Challenges of Structure in Today＇s Architectural,Economic and Social Context

The recent establishment of a digital culture and society, together with current financial crisis and urgent energetic and climatic needs, has radically changed the architectural scene from the optimism of some years ago to a situation of uncertainty and huge social demands and challenges. In this context, it is suggested to rethink the role of structure in architecture, such as an enabler, a guide and a catalyst. The purpose of this paper is to present the economic, cultural and social context in which architecture develops nowadays. The method, to suggest a discussion on which role the structure may adopt in the architecture to come. The achievement, to highlight its potential to face current requirements and challenges.     

Informal Settlements： A Shape Grammar Approach

Informal urban development is seldomly covered in academic studies or professional architectural training. This article sets forth the first stage of a novel study that observes the informal city using the methodology of analysis of architecture called shape grammars. The idea is to recognize peculiarities in the occupation of the land and the volumetric features of the buildings. Rocinha favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is taken as a case study with the primary aim of extrapolating a set of rules for its morphological features so that these rules can be used to generate new shapes, whilst bearing in mind the issues of adaptation and transformation which are so characteristic of informal settlements. There is some expectation that this study may help improve the housing and public space in the favela and enable new housing programs to observe the way the buildings and different architectural elements combined, forming a new channel of interchange with the spatial organization of the favela.     

Planning Methods Considering Social Transition:A Study on Urban Community Space

The study of urban planning has been expanded from physical to economic and social dimensions these years.This paper introduces a study on community space based on the achievements of multiple disciplines,especially social studies,and puts forward the method of community-oriented design.     

Evolution Characteristics of the Ecological Space Network of Resource-Based Cities: A Case Study on Xuzhou

The territorial and spatial planning is an essential tool for ecological civilization construction in spatial development and urban governance. Since ecological space has been an important part of the territorial and spatial planning, this study established a spatial structural pattern of "ecological source-ecological corridor-ecological node" along with methods including landscape connectivity analysis and ecological resistance surface analysis. Taking the ecological space of Xuzhou City, a typical resource-based city, as a case study, this research analyzed the ecological spatial network structure and evaluated the evolution characteristics before judging the breadth threshold value of the ecological corridor and providing planning control strategy. The study found that since the urbanization of Xuzhou City resumed its growth, the quantity of ecological sources, corridors, and nodes have grown along. The resistance of the ecological corridor increases year by year, with the proper breadth threshold value around 100 – 200 m. The development of an ecological network structure shows a single-polarization evolution characteristic that is high quality and high resistance.     

Effect of Curing Temperature on Mortar Based on Sustainable Concrete Material＇s and Poly-Carboxylate Superplasticizer

Nowadays, technologies in construction field have offered several kinds of chemical admixtures, which offer different behaviors at the fresh state of the batch and by consequence, it is resulted with different mechanical behaviors at the solid state of the mix. This study focused on the behavior of a new kind of admixture at fresh and solid states. Currently, the concrete material has become a very expensive material because the high price mostly of aggregates, representing the three quarters of the concrete components. By consequence, it costs money and on the other hand, it produces a lot of wastes. The main aspect which guides this study is to make a kind of concrete based mainly on local material and sustainable concrete material （SCM or waste material）, which is one very abundant material in quality and quantity, under the current tendency the results obtained in this study summarize up the importance of the temperature during the development of the mechanical characteristics of mortar, mainly on compressive strength at age of 28 days. This is in the case of the addition of limestone crushed additive by percentage of substitution.     

Comparison of methodologies for generation of future weather data for building thermal energy simulation

In the last decade,building energy simulation( BES)became a central component in building energy systems' design and optimization. For each building location,BES requires one year of hourly weather data. Most buildings are designed to last50 + years,consequently,the building design phase should include BES with future weather files considering climate change.This paper presents a comparative study of two methods to produce future climate hourly data files for BES: Morphing and typical meteorological year of future climate( F-TMY). The study uses data from a high-resolution( 9 km) regional climate atmospheric model simulation of Iberia,spanning 10 years of historical and future hourly data. This study compares both methods by analyzing anomalies in air temperature,and the impact in BES predictions of annual and peak energy consumption for space heating, cooling and ventilation in 4 buildings.Additionally, this study performs a sensitivity analysis of morphing method. The analysis shows that F-TMY is representative of the multi-year simulation for BES applications.A high-quality Morphed TMY weather file has a similar performance compared to F-TMY( average difference: 8% versus 7%). Morphing based on different baseline climates,low-grid resolution and/or outdated climate projections leads to BES average differences of 16%～20%.     

The Fashion-Architecture＇s Theory： Reflecting Tribe Civilization into Contemporary Age

In megacities, the phenomenon of the highrise buildings which add fashion elements into the body and facades seems as big sculptures. Architect composed their work by applying the cross-pollination of design method. They adopted the various elements to enrich their building＇s facade in order to look different. On the other hand, the traditional architecture expressed the tribe civilization by placing their proud artifacts into the building＇s facade. The purpose of this study is to find a new theory of architecture during their process of becoming of the architecture＇s form. The study applied a phenomenological investigation method of several highrise building＇s facade at Jakarta and several districts of Singapore, Brisbane and Melbourne. The study result is a new theory named ＂the fashion-architecture＂ is a building composed by adopting the cross-pollination of design method. To enrich the building＇s facade, architect adopted anything including the fashion＇s design elements： accessories, millineries, and cosmetics also reflected by the traditional architecture. Their fashion-architecture works are reflecting the tribe civilization into a contemporary architecture design.     

Some Empirical Examples of Central Place Model in China

At the beginning of 1980s,the Central Place Theory was introduced into China from the West.The authors ofthis article are the initiators of applying this model to China's urban and regional planning as well as to the allocationof commercial activities.Since the commodity economy has been developing in China for thousands of years,most ofthe areas in eastern plains and inland basins of China show the spatial structure of typical central places scene.Duringsome six years,the authors participated in a lot of rural,urban and regional planning projects in which the spatialphenomena and relevant internal mechanism proved this model and its deformation.This paper gives only a few ex-amples of the application of central place theory in China:1.the distribution of rural markets,the empirical study isbased mainly on the situation in Shengfang town and its vicinal area;2.the spatial combination of urban systems,problems about city allocation in North China are emphasized;3.commercial centers in city and the network,a cru-cial study on commercial centers in city and the network,a crucial study on commercial distribution of themetropolis.Beijing is done by using central place model.     

The Forecast of the Targets for the Urban Housing for a Relatively Comfortable Standard of Living in China

To attain a relatively comfortable standard of living by year 200O is the strategic target ofChina＇s economic development.We should first make it clear what is the pattern and standard forhousing for a relatively comfortable. Through our study in the present housing conditions andthe life pattern in 2000.analysis of lowest area limit for one housing unit and macro-analysis ofhousing economy.and study on the inevitability of multiple and multi-level targets for housing ofrelatively comfortable standard of livng,as well as using the analysis of indexes for judging hous-ing conditions in other countries as reference.we set multiple and Mlti-level Targets for Housingfor a Relatively Comfortable Life and Use Them as Reference and Basis for Drafting the GeneralSystem of Housing for a Relatively Comfortable Life and for the Development of HousingProducts.