical and spatial aspects of memory but also to tackle the social dimensions of memory as well. The paper is organized into three sections: the first investigates the memory formation process, focusing on the social and the spatial dimension of memory, then the second investigates the possible channels to memory stimulation and consolidation, and finally, as a case study, the third section investigates the memory of two historic houses in Cairo, Egypt. The review of the works undertaken in the two houses highlights the difference and the distance between the concept of restoration and the essence of conservation. Findings yielded that, urban memory is an important aspect of cultural heritage that should to be captured and preserved for current and future generations, an aspect that is missing in local conservation approaches. Moreover, to be maintained, urban memory needs physical, social and moral props.

Kisnarini, Rika; Krisdianto, Johannes; Indrawan, Iwan Adi

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0003

Dwelling, which is a basic human need (Maslow, 1970) should act as an object of technology that serves as a place for individuals or families to conduct all their daily activities in order to meet their needs in life. In case of sustainability, thermal comfort is one of the most important comfort conditions that must be achieved (Szokolay SV, 1980). Proper air movement control may lessen the demand for energy, thus reducing the expense of providing a comfortable home (Boutet, 1987). However, to ensure the acceleration of air movement, the availability of both inlet and outlet openings in the building or space become an absolute requirement (Olgyay Victor, 1973).Rusunawa is a typical rental-apartment in Indonesia that served for low income families. The types of existing space generally include: a multi-functional space, a kitchen, and a bathroom/WC, and sometimes is furnished by a balcony. There is only one living space in rusunawa that is the multi-functional space which is often used for: living, sleeping, studying, watching TV, eating, storing, child-caring, and probably more other functions. Not to mention if the family has a home-based business. Among rusunawa unit types that existed in all fourteen locations in Surabaya, some of them were built without a really outdoor balcony, meaning that the balconies were provided indoor, instead of in the cantilever system. These indoor balconies accommodate the same household activities as those of outdoor balconies. However, the contribution to the internal thermal comfort may not be the same.By using Ecotect analysis 2011 program, This research intends to investigate the comparison of thermal conditions of the inner space between rusunawa unit having a balcony (outdoor), and rusunawa unit without a balcony (indoor). The result of this comparison is meant to convince the contribution of unit having a balcony to the thermal comfort of inner space, to ensure whether the design of the future rusunawa units should be equipped with a balcony or not. To further reassure its contribution, this experiment is continued by comparing between unit having just a balcony and unit having a balcony that equipped with sun-devices.

Oral, N. Gözde; Özdeniz, Mesut B.

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0004

It is a well-known fact that global warming is the extraordinary threat facing the world. The main reasons of these are human activities. Human beings have been contributing to the global warming in different ways for many years. Right material and product selection are some of the most important factors in the process of eliminating the negative effects of constructions on the natural environment and users. The life cycle of building materials involves the processes in which the products are extracted from the source. These processes are the stages of production, transportation, construction, use, demolition and destruction. Making wrong decisions in the selection and use of building materials may cause negative effects in the environment. The major purpose of this study is to to examine the embodied energy of of the traditional and comtemporary building materials according to the characteristics of the local climate. It will answer the question of; “What the embodied energy of a house was in the past and now” in Northern Cyprus. It will help to find out building materials with low embodied energy. There is no published database prepared for or in Northern Cyprus. In order to measure and evaluate the embodied energy of buildings and construction products in the world, there are no integrated systems in the Northern Cyprus at this point, while different countries have unique systems depending on the environmental, economic and social conditions of those countries. Measuring and controlling the environmental performance of environmental development is essential for the sustainable development of the Northern Cyprus.By using the The Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) program the embodied carbon statuses, embodied energy and transport energy and manufacture energy were discussed for each building material. As a result of this research it was found that locally produced or locally existing materials do not always give the best result in terms of embodied energy all the time. The energy consumption of building materials used in buildings and their associated carbon emissions will assist in the selection of environmentally friendly materials.

Wang, Chen; Wood, Lincoln C.; Liang, Huijun

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0005

Various demands and requirements of foreign home-buyers from different background are yet unclear to most of the residential developers. The aim of this study is to blueprint a fuzzy mapping of psychological phenomena reflected in consumer behavior, and to develop a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) decision making model to assist residential developers in dealing with potential foreign customers. Through a questionnaire survey in the form of pair wise comparison matrix among 126 expatriates, this study introduces a new approach to assist residential developers dealing with expatriates' preference on house purchase in Malaysia in a simple and efficient way. With this fuzzy mapping, residential developers could utilize psychological phenomena to manipulate expatriates' preference on housing purchase rather than to merely comply passively.

Wang, Yanjun

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0006

Historic districts are faced with inadequate features protection and landscape destruction in the process of accelerating urban construction, urban design focuses on how places function in addition to how they look, this theory is suitable for the protection of historical districts. At the present stage, the traditional urban design of historical districts has a series of problems, such as uncomprehensive research about characteristics, incomplete workflow and the lack of transformation route from design scheme to implementation, the main reason is that there is a mismatch between the setting goal and planning implementation. Urban design based on “Action planning” has the characteristics of comprehensive research contents, specific implementation plans and complete workflow, it arranges the workflow with four stages, including design preparation, design planning, design implementation and design evaluation, which is a new exploration and attempt to turn traditional blueprint-oriented into action-oriented. Urban design of North Shuncheng Lane Historic Districts in Xi'an city used action planning as a concept and established an framework including “identify development status and problems—construct action target and strategy—determine action projects and specific plans—improve and evaluate the results”, to implement design ideas into practice and to guide the protection of historic districts. Above all, action-oriented planning is considered the key to the development of historic districts.

Rajeswaran, Babu; Kesavaperumal, Thirumaran

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0007

Entrance edifice of the institutional campus artifice as the visible representation of status in their society. The design shall stand to show the status of the person who develops the setting, it could signify the power of the person or the entire place, and it could sometimes support certain cosmological belief system that prevails in that culture too. This study intended to identify the entrance edifice Physical features that influence observer's perception of the image of the institutional campus. To accomplish this, physical features of the entrance edifice and its characters were identified and developed into questionnaire material. A logistic regression model was adopted to analyze the Physical features of Entrance Edifice. The findings found the followings: (i) Physical features of Entrance Edifice influence the Visual perception of the Institutional Campus. (ii) The Physical features were found to impact the Visual perception of the Institutional campus in the order of Form Identity, Architectural Elements, Scale and Portion, color and material. These variances are based on the observers' perception, which can be integrated into the Institutional Campus Entrance Edifice design to strengthen the Image of the Institutional campus. It is clear that Entrance Edifices have the potential to build the image for a greater content and purpose through its Form Identity, Architectural Elements, Scale and Portion, color and material. Nevertheless, the entrance design could be a powerful element to build up the image of the physical settings it serves.

Gel, A.G.; Şatıroğlu, E.

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0008

In parallel with industrialization and population growth, the need for housing areas in developing countries has also increased. Diminishing green areas in cities due to unplanned urbanization led people to search for new residential areas where they can meet with green and can satisfy their social and cultural needs.Trabzon city is located on the East Black Sea coast of Turkey. By virtue of the concentration of settlement in the city center and the problems it has caused, the residential areas have been directed to the eastern parts of the city. Kaşüstü is one of Trabzon's new and popular residential and commercial areas. As the study area, 3 different site areas in Kaşüstü region located in the Yomra district in the east of Trabzon were determined.In this study, it was aimed to determine the outdoor facilities and opportunities of different housing estates in Kaşüstü region. Outdoor activities, types of usages, preferences and requests of users in these areas were identified. Thus, outdoors in different housing estates in the same region and the usage types of these places were compared. In addition, new suggestions and alternatives for outdoor usage have been developed.

Berndgen-Kaiser, Andrea; Köhler, Tine; Wiechert, Markus; Netsch, Stefan; Ruelle, Christine; Marique, Anne-Francoise

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0009

Single-family houses are a common form of housing in Europe. Most were built in the context of the suburbanization after World War II and are now facing challenges arising from generational changes as well as increasing living and energy standards. According to the hypothesis of this paper, in several EU regions, single-family houses may face future challenges arising from oversupply and lack of adaptation to current demand. To examine this, the paper analyses the present situation and discusses the prognosis for the challenges described above regarding the three neighbouring north-western European countries Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, based on available data and a review of country-specific characteristics of housing markets as well as national policies. Despite an impending mismatch between demand and supply, planning policies still support the emergence of new single-family houses. The comparison of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands shows the growing polarization between shrinking and growing regions and central and peripheral sites apparent at different stages in the three countries. While a high rate of vacancies is already registered for some regions in Germany, in the Netherlands this phenomenon can only be seen near the borders and in villages within the Randstad conurbation. In Belgium also, this phenomenon is not yet widespread, but in some suburban neighbourhoods dating from the 1950's and 1960's more and more single-family houses are becoming more difficult to sell, indicating an emerging mismatch between supply and demand. This article proposes some instruments which enable municipalities to intervene in single family housing neighbourhoods which are largely dominated by private ownership. These instruments are not yet widely established in single-family housing neighbourhoods but that may become important in the future.

Xingyu, Qian; Chengzhi, Yin

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0010

Playing as a global city, to maintain the economic dynamics and urban vitality, Hong Kong government would like to take urban regeneration in urban core as a kind of urban growth strategy. The government monopolizes land supply for urban development through the leasehold system, while the redevelopment agency is authorized to take land acquisition for urban redevelopment. The transformation of agency from Land Development Corporation (LDC) to Urban Renewal Authority (URA) reflected the formation of a coalition composed of quasi-public redevelopment agency and private developer, which facilitates land and property resumption in urban redevelopment. The URA-led projects often tend to redevelop obsolete communities into up-market neighborhoods, which possibly enables redevelopment agency and developers to gain more economic benefits from real estate appreciation. Nevertheless, evidences from some large redevelopment projects conducted by URA in Hong Kong such as Lee Tung Street, Langham Palace and Kennedy Town have presented that urban redevelopment is closely associated with gentrification triggered by displacement of original neighborhood residents. Hence gentrification in Hong Kong has raised more and more concerns about booming housing price as well as fragmentation of social networks. Through urban regime combined with growth machine approach, this paper will explain the collusion of redevelopment agency and private developers that jointly turns the URA-led redevelopment into neighborhood gentrification. And by examining Kwun Tong Town Centre Project (KTTCP), findings indicate that soaring property value will crowd low-income groups and working classes out from their original neighborhoods; and then those gentrified residential estates will be occupied by rich class. Moreover, increasing rent and operation costs will inevitably eliminate those family-operated small businesses; and then they will be superseded by high-end retailing and services. In this way, urban morphology will be reshaped perpetually through more and more gentrified neighborhoods.

Taştan, Hasan; Ciravoğlu, Ayşen

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0011

In order to meet the housing need that emerged in Turkey after the devastating earthquake of 17th August 1999, new residential areas were established in various regions. This has led to the questioning of how social sustainability of new settlements can be achieved and to a search for solutions. In this context, participatory approaches are among the first to come to mind. This study starts from the hypothesis that enabling user participation in the construction process of the housing units would contribute to the social cohesion and satisfaction levels of the neighborhood in question. In the study, the impact of user participation on the social sustainability of the construction process of residential projects developed following a disaster has been tested. In this context, the research was conducted in Caritas houses built near Gümüşpınar Village in the Province of Düzce and Umcor houses constructed on the same land with user participation to meet the needs of the victims for shelter after the 17th August 1999 earthquake. The study is comprised of the observations, questionnaires and face-to-face interviews conducted after the literature review. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted to measure the satisfaction with the housing, the immediate housing environment and the neighborhood as well as the feeling of belonging were tested regarding the two settlements which differed in terms of their construction methods and physical characteristics despite having been constructed side by side by two different charities. The results of the Likert type questionnaires were evaluated with the “Independent samples T test” using the SPSS program. As a result of the research, it has been found that there is no significant relationship between user participation and the criteria of social sustainability; namely, satisfaction with the housing, satisfaction with the neighbors and that of the residence neighborhood. Another result of the research is that the physical and psychological comfort is of priority for the individuals compared to relationship with neighbors or participation in the establishment of their residential environment. Furthermore, the research findings also revealed that disagreements among users increased which had a negative impact on social cohesion in cases where the physical characteristics of the residential neighborhood and the housing did not satisfy the users.

Açıcı, Funda Kurak; Ertaş, Şebnem

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0012

Since the first periods of humanity, the reflections of emerging cultures have created the living texture and architecture. The continuing accumulations from older periods transfer a history by layering at certain environments. While these environments which appear as the evidence of development and advancement present the artifacts of previous generations; they create a common language by creating a link between past, today and present. The necessity for protection and transfer of architecture which is the physical reflection of this accumulation, history and culture continuing through ages to the future generations is a clear fact. Preventing the disappearance of historical buildings which show the difference of a geography, country or city from others and create its identity is an important issue for sustainable architecture. When sustainability unites with history and tourism, it can achieve the protection, development and transfer of natural and cultural resources from one generation to the other. For this reason, in the scope of this study, Camii Cedid/St Eugenios Church (Yeni Cuma Mosque) transformed into a mosque after the conquest of the city of Trabzon, which has an important historical texture within its geography, will be examined in terms of the sustainable development it created in the region and the changes it went through

Tedong, Peter Aning; Azriyati, Wan Nor; Aziz, Wan Abd; Hanif, Noor Rosly

2018 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2018-B0013

In the last two decades, Malaysia has embedded good neighborhood principles in its planning plans that promote diversity and accessibility in urban residential areas. However, the emerging trends of the privatization of public streets and open spaces in urban residential areas in Malaysia offer the opportunity to study complex urban governance processes in a democratic and developing country. Using empirical evidence, this article recounts the fascinating saga of how various actors – urban planners, resident associations, residents of open neighborhoods and residents of guarded neighborhoods – responded to the privatization of public streets and open spaces in Malaysia. While planners described Greater Klang Valley as a diverse city in Malaysia, they sometimes tolerated the privatization of public streets and open spaces through neoliberal policies.