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With the rapid development of urban underground space, the depth of working shaft has been gradually becoming deeper to accommodate the underground construction needs. The existing studies for earth pressure distribution of shafts are mainly focused on sandy soils within 30 m. There is a strong need to investigate the earth pressure distribution on deep shafts (more than 30 m) in complicated soil conditions using centrifuge modelling to fill the knowledge gap and provide experimental basis for design. In this paper, geotechnical centrifuge modelling was used to investigate the earth pressure distribution along deep circular shaft structures (with a depth of 100 m) in composite geological strata. Three centrifuge tests on model shafts in layered ground with different thickness of clay and sand were carried out, respectively. Drainage method was used in the experiment to simulate the unloading effect caused by excavation of soils inside the shaft model. The earth pressure distributions along the shaft lining before and after the excavation were investigated. The results were analysed and compared with other existing earth pressure theories. This research provides valuable insights for earth pressure distribution for design of circular deep shafts (e.g. 100 m) in composite geological strata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating the spatio-temporal profile of a building's construction using high-resolution satellite images is a critical problem since it can be utilized for a variety of data-driven urban initiatives. One strategy to achieve this is to extract building footprints and track them in multi-temporal data as observed in SpaceNet's Challenges. Although several unique solutions have been presented for this problem, this task can become extremely difficult for partially obscured buildings with densely overlapping boundaries, such as those found in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan. Consequently, in this paper we propose a framework to address this problem by merging built-up area segmentation with digital maps. In the first step, satellite image is passed to a deep learning model that predicts segmentation masks over the built-up area following which building construction profiles are generated by overlaying digital maps over these predicted masks. We compare the results with ground truth profiles and our results show that the proposed method extracts building counts and construction profiles with an accuracy of 95%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shifting from an individual vision to a community vision, also in the field of buildings, is a great challenge of our times. Notably, the deployment of energy district/community concepts is crucial to enable the energy transition with a view to sustainable urban growth. In this regard, the optimal combination of building design/retrofit, renewables, and energy storage systems, is challenging and crucial to achieve the net-zero energy district (n-ZED) and ZED targets. The latter is more stringent because it means an energy-independent district, without the need of energy from the grid. To understand how to achieve such ambitious targets, this paper addresses a real case study, i.e., a small building stock in Monterusciello (suburb of Naples, coastline, Southern Italy), composed of 29 residential buildings with poor energy performance as concerns both envelopes and systems. A comprehensive optimization approach is implemented to drive the energy transition of the stock to a community to minimize energy consumption and related environmental footprint. Accordingly, sundry scenarios are investigated to provide guidelines about different strategies to reach the n-ZED and ZED targets, including full-roof photovoltaic systems, efficient reversible heat pumps, refurbishment of building envelopes, and energy storage systems, i.e., batteries and compressed air energy storage, considering different size. Energy is shared by the buildings creating a community. The energy retrofit of the district is investigated in order to find different solutions to achieve n-ZED and ZED performance, using EnergyPlus as simulation tool and MATLAB® as optimization engine. The optimal solutions are compared to a traditional individual vision addressing the retrofit of each single building without shared energy and plants. Results show that sharing energy can be a powerful tool - if combined with optimization - enabling a more significant reduction of building environmental footprint compared to standard retrofit approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the urban renewal and development, the urban living environment has given rise to various problems that need to be solved. With an eye on the future development model of residential communities, an experimental preliminary design for the construction of architectural space, public space, and landscape space based on people's actual needs is carried out in an attempt to alleviate the more urgent symbiotic relationship between people and urban environment. To this end, this paper proposes a planning and design generation framework for the constructed external spatial environment of building groups based on a recursive double-adversarial network model. Firstly, we extract the features of the constructed external spatial environment of the building group in depth and generate the expression feature map, which is used as a supervisory signal to generate an expression seed image of the constructed external spatial environment of the building group; then we use the generated seed image together with the constructed external spatial environment of the original target building group as the input to generate a feature-holding image as the output of the current frame, and the feature-holding image is also used as the input for the next. Finally, the seed image generation network and the feature-holding image generation network are recursively used to generate the next frame, and the video sequence of the expressions of the constructed external spatial environment of the building group with the same feature-holding expressions as the original input is recursively obtained several times. The experimental results on the building group database show that the proposed method can generate clear and natural video frames of the constructed external spatial environment of the building group, which can be gradually derived from the design of building units to the construction of the building group and penetrate into the planning and design of the external spatial environment in order to comprehensively improve the living environment of urban population and provide a design method and theoretical support for the design of future urban residential communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Focus on the optimal scale of urban green space. • Comprehensively considering the ecological and socioeconomic benefits of urban green space and constructing an evaluation index system. • Calculating the optimal scale of urban green space in Xi'an under different benefit conditions. • Providing new perspectives and references for the future construction of Park Citiy and urban green space system planning. With the acceleration of urbanization in China, urban problems have become increasingly serious, and have led to the concept of the Park City. This concept involves a consideration of the comprehensive value of green space in order to give full play to the maximum benefit of that green space and, thus, realize the sustainable development of the city. Therefore, an exploration of the optimal scale of urban green space will have theoretical and practical significance for the construction of the Park City and the rational allocation of urban land resources. Taking Xi'an as an example, the present paper comprehensively considers the socioeconomic and ecological benefits of urban green space, and calculates its optimal scale. The results indicate that: (i) in terms of the socioeconomic benefits alone, the per capita amount of green area in Xi'an needs to be larger than 11.08 m2, and there is no theoretical optimal size; (ii) in terms of ecological benefits alone, the per capita amount of green area in Xi'an needs to be greater than 22.98 m2; (iii) in terms of the combined socioeconomic and ecological benefits, the per capita amount of green area of Xi'an needs to be greater than 24.89 m2; (iv) the optimal scale for any city is more siginficantly impacted by the ecological effects than by the socioeconomic effects; (v) to satisfy the development and construction needs of various cities, with their individual characteristics, the optimal urban green space scale should be explored according to the target city's developmental stage and land use situation. The methods and results of the present study are intended to provide a reference for the future construction of Park Cities in China, as well as the planning of green space systems in other cities globally, and to open new prospects for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land subsidence is a common geological hazard. Rapid urban expansion has led to different degrees of ground subsidence within Wuhan in the past few years. The novel coronavirus outbreak in 2020 has seriously impacted urban construction and people's lives in Wuhan. Land subsidence in Wuhan has changed greatly with the resumption of work and production. We used 80 Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images covering Wuhan to obtain the land subsidence change information of Wuhan from July 2017 to September 2021 by using the small baseline subset interferometric SAR technique. Results show that the subsidence in Wuhan is uneven and concentrated in a few areas, and the maximum subsidence rate reached 57 mm/yr during the study period. Compared with land deformation before 2017, the land subsidence in Wuhan is more obvious after 2020. The most severe area of subsidence is located near Qingling in Hongshan District, with a maximum accumulated subsidence of 90 mm, and obvious subsidence funnels are observed in Qiaokou, Jiangan, Wuchang and Qingshan Districts. The location of subsidence centers in Wuhan is associated with building intensity, and most of the subsidence funnels are formed in connection with urban subway construction and building construction. Carbonate belt and soft ground cover areas are more likely to lead to karst collapse and land subsidence phenomena. Seasonal changes are observed in the land subsidence in Wuhan. A large amount of rainfall can replenish groundwater resources and reduce the rate of land subsidence. The change in water level in the Yangtze River has a certain impact on the land subsidence along the rivers in Wuhan, but the overall impact is small. An obvious uplift is observed in Caidian District in the south of Wuhan, and the reason may be related to the physical and chemical expansion effects of the expansive clay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While being a significant part of the urban development, construction projects disturb different stakeholders in various ways. There are three problems associated with construction disturbances: (i) most of these disturbances are not recognised by the people causing them, (ii) they are not monitored and (iii) if they are to be monitored, data is spread among stakeholders. This paper defines what a disturbance is, presents a list of disturbances, linking disturbances to stakeholders and, categorising them based on their distance from construction sites (responding to (i)). Next, a IoT domain model is developed, demonstrating how IoT in construction needs to be combined with the sensors of smart cities to capture the primitives of these disturbances (responding to (iii)). This is a first step towards enabling large-scale data-gathering of construction transport disturbances (responding to (ii)), which is a necessity to predict them and allow better construction transport planning to decrease disturbances. • Defines and categorise construction transport based on their distance from construction sites • Presents an empirically identified list of disturbances linked to different stakeholders • Develops an IoT domain model combining IoT in construction with the sensors of smart cities • With the IoT domain model systematically connect data, their sources and owners with disturbances • Guidelines enabling large-scale data-gathering of construction transport disturbances [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The obvious manifestation of urban development is the integrated development of urban architectural design and construction. The environmental protection of green building design and construction has become an important link that cannot be ignored in the process of urban green development. Green building materials, green design, and other environmentally friendly building programs are the subjective manifestations of the implementation of the green development concept. However, the degree of environmental protection is still a black box that needs to be explored urgently. To explore the environmental pollution caused by urban architectural design and construction in the process of urban development, an evaluation model of urban architectural design and construction on environmental pollution was constructed. The first-level evaluation indicators include ecology, natural, and social environments, of which the corresponding secondary indicators mainly include noise, water, and air pollution and other 12 indicators. The weights of the evaluation indicators at all levels were calculated using the expert evaluation method, and the weighting method was then combined to evaluate the pollution. Results show that the main sources of environmental pollution caused by urban building design and construction are solid waste pollution and traffic congestion rather than traditional noise and air pollution. Noise and air pollution are effectively controlled in the construction process. The evaluation system provides further directions for improvement in the prevention and control of environmental pollution in building construction and provides a reference for effective improvement of environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately by the year 2030, 40% of population of a country will be urbanised. This indicates a tremendous opportunity in sector of constructing units for fulfilling Residential as well as commercial requirements. Construction activity takes place on land, it must be noted that land solely is not responsible. There are various regulations which affect the extent to which construction/land utilization can takes place. The two most significant factors which affects utilization of land are Zoning and Development Control regulation. Zoning will broadly determine land use while DCR varies depending on size of plot, height achieved by a construction activity and purpose for which it is being used. Development plan determines zone in which a land will be lying (i.e., from Macroscopic point of view), it determines the activity permitted and largely the FSI allotted for each zone. While General Development Control Regulation (GDCR) gives detailed structure regarding permitted activities for the land as well as minimum area of construction depending on its typology. In addition to its height as well as margin depends on factors like Road length and surrounding structure. Using the buildable area of a plot, the total built-up area in a city can be calculated based on the FSI provided in various zones that helps in providing sufficient infrastructure for the future It also gives an estimate on how much land needs to be opened up in future to accommodate the future population Study focuses on developing a Geospatial solution which can incorporate all these factors when a particular construction activity needs to be conducted. By obtaining buildable are one can forecast various infrastructural elements which needs to be implant along with various emergency provision of Fire Safety and Identify the Roof tops to fixed up the Solar penal, develop a public utility, other such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapidly urbanizing areas are challenged by a lack of information on urban growth in many parts of the earth. As the speed of building construction often exceeds traditional surveying methods, remote sensing can serve as a valuable input for the monitoring of urbanization processes. This study investigates changes in DaNang, Vietnam, between 2015 and 2017 identified based on photogrammetric analysis of surface elevations retrieved from Pléiades very high-resolution imagery. In contrast to traditional post-classification change detection approaches, we propose a time-efficient method solely based on digital surface model differencing to identify newly constructed buildings as well as demolitions. It is therefore easy to apply and suitable for the continuation of outdated base data available to local authorities. High importance is addressed to the vertical matching of both surface models to avoid misdetections. After differencing these surface elevations, thresholds based on field measurements are applied to identify areas of change. A total of 10,800 changes were detected between 2015 and 2017, of which 8,531 were to newly constructed buildings. The study proves that changes in rapidly urbanizing agglomerations can be reliably identified by a simple and transparent approach by using elevation changes and expert-based knowledge on floor numbers and building heights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of this research was to assess the development potential of cities and municipalities in Wałbrzych County, approached from the perspective of social, economic and environmental potential. Comparisons were performed for the periods 2002–2004 and 2016–2018. The following problem questions were formulated in the study: Which strategic goals can currently act as incentives for taking action in the analysed post-industrial areas, and for which ones should development be particularly strengthened? What development direction should be taken by individual municipalities in Wałbrzych County? The research covering the development potential of the municipalities was conducted using the multidimensional analysis method, and the similarities in municipal potential were analysed taking into account a comparison of distances between individual diagnostic variables. Among the analysed municipalities, in terms of social, economic and environmental potential, Szczawno-Zdrój and Czarny Bór achieved the best results, and Boguszów Gorce ranked the worst. In some municipalities, a noticeable increase in social potential (Jedlina-Zdrój, Mieroszów, Walim) or economic potential (Jedlina-Zdrój) was observed, and a significant decline in economic potential in Stare Bogaczowice was seen. As a result of the research, the following was established: the policies of municipal authorities have to focus on improving the living conditions of residents; the crucial factors are opening new jobs, providing appropriate living conditions and services and offering diverse sports and tourism options. Efforts should be made to take advantage of the inherent potential in the area, also by highlighting the preserved post-industrial buildings and constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]