Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are seen as innovations that can manage complexities in construction by focusing on integrating processes and products respectively. Whereas these two innovations have been considered compatible, their practical combination has been mainly anecdotal. The Netherlands was the locale of this study, where both SCM and BIM have been popular approaches. The research objective is to explore their real-world combination and propos...

While the consideration of functional and technical criteria, as well as a sense of coherence are basic requirements for solving a design problem; it is the ability to induce an intended quality of aesthetic experience that is the hallmark of design expertise. Expert designers possess a highly developed sense of design, or what in this research is called aesthesis. Reflection on 25 years teaching design in the USA, Hungary, and China led to the observation that most successful design students...

The aim of this issue of A+BE is to create a deeper understanding of the current rise of co-housing in Europe, and what it could mean in urban policies addressing energy transition and climate change. Studying co-housing is timely because the residents' associations become 'prosumers'; uniting the supply (production) and demand (consumption) of energy, housing and services in their projects. As such, they are increasingly seen as partners in the co-creation and maintenance of urban space.

The...

Building industry impacts natural cycles and has potential for optimization. While impairment on nature reached a new dimension already some three centuries ago the building industry started to realize the dependency in the second half of the 20th century. With LCA method all life cycle phases can be monitored and the environmental impact of each can be quantified. The energy consuming and emission generating components in the building context can be distinguished in the groups transport, ope...

An understanding of cities as open systems whose agents act on them simultaneously from below and above, influencing urban processes by their interaction with them and with each other, is replacing the simplistic debate on urban participation which asks whether cities should be organized bottom-up or top-down. This conceptualization of cities as complex systems calls for new collaborative city-making methods: a combination of collaborative planning (which already embraces various agencies and...

Rapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades 
are having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis th...

Het doel van het Haagse Hitte-project is het beter begrijpen van stedelijke warmte in Den Haag om vandaaruit een verband te leggen met de kenmerken van de fysieke ruimte van de stad en de gezondheid van de Haagse bevolking, met als resultaat aanbevelingen voor acties. Die inzichten moeten de stad Den Haag en haar inwoners bewuster én weerbaarder maken ten aanzien van het Haagse warmte-eiland effect, hier ook wel Haagse hitte genoemd.

The traditional thematic realms of urban design, such as liveability, social interaction, and quality of urban life, considered to be closely related to urban form and specifically to public space, have long since been recognised as important, and have given the discipline a certain identity. The book Realms of Urban Design: Mapping Sustainability is certainly rooted in this fundamental urban design thinking, but its main contribution belongs to the second part of the book’s title – disco...

The purpose of this book is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). The papers published in this book show that the recent and current research in those institutions focuses on the directions of development of IUP, the processes that support sustainable use of natural resources and their application in the Western Balkan and some other European countries. Each essay aim...

Architectural firms can be regarded as creative professional service firms. As such, architects need to navigate creative, professional and commercial goals, while simultaneously attempting to fulfil client, user and societal needs. This complex process is becoming increasingly difficult, as the historically established role of architects has become more blurred, contested and heterogeneous. While attempting to reclaim their role or to take on new roles in collaborations with other actors, ar...