Matching housing supply and demand: an empirical study of Hong Kong's market

This paper has the objective of improving on the issue of forecasting new housing construction, and highlights differences between space demand and investment demand in housing markets. Further, it indicates how these differences will affect construction decisions. The first step is to identify the factors associated with estimating residential property prices in Hong Kong, based on a demand-supply adjustment process. Specifically, this study examines the role of population growth, transaction volume, inflation and interest rate in determining house prices. Second, based on these estimations, a methodology is developed to estimate the investment demand schedule and new construction of residential property.     

Theory and Practice in Metropolitan Strategy: Situating Recent Australian Planning

Over the last several years, metropolitan strategies have been produced for the five mainland state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The distinctive characteristics of Australian urban planning mean that they can be shown to reflect an Australian paradigm of planning. However, this paradigm is rewritten in different ways in each strategy reflecting the particular institutional circumstances and political culture of each state. In doing so there is some strong reaffirmation of this paradigm, but also indications of a more relational and transactive manner of planning adding further process to product. Here there is some resonance with recent developments in planning theory and to some extent in practice—largely in Europe.

     

Urban Development the Pattern and the Background; Concluding Discussion

When We Build Again. A Bournville Village Trust Research Publication. George Allen &; Unwin, Ltd., London, 1941. Pp. xii (16), 138.

Report Relative to Postwar Reconstruction in the City, Prepared by Improvements and Town Planning Committee, published by The Corporation of London, 1944, pp. 66 plus maps and photographs.

The Economic Status of the New York Metropolitan Region in 1944, by The Regional Plan Association, Inc., New York, 1944, xx, 91 pp.     

Government Subsidy for Housing in Great Britain

The Economic Reports of The President, January 1948, January 1947 and July 1947. With an Introduction by the Council of Economic Advisors. Reynal &; Hitchcock, New York. 307 plus xiv pages. $2.50.

The Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area. By The Joint Board for the Metropolitan Master Highway Plan, Charles A. Maguire &; Associates, De Leuw, Cather &; Co., and J. E. Greiner Co., Consultants, Boston. Feb. 1948. 121 pages and key maps.

A Critical Review of Research in Land Economics. By Leonard A. Salter, Jr. The University of Minnesota Press. 1948. 258 pages. $4.00.

Land Economics. By Roland R. Renne Harper and Brothers. 1947. 736 pages. $5.00.

The Redevelopment of Central Areas. The Ministry of Town and Country Planning. H. M. Stationery Office, London, 1947. 99 pages, illustrated in color. Obtainable in the U.S.A. through the British Information Services, Rockefeller Center, New York. $3.65.

Pierre Sur Pierre, Construction du Nouvel Urbanisme. By Gaston Bardet. Plans, photographs, diagrams. Editions L. C. B. Section Batiment, Paris, 1946-47. 290 pages.

Planificacion y Sociografia. By Dr. Miguel Figueroa Roman, Instituto de Sociografia, Colegio Libre de Estudios Su-periores, Tucuman, Argentina, 1946. 201 pages.     

Regenerative design,socio-ecological systems and co-evolution

A key notion in regenerative design is the co-evolutionary, partnered relationship between socio-cultural and ecological systems, which requires an explicit engagement with the implications and consequences of future design decisions. However, despite the extensive literature in other disciplines regarding the co-evolution of socio-cultural and ecological systems, this approach has yet to receive serious scrutiny within the context of the built environment and within the emerging notions of regenerative development and design. Drawing on an interdisciplinary body of literature, a discussion is initiated on how socio-cultural and ecological systems and their co-evolution might connect to the concept of regenerative design. Following a critique of a relevant example highlighting the current practice of regenerative design, the new building for the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, potentially relevant aspects of a socio-ecological system and of evolution theories are examined for the built environment. Several observations are presented on how these may offer a stronger theoretical framing of regenerative design, particularly the shifts in design thinking: from buildings as artefacts to their dynamic role in adaptive processes over time; widening the boundary focus of a building from its site to the neighbourhood.

Une notion clé du design régénérateur est la relation coévolutionnaire de partenariat entre les systèmes socioculturels et écologiques, ce qui nécessite un engagement explicite à l'égard des implications et des conséquences des futures décisions en matière de design. Cependant, malgré la vaste littérature existant dans les autres disciplines concernant la coévolution des systèmes socioculturels et écologiques, cette approche doit encore faire l'objet d'un examen sérieux dans le contexte de l'environnement bâti et sous l'angle des notions émergentes de développement et de design régénérateurs. En s'appuyant sur un corpus interdisciplinaire de publications, une discussion est amorcée sur la manière dont les systèmes socioculturels et écologiques et leur coévolution pourraient être reliés au concept de design régénérateur. Après une critique portant sur un exemple pertinent mettant en évidence les pratiques actuelles du design régénérateur, le nouveau bâtiment du Centre de Recherche Interactive sur le Développement Durable de l'Université de Colombie Britannique, à Vancouver, sont examinés les aspects potentiellement pertinents d'un système socioécologique et des théories évolutionnistes, s'agissant de l'environnement bâti. Plusieurs observations sont présentées quant à la manière dont ceux-ci peuvent offrir un cadre théorique plus solide au design régénérateur, concernant en particulier les changements intervenant dans la façon de penser le design : des bâtiments envisagés en tant qu'artéfacts à leur rôle dynamique dans les processus adaptatifs au fil du temps, et un bâtiment dont les limites ne se focalisent plus sur son site, mais sont élargies à son quartier.

Mots clés: environnement bâti, coévolution, cadres conceptuels, évolution, design régénérateur, systèmes socioécologiques     

Building human agency: a timely manifesto

The 2009 Passive and Low Energy Architecture Conference (PLEA), held in Québec City, Canada, was themed ‘Architecture, Energy and the Occupant's Perspective’, with the ambition of positioning building inhabitants as key ‘active’ determinants of energy performance in ‘passive’ design through adaptive opportunities. Conference delegates committed to a Manifesto that embodied both the key longstanding priorities of PLEA and explicitly conveyed the priorities of the conference hosts. The Manifesto is examined in terms of how it captures and represents a shift in thinking that has occurred over the past few years, away from technological and technocratic solutions to comfort provisioning and towards reframing building energy consumption as a social and ethical challenge in which comfort plays a key role.

La Conférence 2009 sur l'Architecture Passive et Basse Energie (PLEA), qui s'est tenue à Québec, au Canada, avait pour thème « Architecture, Energie et la Perspective de l'Occupant », avec pour ambition de positionner les habitants d'immeubles comme principaux déterminants « actifs » de la performance énergétique dans un design « passif » par des opportunités d'adaptation. Les délégués de la conférence se sont engagés en faveur d'un Manifeste qui, tout à la fois, incarne les principales priorités qui sont depuis longtemps celles des Conférences PLEA et traduit explicitement les priorités des hôtes de la conférence. Cet article examine le Manifeste quant à la manière dont il appréhende et reflète le changement intervenu au cours de ces dernières années dans la manière de voir les choses, consistant à se détourner d'un confort fourni par des solutions technologiques et technocratiques et à aller dans le sens d'un recadrage de la consommation énergétique des immeubles considérée comme un défi social et éthique dans lequel le confort joue un rôle clé.

Mots clés: comportement adaptatif, agence, confort, fourniture du confort, qualité environnementale intérieure, habitants, manifeste, Conférence sur l'Architecture Passive et Basse Energie (PLEA)     

城市地下空间利用规划：进退两难

多年来，地下空间利用规划的重要性在学术意义上已经得到广泛的认同。然而．很少有城市真正编制了这样的规划并将其作为日常城市规划活动的一部分。本文回顾了城市地下空间规划时断时续的发展状况，并探讨了为什么它没有能够成为所有主要城市总体规划的一个正式部分。     

Transient adsorption studies of automotive hydrocarbon traps

A chromatographic adsorption unit was designed and built to study the adsorption of alkanes in zeolites for the hydrocarbon trap systems in three‐way catalysts, to assist in the selection of optimal materials for this application. The experimental apparatus used a zeolite bed in place of the column in an ordinary gas chromatograph and could be accurately modeled to determine the adsorption equilibrium constants for simple alkanes in MFI zeolites. The adsorption of iso‐pentane was studied in BEA zeolites with varying Si/Al₂ ratios, before and after ex situ zeolite aging simulating engine exhaust, and in the presence of water vapor. The elution times were shown to depend directly on the zeolite adsorption capacity. The primary effect of water was to decrease the iso‐pentane adsorption capacity by partial filling of the zeolite pores through adsorption of water at acid sites. Some implications of this work for choosing the best materials for hydrocarbon trapping are discussed. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2875–2881, 2014