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The Prague Housing Fund has consisted of houses built by heavy prefabrication system between 1950 and 1990 to a large extent. These houses are being continuously renovated. The refurbishment emphasizes the reduction of energy losses and neglects other factors of the indoor environment (air exchange, humidity, overheating, etc.). The article deals with the above-mentioned problems of interior overheating in terms of the effect of shading elements on the appearance of facades. It assesses several types of shading wi...

In research are used objective and subjective sound features on the development of noise annoyance assessment model in urbanized environment. They represent a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the acoustic signal. The relation of objective features in subjective features is the direction of research on the development of noise annoyance evaluation model developed for several years. The carrier of information about the characteristics of sound in the environment is an acoustic signal coming from noise sour...

The current legislative standards require as much as possible energy efficient construction. Airtightness is a key component of energy-efficient buildings. Airtightness is characterized by air leakage through the building envelopes. Untightness leads to uncontrolled air exchange and increased heat loss. Using the exploratory analysis of variables is analyzed the state of the airtightness of energy-efficient buildings in the United Kingdoms in recent years. The source of data sample set on the airtightness of UK en...

The European Directive 31/2010 for the energy performance of buildings imposed two distinct deadlines for the new buildings stock, one being that all public buildings must be nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) starting with 31 December 2018 and the other is that all new buildings must be nZEB starting from 31 December 2020. Thus, a thoroughly design must be considered in obtaining such low energy consumptions at buildings. In the design stage, a time consuming activity is that of modeling and simulating thermal w...

The use of colored asphalt pavements plays an important role in answering the environment requirements, the operational aspects and visibility and road safety requirements. In this context, the paper deals with the possibilities of realizing colored asphalt mixtures corroborated with the ordinary tests to determine the physical and mechanical characteristics. Meanwhile, the article presents the advantages of using colored asphalt mixtures in different cases for improving road safety.

This paper examines comfort and cohesion in outdoor and semi out door spaces of historical environment with a hot and dry climate using the example of the traditional streets, courtyards and recesses of Sanliurfa, Turkey. The goal of this research is to investigate the design principles for achieving comfort and social cohesion in the historical environment of Sanliurfa traditional architecture. In Sanliurfa historical settlement, where traditions and customs have an important role in the social structure, has cre...

Originally, walls were of structural or defensive nature and that typology hasn?t changed for millennia. It can be traced back to the evolution of the human species and the shift from nomadic to sedentary societies. Along with technological progress, society development, urban growth and other factors, new challenges were placed on walls. Today, walls are used for protection against environmental risk rather than robberies or military troops. In the paper the basic typology of walls ? the one of territorial protec...

The cornerstone of metropolitan areas of the Czech Republic is the so-called integrated system of centres, characterized by a high degree of territorial concentration of the population of economic phenomena, and a high level of internal functional interconnections. Territorial intensity and concentration of interactions within metropolitan areas are mainly reflected in the volume of labour and school commuting, as well as economic activity, as a result of the number and location of job opportunities. Hradec Kr?lov...

Geopolymers are alkali-activated materials produced by mixing silicate and aluminate phases containing minerals or aluminosilicates. This reaction results in stable polymeric networks of aluminosilicates. Nowadays, geopolymers have become very popular since they are seen as a potential alternative to ordinary concrete-based materials. They can be produced with the utilization of a variety of waste products. Therefore, the development of these materials can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the productio...

Constant increase of traffic volumes exacerbates transportation problems and causes deterioration of safety and life conditions of village inhabitants in the vicinity of throughways. To reduce the adverse effect of road traffic, introduction of traffic calming devices in entry zones has been used for years. Their success in speed reduction and improvement of acoustic climate were dependent on the type of devices, their location and how frequently they were distributed along the pedestrian crossing across the throu...

At present, the building sector holds more than 40% of energy consumption and 36% production of greenhouse gas emissions. The whole sector of buildings uses more than 50% of the Earth's raw materials and produces approximately 50% of world waste. The current legislative standards require as much as possible energy efficient construction. The inadequate thermal performance of the buildings and are currently the biggest challenges for the sector of buildings in the European Union in the context of addressing the sus...

People spend approximately 90% of their life in the indoor environment of buildings. Indoor environment significantly influences the health, the comfort and the performance of buildings users. The long-term insufficient indoor environment is associated with the Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). According to previous studies, basic factors influencing satisfaction and performance in indoor environments include indoor air quality and ventilation, thermal comfort, lighting and daylighting, noise and acoustics, space layo...

One of the parts of sustainable mobility is surely the quality public transport service. It includes the suitable vehicles, as well as the stations, bus stops and various other integrated transfer points of the public transportation system. For the optimization of using these transfer points, as well as overall optimization of public transport services, it is necessary for us to obtain a traffic data in a real time. Nowadays it is not enough to know just the exact position of the vehicle on the map via GPS, with i...

With the beginning of the 21st century, there was a rapid development of technologies allowing to cover elevation of buildings with various plant species, even those that are not adapted to the natural overgrowth of vertical walls. This is the result of changes in the approach to the sustainable design. The technologies that derive from the simplest, proven solutions known for thousands of years become popular. Plants have a number of advantages that are very difficult to replace by modern filtration systems, they...

The library is one of the most important urban institutions with a wide social impact (including its research, educational, cultural and recreational impact).Being in the previous decades, a place, which aimed at building up the manuscript collection, it gradually opened up to the recipient, adapted its character depending on the changing times, today performing the function of a bustling center of culture and pro-ecological thinking. The idea of the Green Library Movement first appeared in the early 90s in the US...

Synergic effect of the individual components of the indoor environment is considered to be a significant determinant of the quality of the indoor environment. The quality of the indoor environment affects not only the user's comfort but also the health of the users of the buildings. The main objective of the paper is to confirm or exclude a statistically significant impact of hygro-thermal conditions on the indoor air quality (IAQ). Hygrothermal conditions and indoor air quality are the essential components of the...

Decommissioned historical military property is extensively used for civilian activities. Renovated historical army barracks have been turned into residential buildings, administrative and educational facilities, museums, even churches. Depots, garages and warehouses facilitate entrepreneurs and freight forwarders. Airports serve the needs of civilian and leisure aviation. While these functions have all been successfully introduced into historical post-military architecture, saving it from demolition and vacancy, t...

Succesful planning nowadays involves broad spectrum of stakeholders including general public. Data needed might not be easily available and cannot be combined together within a single tool accessible by various stakeholders. This article will introduce interactive visualization tool InVito which enable to combine various data layers into comprehensive visual representation of mutual impacts based on defined mathematical equations. This tool was prepared by support from project Implementation of Sustainable Land Us...

The article deals with the degradation of cement beams containing polypropylene and polyvinyl alcohol fibres. Nowadays it is developed high-quality concrete that contains a minimum of reinforcement or all it is replace by micro fibres. Microscopic examination of fiber breakage and changes at fiber-matrix interface was investigated in this paper. The cement beams were stored in an aggressive environment of 3% NaCl, 5% NaOH and 5% H2SO4 for 28 days (CSN P CEN / TS 12390-11). Mechanical parameters and changes of fibr...

Zones 30 have been used for years in suburban districts as common traffic calming devices. The solution of zone 30 was used in a street in Szczecin. The street connects the area of detached houses with large panel housing estates. To reduce speed to 30 km/h, four successive raised areas were made of paving stone cubes as well as a 1 m wide median strip in the road axis. The change of asphalt blanket into paving stone cubes is thought to change the acoustic climate, due to differences of noise levels generated by t...

Information about informal Romani settlements housing are not found in books or archives. They are found ?live?, in settlements. The intent of this paper is to point out that they represent a world of signals that can be detected through the methodological tools of observation and discussion with residents; also and therefore, to create guidelines for operational tools useful for an aware and contemporary design of Romani house. The paper starts from the fact that including cultural components in projects that are...

When thinking about sustainable design, social sustainability appears to be a fundamental feature that must be considered when shaping people and communities. This broad subject is narrowly approached within the present article following one specific viewpoint; social sustainability can be defined in the design process by analyzing materials? potential in crafts` and industries` activities alike. Paper`s potential on both these levels, in developing, through its production process, small scale communities and larg...

The subject undertaken in the article is poorly researched so far, and at the same time very current, because it concerns the space management strategy in large European cities in the aspect of sustainable spatial development policy. It concerns certain type of Space Left Over After Planning ? areas under elevated infrastructure (bridges, viaducts and flyovers). Underspaces either mostly remain undeveloped for long time or are intended for parking lots or technical facilities. Lack of inadequate management and neg...

This paper presents several issues regarding the dynamic behaviour of the pedestrian footbridges structure under the action of general loads generated by the pedestrians? displacement, together with the correlated traffic comfort of the pedestrians crossing the structure. The footbridge crossing comfort criterion requires the inclusion of vibration frequencies and accelerations of the structures in certain limits so that the vibration amplification or resonance is avoided. The paper puts under investigation six fo...

In the last few years, the world of Internet communications as well the application?s requirements has changed significantly in terms of speed, quality of service, computing, storing, security, energy consumption, availability, and etc. Everything gets connected to the Internet and accessible from anywhere, anytime. The traditional networks based on distributed control and network transport protocols are not enough flexible, and are hard to be managed. To overwhelm this problem, the software defined networking (SD...

The redevelopment of the railway network in Krakow has been ongoing for some years now. Efforts undertaken in order to improve the comfort and quality of travel have an influence on functional and spatial changes in the surroundings of modernised railway stops. The redevelopment of elements of the railway network is essential from the point of view of the possibility of supplementing public transport, in addition to affecting the establishment of new circulation nodes that provide services to a significant number ...

Architectural styles had a cyclic pattern throughout the history of humanity, however their recurrence was intentional, educated, having more to do with the taste of a society or a group of individuals than with their basic needs. Vernacular architecture emerged as a response to the needs of people and was a collective product, not the masterpiece of an architect. It emerged from the local building techniques and construction material availability, as well as climatic, economic and socio-politic conditions. Underg...

In 2010, the municipality of Senigallia, located in Marche region (Italy), approved the Green Masterplan, drafted by the Department of Agricultural Sciences together with the Department of Territorial Planning of the Alma Mater Studiorum of Bologna, in collaboration with four architects, two agronomists, and few communal technicians, with the aim of granting a neat, homogeneous and sustainable development of the territory and improving the quality of life and the wellness of its inhabitants. Since then, many proje...

In connection with the requirements of energy saving and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the current construction is characterized by high levels of airtightness of the building envelope. On the other hand, high levels of airtightness can be the cause of poor indoor air quality due to inadequate ventilation. Energy savings and ensuring the quality of the indoor environment are two confronting requirements of the current construction. The airtightness can be defined as a resistance of the construction to infiltr...

This study outlines the solution to the problem caused by too large numbers of hiking tourists and skiers walking on top of the Kasprowy Wierch Mountain in the Tatra National Park, between three ski stations (one cable car and two chairlifts). Their choice of route is limited mostly due to a large difference in altitude between the top chairlift station on the Gasienicowa Glade and two other ski stations. To improve the conditions in the area of those ski stations a solution was sought that would permit an easy pa...

The increasing number of cars contributes to the degradation of human living space. This phenomenon affects both urban as well as residential areas. The communication system of housing estates made in the second half of the twentieth century in Poland was not designed for such a large number of cars that it has to handle today. Many factors influenced the present appearance of the prefabricated multi-family houses. First of all the obligatory standards, which assumed nearly ten times smaller parking rate than we a...

Currently, a great emphasis is put on the environment, energy intensity, and therefore on applications of the renewable energy sources (RES). Putting a large amount of RES into the modern distribution systems represents certain problems we can address, inter alia, the variable energy outputs of RES aggregated together, including their accumulation managed by respective energy management system (EMS). The result may be the optimization unit commitment of RES distributed in the micro-grids of a fictitious intelligen...

The contemporary construction, both new buildings and renovations, is characterized by the low air permeability of the building envelope. The high airtightness of the building envelopes reflects current energy-saving trends. However, saving energy is a contrast with hygienic conditions (supply of fresh air). The well-being of occupants is defined by the interaction of the physical, chemical and biological components of the internal environment of buildings. The basic factors of indoor air quality are indoor air te...

All decisions made would always rely on good, timely, and correct data. Usage of BIM models in terms of Building Information Management can support all decision through data gathering, sharing, and using across all disciplines and all Life Cycle steps. It particularly significantly improves possibilities and level of life cycle costing. Experience and knowledge stored in data models of BIM, describing user requirements, best practices derived from other projects and/or research outputs will help to understand sust...

The present paper analyzes - from the point of view of the energy consumption - a residential building in Romania, of usual construction, in order to fit it into the energy certification grid for heating [1]. The study was conducted for 8 thermal insulation variants with a thickness between 5 and 40 cm, each in 3 ventilation cases, in a total of 24 cases [2]. In order to determine the energy performance of the building, the CIMPSPAT expert calculation program was used [9], with the high-precision numerical method ...

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. The increasing impact of natural disasters over recent decades has been well documented. This paper explores the possibilities of architectural design to benefit human condition, which encompasses physical environment of a safe life during the climate change era and predicted disasters. The first part deals with the problem of natural disasters and hazards during the climate change era and as a results human beings reacting to them. The s...

In many practical cases a composite column can be made-up as completely encased section or a concrete- filled section. In case of the composite steel-concrete members, the mechanism by which shear stresses can be transferred over the interface between the structural steel component and the encased concrete are adhesion, interface interlocking and friction, which are referred to as the natural bond. If the natural bond is not enough to achieve the required shear resistance there is the possibility of using mechanic...

Energy efficiency, in building industry, is one of the most important criteria for the selection of the material, the type of construction or the technology of construction. Not only is the amount of energy consumed by the building during its use is taken into account. The amount of energy needed to extract, process all materials used in it, the consumption during construction process and after it, energy expenditure on demolition or the reuse of preserved components are also important. Prefabrication is a process...

Historic military complexes form a separate typological genre, with unique hieratic site plans, stately yet austere stylistics and a multiplex functional program. They form a significant portion of historic landscape in garrison towns, as both material and immaterial heritage. It is essential, that as many of the complexes as possible are preserved to serve as historic links for future generations. Luckily, their innate characteristics predispose them to adaptations for diverse purposes once demilitarized. The pap...

The majority Hungarian higher educational institutions provide residences for students, but the regulatory framework does not provide guidelines for planning processes nor the design and engineering of university residences, including a quality-perceptual evaluation conducted directly by the future users and focused on the projectпїЅs quality. The assessment of the quality of a university residence project would be a key element to check the results of the project proposal with reference to the needs expressed by ...

Wildlife crossings are structures that allow animals to cross human-made barriers safely. Wildlife overpasses are the reverse of most conventional bridges in terms of structural engineering, and this has implications for how they are designed. The Environmental Protection concerns mainly the fauna, because the development of communication and the construction of new transport routes has been increasingly fragmenting the natural environment. To fix the errors, arising from the fragmentation of the natural environme...

Woody species play an important role in peopleпїЅs life: improving air quality, managing storm water, have an aesthetic impact and provide a calming setting for recreation. The study examines the diversity and distribution of woody species in a settlement located very close to one of the most important cities, which are situated in the west part of Romania - Timisoara (city of gardens and parks). The analysis of trees and shrubs diversity highlights a number of 1945 broadleaves and coniferous trees, 3163 fruit tre...

Sustainable architecture has always been associated with solar and low-energy objects using natural energy at various stages of their life cycle. The developmental morphology of the buildings influences the urban spatial structure of different scales (city, district, housing estate, quarter, building). Its analysis, which is generally extended to the nearest surroundings and the interior space of buildings, draws attention to the relationship between the energy intensity of buildings and the urban context, which a...

The global environmental challenges solution, such as climate change and natural resources scarcity, they are part of innovation policy, where the eco-innovation plays an important role. The OECD Green Growth Strategy recommends that green growth policies should encourage innovation, as this can enhance efficiency in the use of natural capital and foster new economic opportunities from the emergence of new green activities. The European Union has begun to track the eco-innovation performance of Member States in 20...

Currently, 50% of the world's population lives in cities. It is expected that by 2030 the share of urban residents will increase to 60%, and in 2070 the total area of the urbanized area will reach 19 million km2. Relations between the urban environment and the resident of the city are multifaceted and complex. Requirements for the organization of life in the city, its comfort and convenience are constantly rising. Modern architecture should take into account all the parameters of a comfortable life of a person: en...

Worldwide there is a constant effort to reduce energy consumption in order to prevent the climate change by decreasing the gas emissions. Another major concern of the authorities is to preserve conventional energy sources by using energy from renewable sources. European laws promote the improvement of the energy performance of buildings, by considering the outdoor climatic and local conditions, without disregarding the indoor climate requirements (comfort). Starting with 31 December 2020, all new buildings should ...

Based on the environmental minimum criteria that have just been introduced in Italian legislation, new constructions should consider the environmental impact of used building products by calculating the degree of disassemblability and recyclability. How much will today's Italian buildings be disassembled? What is the degree of recyclability of the used materials? The paper introduces a new instrument, called environmental quantity survey which cares cost aspects but also those who will directly impact on the envir...

In the last twenty years Timisoara proved to be one of the main development centers of Romania, and became the most important economic region in the western part of the country. As part of this evolution the neighbouring settlements of the city began to change, as they became part of a greater new urban system. At first, all initiatives came from the part of investors, mainly based in Timisoara, who were looking for cheap land surfaces for their future projects. Though new investments represented great possibiliti...

The article defines the subject of facility management and its possible application in the operation of water supply networks. The operation of structures for water supply is not a simple matter, and it is tied down with the responsibility to guarantee trouble-free and safe operation with limited financial means. Reliability, Facility Management and water supply networks are supported by Czech technical standards. We are going to include some of them, as well as some important concepts, terms, and links of Facilit...

This paper proposes a mooring location for sport and leisure boats - a solution for the green arrangement of the lower Danube seafront in Galati. Boating along the Danube is a tourist itinerary which is included in the visit program for foreign delegations that arrive in the city. The proposed mooring site is a fixed green construction consisting of a metallic platform that rests on a beamed beam structure, anchored in the bank, which contributes, through its design, to the green arrangement of the lower cliff and...