This research explores the capacity of emerging technologies to enhance well-being. It involves the generation of 2D biophilically-driven geometries to represent human-response-oriented built environments and conducts inter and intra-individual analyses to assess human responses using a range of technologies within the realms of facial micro-expression analysis and EEG biosensor use. The outcomes of this analysis allow for the grading of these geometries in terms of emotional valences, meditation levels, and subjective preferences. These graded geometries can subsequently be employed in specific architectural contexts, such as interior decor, wallpapers, furniture surfaces, or other architectural and interior components. It is an interdisciplinary effort that underscores the importance of incorporating emerging technological means with human-response-oriented design approaches to foster built environments that promote well-being.

The climate crisis disproportionately impacts disabled people. Yet climate-related advocacy, planning, and policymaking often neglect to thoughtfully include disabled people. Responding to this gap, disabled and neurodivergent environmental activists coined the term eco-ableism to describe discrimination and silencing toward disabled and neurodivergent people (i.e., ableism) arising in environmental spaces (i.e., eco-ableism). Relatedly, building operations and construction practices contribute a significant percentage of global, energy-related CO₂ emissions annually, which calls into question the relationships between the impending climate crisis, disability justice, and architecture. Climate-specific, natural building materials and methods present a potential pathway toward a more sustainable built future: low-carbon, locally sourced, minimally processed, and nontoxic materials. Despite a critical overlap, there is little published research on material access in the production phase and human access in the occupation phase of natural buildings. Applying eco-ableism and material circularity in an architectural framework, this research aims to investigate the gaps and possibilities of access, natural material applications, and resulting US natural buildings informed by scholarship in critical disability studies and semi-structured interviews with natural building professionals.

This study is a digital form-finding and manual fabrication experiment in woven architectural design, with one traditional weaving style, Kagome, used to scale the craft up into an architectural-scale bamboo woven artifact. Kagome is a trihexagonal pattern employed in traditional bamboo basketry as a triaxial weaving system, resulting in an object with a self-bracing capacity without the use of fasteners owing to its interlacing lattices. Although existing studies and tools have addressed triaxial weaving design and representation, the current consideration of the advantages of weaving with bamboo is insufficient. To address this research gap, this study develops a computational design method based on studies on bamboo basketry. This allows for the representation and exploration of design geometries using combinations of regular triangular meshes for the fabrication of Kagome woven bamboo artifacts. A full-scale mock-up was fabricated to evaluate the effectiveness of the method. The mock-up demonstrated the self-bracing properties of Kagome, but there were discrepancies between the mock-up and the design. Factors affecting bamboo weaving on an architectural scale have been identified within this study to inform future research on woven bamboo structures.

This paper presents an analytical framework for evaluating the impact of the two main processes identified in Madrid timber-framed courtyard buildings reinforcing the courtyard's crucial role in architectural heritage sustainability: their development caused dwellings to darken (1737–1950), and the existing challenge is to open new patios according to the listed buildings' protection policy.Critical findings in archival research and existing building assessments led to completed data collection and analysis. When exploring construction expansion, from the house towards the collective prototype around a gradually reduced patio and dwelling darkening (1737–1786), buildings resulted in open, semiopen, underlighted and closed designs. Study area on-site assessment uncovered the transition from the older low-rise type (1–3) floors to the modern closed model of up to (4–6) storeys.Construction enlargements, consequently reducing original green areas and courtyards, call for reversing that process or formulating a new strategy. It debates the partial demolition of listed buildings in upgrades and its agreement with the needed “blue courtyard” strategy (PGOUM), resulting from joining new rear individual patios to create a communal building block courtyard. The uncovered “in-between” type (1864), which integrates two open-air collective spaces, an inner courtyard and a back garden, appears challenging to explore.

Stakeholder satisfaction is an important factor in determining the success of urban heritage conservation projects. This research attempts to propose a model for assessing stakeholder satisfaction and project significant factors that need to be considered when determining the performance of a conservation project, taking the Thiruvananthapuram Fort Area, India as a case example. The study employed a mixed-method approach of using expert consultations, physical surveys, and statistical analysis in the development of the model. Factors influencing the outcome of an urban heritage conservation project were listed from the literature and further refined through expert discussions to be utilized for the stakeholder survey. A questionnaire survey is administered within a heritage-sensitive urban area to identify the present state of heritage buildings and the living conditions of the stakeholders pertaining to the six aspects that determine the outcome of an urban heritage conservation project. The overall satisfaction of the stakeholder group was modelled using ordinal logistic regression against the various factors to arrive at factors that positively and negatively influenced them. The model assessed that the satisfaction of the stakeholders who were a part of the historic site was highly influenced by their economic needs and the project's economic sustainability over other factors in the model. Urban economy consolidation, a known mechanism of improving an area's economic sustainability negatively affected the stakeholders' satisfaction. The results indicate that the factors under the social aspect were not significant determinants for the stakeholders of this urban heritage conservation project. The methodology developed in this study can aid researchers and planners in identifying factors determining the outcome of an urban heritage conservation project while planning for development within a heritage-sensitive urban area.

This paper, set against the backdrop of expanding urban rail networks and dynamic urban development, focuses on the distribution and evolution of commercial Points of Interests (POIs) within the central urban rail transit areas of Beijing. The study examines data from four different years—2008, 2013, 2017, and 2020—to observe the temporal evolution of commercial entities. It identifies stable explanatory variables affecting the distribution and evolution of commercial POIs, which include rail transit accessibility, characteristics of the working and residential population distribution around stations, and the construction intensity in the vicinity of station areas. Through statistical analysis and model building, relatively stable linear regression equations were established, with R² values generally maintained above 0.5 (except for 2017). The study advances our understanding of the influence of rail transit on urban commercial spaces and how this influence shifts with temporal and urban developmental changes. It elucidates the correlation between changes in the number of businesses and spatial configuration, offering insights and information for urban planners and policy makers. This research also serves as a model for exploring the interplay between urban rail transit and commercial spaces in other major cities.

As an important element of urban renewal in highly urbanized areas, pocket parks with small size, flexible layout and daily accessibility are becoming a major component of green infrastructure and the mainstay of outdoor recreation space expansion in high-density urban centers. Nevertheless, the absence of a comprehensive framework for evaluating the potential of pocket park construction (PPC), one that integrates diverse influencing factors on a macro scale, has resulted in the random installation of such spaces, often failing to optimize the utilization of urban land. Addressing this critical lacuna, we propose an approach to evaluate PPC potential from a city-scale perspective, which is used to support the determination of which land units should be prioritized for PPC. A complete and feasible workflow was also established to identify potential land units, construct an index system for PPC combining demand and supply levels, quantitatively calculate indices based on remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS), accurately evaluate PPC potential using an entropy-weighted TOPSIS model, and develop targeted renewal strategies. A case study in Dalian, China, demonstrated the applicability and implications of the workflow. The results showed that it is flexible and easy to adapt to different local contexts, allowing evaluators to introduce parameters considering the availability of local data, and will help decision makers to build pocket parks in the most effective plots, providing a strong reference for high-quality development in other high-density urban centers facing the contradiction between ecological construction and land scarcity.

This paper discussed the selection criteria for Ordinary Urban Heritage (OUH) in Rattanakosin, the historic center of Bangkok through the case of ordinary restaurants and everyday foods. The OUH stands for an alternative approach to heritage understanding and conservation, derived from the notion of ordinary heritage, vernacular heritage, and urban heritage emphasizing the heritages of the everydayness of ordinary people. The OUHs have co-existed and inherited through the evolution of the city but are overlooked by the official conservation process. Ordinary restaurants and everyday foods were selected by 5 criteria, 1) appeared for more than 50 years; 2) created, developed, and used by ordinary people; 3) found as the clusters; 4) able to be adapted to the urban context; 5) exist until the present day.The methodology applied to the analysis of the historical documents and Bangkok maps from 1887 to 1974, and the selection criteria developed from past research in another old commercial district of Bangkok were also reinvestigated with observational surveys. Ordinary restaurants and everyday foods are the outcomes representing the heritage of everyday life of ordinary people that are ubiquitously related to commercial activities.

The Isfahani style represents a method of traditional Iranian architecture and urban development that existed in the early 20th century and is regarded as a leading model in most traditional Iranian cities. It exhibits several vigorous features contributing to its recognition as a traditional approach to sustainable architecture and urban development. This research endeavors to reveal a theoretical framework beneath these inspiring aspects using the typology of sustainable modern forms, including the hierarchy, passive design strategies, compactness, density, diversity, mixed land use, pluralism, balance, good composition, and integration over time. To this end, the study employs qualitative research methods, drawing from traditional samples, to identify innovative, energy and socially efficient, and low-impact strategies implemented in this vernacular architecture of Iran's semi-arid and hot climates. The findings revealed that the neighborhood concept as a local and plural community (Mahalla) was a vital phenomenon in Iran's urban development. Apparently, the demise of this paradigm effectively played an important role in the numerous challenges regarding the social, energy, and economic viability of modern Iranian cities. Hence, this study presented theoretical frameworks—aligned with sustainable concepts—from the Isfahani style through its analysis, classification, and interpretation, which can contribute to modern urban development.

In today's world, various approaches and parameters exist for designing a plan and determining its spatial, placement. Hence, various modes for identifying crucial locations can be explored when an architectural plan is designed in different dimensions. While designing all these modes takes considerable time, there are numerous potential applications for artificial intelligence (AI) in this domain. This study aims to compute and use an adjacency matrix to generate architectural residential plans. Additionally, it develops a plan generation algorithm in Rhinoceros software, utilizing the Grasshopper plugin to create a dataset of architectural plans. In the following step, the data was entered into a neural network to identify the architectural plan's type, furniture, icons, and use of spaces, which was achieved using YOLOv4, EfficientDet, YOLOv5, DetectoRS, and RetinaNet. The algorithm's execution, testing, and training were conducted using Darknet and PyTorch. The research dataset comprises 12,000 plans, with 70% employed in the training phase and 30% in the testing phase. The network was appropriately trained practically and precisely in relation to an average precision (AP) resulting of 91.50%. After detecting the types of space use, the main research algorithm has been designed and coded, which includes determining the adjacency matrix of architectural plan spaces in seven stages. All research processes were conducted in Python, including dataset preparation, network object detection, and adjacency matrix algorithm design. Finally, the adjacency matrix is given to the input of the proposed plan generator network, which consequently, based on the resulting adjacency, obtains different placement modes for spaces and furniture.

Formulating criteria for the assessment system of historic settlements is challenging due to complex geographical conditions and evaluator knowledge limitations, leading to subjective bias in the assessment process. To address this issue, this study proposes a data-driven method for assessing the features of historical settlements to carry out scientific and refined assessment and result analysis. Focusing on Northeast Hubei as the study area, this paper selects 3 historical settlements for validation and analysis. The results of the study show that (1) the data-driven method expands the methodological chain of assessing historical settlement features, and improves the assessment efficiency and scientificity of the assessment results by applying it to the new assessment process; (2) Through comparing the assessment results of the validation cases and data samples, the study establishes a comprehensive quantitative ranking of the assessment of historical settlement features and identifies the main influencing factors, thus enhancing the precision of result analysis; (3) By comparing the resulting assessment framework with the current assessment system, this study confirms the advantages of the proposed framework in identifying nuanced features and aligning with geographical conditions, thereby verifying the effectiveness of the data-driven method.

Chinese ice-ray (IR) lattices, known for their intricate and visually fascinating random patterns as decorative elements in traditional 18th-century Chinese window design, exhibit underlying stiffness as latticed window fences. Such unique patterns represent a new morphology within the family of stochastic lattices. However, the latent structural potential within the random patterns of ice-ray lattices remains largely unexplored, particularly in the context of lattice shell design. This study systematically studies the geometric qualities of ice-ray lattice patterns and develops an algorithm to model these patterns for ice-ray lattice shell design. Subsequently, it assesses the structural feasibility and effectiveness of these lattice shells in comparison to conventional gridshells. The practicality of constructing random lattice shells using digital fabrication tools is also explored. Employing fractal geometry as a foundational framework, this research not only offers insights into the potential of ice-ray lattices for innovative lattice shell design but also introduces a new structural morphology to the field, expanding the possibilities of incorporating stochastic patterns in lattice shell design. Ultimately, it opens up new opportunities for innovative lattice shell designs, emphasizing the potential of stochastic patterns in structural applications.