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In China, inner city regeneration will be a major challenge in the future. Most cities lack effective planning and management tools for the complicated problems in the inner city. This paper focuses on the planning practice for the inner city regeneration of Baise. This is an area with vibrant micro economic activities in residential buildings with insufficient infrastructure and poor living conditions. Within the framework of a Sino-German cooperation project, the planning team developed a comprehensive regeneration plan for the inner city. The overall concept aims at a sustainable and process-oriented regeneration. The plan emphasises strategies such as integrating the improvement of residents' living conditions with the conservation of the inner city historical image, improving public space and infrastructure, introducing public participation as well as adopting area-specific regeneration solutions. Baise is a case study for a change of the existing urban planning system to a more sustainable inner city regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to optimize the passive design of newly-built residential buildings in hot summer and cold winter region of China for improving indoor thermal comfort while reducing building energy demand. In this respect, this paper investigates the performance of a representative apartment building in the city of Shanghai and evaluates the optimum solutions by using a developed optimization approach, which includes three major steps of 1) setting the model for multi-objective optimization, 2) sensitivity analysis for reducing the dimension of input variables, and 3) multi-objective optimization by using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) coupled with the Artificial Neural Network (ANN), among which a novel indicator for evaluating the annual indoor thermal comfort of residential buildings of Shanghai named Comfort Time Ratio (CTR) is defined based on the modification of Szokolay’s theory in terms of bioclimatic analysis, and the impacts of passive design variables on the indoor thermal comfort and building energy demand in terms of different directions are comprehensively investigated. Results of the multi-objective optimization indicate that the residential buildings of Shanghai have a great potential in comfort-improvement and energy-saving. A series of novel optimal passive design tactics for residential buildings in Shanghai are derived accordingly which could be easily understood and conveniently carried out by the architects in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of people in China still live in rural villages. The indoor environment of these rural dwellings directly affects the quality of life of the occupants. Nevertheless, constrained by the quality of dwelling construction, rural buildings have poorer indoor environments and, at the same time, have a higher operating energy consumption. However, inadequate attention has been given to the summer thermal environment in cold regions. This work has been carried out around the thermal environment of rural residences in cold regions during summer. Field measurements, questionnaires, and data analysis were used in this study. We recorded the indoor and outdoor thermal environment parameters on a typical summer day in the Linyi rural area. Moreover, the subjective sensations and thermal adaptive behaviors of the participants were recorded in detail with a questionnaire. Linear regression showed that the neutral temperature for residents in summer was 27.52 °C, with acceptable temperatures ranging from 25.14 °C to 29.9 °C. Age and gender differences were found to affect the occupants' sensation of thermal comfort and humidity, as well as their thermal adaptive behavior. In addition, a thermal adaptive model has been constructed in the study, which will further enrich the thermal adaptive investigation and provide a scientifically sound reference for the renovation and development of the local rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A widely recognized theme of construction economics suggests that the cost of construction per square meter increases as building height rises. However, over a number of years, research conducted regarding the height and cost issue has established a classic relationship between the two factors which can be represented by a U-shaped curve. This paper describes the study of the height-cost relationship of high-rise residential buildings in Shanghai in terms of the total construction cost and elemental costs while considering the context and commonality of buildings. This research was developed as an extension of the previous work, which examined data for buildings in Hong Kong. Initial findings indicate that the curves illustrating the relationships between height and cost of residential buildings in Shanghai and Hong Kong exhibit different profiles. The dissimilarities indicate that different sets of criteria should be applied in the judgment of height that affects cost in different locations. In terms of elemental costs, the findings suggest that there are differences in the way these costs react to changes in the building height. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eneigy-saving design of residential building is an important part of energy-saving architectural design. Planning and design of residential buildings in Hanzhong area should pay more attention to the building orientation, sunshine, summer ventilation and wind resistance in winter and so on, so as to create favorable conditions for energy-saving design of single buildings. The geographical location, climatic characteristics, residents living habits and indoor and outdoor thermal environment situation were analyzed in this paper, and combined with the existing problems of eneigy conservation in the planning and layout of residential buildings in Hanzhong area. Based on the investigation, this paper drew some conclusions to provide references for the eneigy-saving planning and design of urban residential buildings in the local area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Passive design, which has strong dependency of climate and areas, is the most economical effective strategy for reducing energy consumption inside residential buildings. A total of 25 representative cities of China were selected for optimum analysis. This paper presents an approach in which the orthogonal method and the listing method are integrated to explore how energy consumption is minimized in residential buildings by optimizing 7 passive design measures for each city: wall thickness (WT), roof insulation thickness (RIT), external wall insulation thickness (EWIT), window orientation (WO), window-wall ratio (WWR), glazing type (GT), and sunroom depth/overhang depth (SD/OD). With the optimization, the passive design could reduce annual thermal load of building considerably, even could replace air-condition systems in winter for the areas with high solar radiation such as Lhasa. The results reveal that neighbor cities have the same optimal combinations and the similar effects of energy-saving measures. A total of 7 passive design zones were summarized in a map. The architect could be guided in his choice of appropriate passive measures directly from the map or handling of exact passive design by the optimal approach proposed in this paper for different areas in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, Beijing rural “coal to electricity” is more and more attention. Among them, the air source heat pump as a clean energy is vigorously promoted, but due to of its low water supply temperature. So, for what kind of terminal equipment need to be researched. In this paper, the two terminal equipment of PE-X pipe are adopted as the low-temperature floor radiant heating and four-post 760 cast iron radiator in the bedroom of a Beijing farmhouse are simulated. The performance of two kinds of terminal equipment is analyzed from four aspects: indoor temperature field distribution, indoor air cleanliness, indoor air velocity distribution and energy consumption. The commercial CFD software was used to simulate the characteristics of two heating terminal equipment. The simulation results show that PE-X pipes as the low-temperature floor radiant heating is better than that the four-post 760 cast iron radiator heating, it has good heating effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the prevalence of fog and haze seriously affect indoor air quality. More and more attention has been paid to indoor particulate pollution from the society. This paper studies the correlation and influence factors of indoor and outdoor particle concentration of cold area in the summer, which four kinds of building types(office, classroom, rural residential and urban residential) that a total of 110 households in Daqing were measured and analyzed by applying the particle on-line monitors. The results shows that the overall air quality in Daqing is better in summer. There is a linear relationship between the indoor and outdoor particles concentration, and the infiltration factor is applied to represent the degree of correlation. For office and residential buildings, the infiltration factor is 0.7214 and 0.7499. As for the classroom and rural housing, the infiltration factor is 0.9217 and 0.9019 due to the higher air exchange rate. In summer, there are about 80% of the indoor particles coming from outside with natural ventilation buildings. Moreover, there is a significant positive correlation among indoor particles concentration and outdoor particles concentration, temperature and humidity (p<0.05), but different building types have obvious difference. Temperature and humidity as an important factor affecting the concentration of indoor particulate matter, the influence of indoor and outdoor temperature is greater for offices (O1) and classrooms with the glass exterior wall, and the relative humidity is the main factor for the rest of the building with concrete wall structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through statistical data issued by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China, in 2015, China's real estate companies completed construction area of 7,356,930,000 square meters, of which the residential construction area occupied 69.53%. In China, building information modeling (BIM) technology has developed gradually these years. Despite the successful applications of BIM in commercial buildings, tourism buildings, culture and educational buildings and other public buildings, the application of BIM for residential buildings has not gained wide acceptance, which was only limited to residential buildings’ underground garages. This project aims to cover this gap by studying the application of BIM on residential buildings’ design stage under the commonly used DBB (Design-Bid-Build) mode. Through the investigation and participation of several projects, this paper constructs BIM application value system including specific implementing scheme and delivery forms based on the DBB mode. The system covers the phases of scheme design, preliminary design, construction drawing design and detailed design and involves the professional fields from general layout, municipal facility, landscape, architecture, structure, MEP(Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing) and refined decoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increase in cooling energy usage of the residential sector in Hong Kong has been moderate in the most recent ten years (2004–2013). Factors and drivers responsible for this are of interest to policy makers in search of performance improvement but such information is not available in extant literature. This paper reviews the policy instruments introduced in Hong Kong during this period of time and examines the different engineering factors contributing to improvements in cooling energy efficiency. Whether the policy instruments have been instrumental in bringing about changes in engineering design and thus improvement in cooling energy efficiency is evaluated on the basis of the equipment and building envelope characteristics of 64 residential developments in Hong Kong. Different statistical analyses reveal that the use of more energy efficient room air-conditioning units (COP), smaller window-to-wall ratios (WWR) and walls with higher U-values are the engineering factors (WallU) that have contributed to moderation of growth of energy consumption; these were driven by policies introduced by the Hong Kong Government. Regarding the sensitivity of the three engineering factors, it was found that COP was the highest amounting to 0.455, followed in descending order by WallU and WWR. Their sensitivities were 0.289 and 0.006, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the practical problems on the utilization of a burning cave, such as overheated floor, uneven heat distribution, and serious heat lose, a hot water heating system integrated with a burning cave has been designed based on the principle of energy cascade utilization. However, there is no prediction and calculation method for designing this combined heating system. In this paper, through theoretical calculation, the response formula of time–temperature on the hot water heating system changed with the radiation intensity on biomass fuel combustion layer has been deduced and verified by experimental data. Besides, the impacts of the radiation temperature on fuel combustion layer, the height of fuel layer, pipe diameter, pipe spacing and water flow velocity on the heat transfer performance of this heating system have been respectively discussed. The thermal efficiency can be up to 39.3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective actions of owners in a multi-owned residential building are not only important, but also necessary towards the effective management of the property. However, according to Olson's theory of collective action (1965), those actions may not be initiated or sustained to ensure quality management. Despite the considerable research efforts on successes and failures of owners' collective actions in the literature, little ink has been split on classifying those actions and measuring them. This paper intends to bridge the research gap. First, it outlines the boundaries of owners' collective actions in building management. Second, it classifies owners' actions into three categories, namely collective decision-making, collective rules enforcement, and collective performance monitoring. Third, it devises a method to evaluate the cooperative abilities of an owner group. Using survey data from 72 apartment buildings in Hong Kong, it finds that the cooperative abilities of an owner group vary with building age, management style, group size, owners' average income level and age level. The results of this study could contribute to better collective action theories and shed light on the formulation of a building-care culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As a well-known technique for rational use of energy, the combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) system is paid more and more attention in building energy conservation activities. In this paper, the performances of typical CCHP systems are investigated for a high-rise residential building, which is experiencing rapid expansion in China. Based on the building''s energy consumption, four types of CCHP technologies have been assumed following three design and management modes, namely, heat tracking mode, electricity tracking mode and energy island mode. In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the performance of the assumed CCHP systems, besides the separated energy, economic and environmental assessments, an integrated assessment framework is proposed. According to the simulation results, gas engine and fuel cell based CCHP systems are feasible options from the energy and environmental viewpoints, but at the cost of poor economic performance. From an integrated viewpoint, the gas engine system is the most attractive option if economic performance is taken into account; otherwise the fuel cell system is the best choice. In addition, the selection of proper design and management mode is of vital importance for the adoption of the CCHP system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The vast majority of buildings being constructed in Hong Kong today are massive 40+-storey high-rise residential building towers housing hundreds of families. Immense resources – land, material, time, labour, money, energy – have been invested in their realization. However, almost all of these buildings, including those currently under construction and on the drawing boards, are not designed with adaptability and flexibility as a design intention and will cause major problems in the future: their lack of capacity for re-activation means that their only fate is demolition, thereby consuming even more resources, producing more waste, and causing more disruption to the environment. Unless we change our mind-set in mass housing design, today''s designs will inevitably become tomorrow''s problems. This paper studies the scenario design requirements and critical dimensions of use-territories in public mass housing in Hong Kong in view of extracting useful patterns for use in future designs. Case studies of popular residential layouts currently used in Hong Kong will be used to illustrate the kind of problems the majority of the existing residential building stock will face when the need for renewal and upgrade arises. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Thermal comfort evaluations in the built environment are essential to occupant's satisfaction and also building energy consumption. Traditionally, thermal comfort has been assessed by Fanger's PMV model that was developed based on extensive laboratory tests. However, it's been found that PMV predictions are not good in field studies, especially in buildings with natural ventilation. In this paper, machine learning (ML) algorithms were used to predicted occupants' thermal comfort votes (TCV) and thermal sensation votes (TSV), using 5512 sets of thermal comfort data collected in naturally ventilated residential buildings in fourteen cities in China. Environmental parameters, personal parameters, climatic types, and adaptive control measures were considered and used as input parameters for the ML model. It was found that environmental parameters (both outdoors and indoors), personal parameters (metabolic rate and clothing insulation), and climatic types all significant affect both TCV and TSV, while adaptive control measures only affect TSV but not TCV. Comparing with established models (PMV, ePMV and aPMV), the ML models had smaller errors in predicting TSV and TCV. Based on these results, we suggest that the ML, especially ANNs model was reliable in predicting occupants' TCV and TSV in naturally ventilated residential buildings, and performed better than traditional thermal balance based models. Moreover, using the new model, we found that acceptable temperature ranges in naturally ventilated buildings were far wider than the ASHRAE adaptive comfort zone, suggesting that appropriate models should be established based on local data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huge material stocks are embedded in the residential built environment. These materials have the potential to be a source of secondary materials, an important consideration for the transition towards a circular economy. Consistent information about such stocks, especially at the global level, is missing. This article attempts to fill part of that gap by compiling a material intensities database for different types of buildings and applying that data in the context of a scenario analysis, linked to the SSP scenarios as implemented in the global climate model IMAGE. The database is created on a global scale, dividing the world into 26 regions in compliance with IMAGE. The potential use of the database was tested and served as input for modelling the housing and material stock of residential buildings for the period 1970–2050, according to specifications made for the SSP2 scenario. Six construction materials in four different dwelling types in urban and rural areas are included. The material flows related to those stocks are estimated and analysed in a companion paper (also exploring commercial buildings) by Deetman et al. (2019). The results suggest a significant increase in the material stock in housing towards 2050, particularly in urban areas. The results reflect specific patterns in the material contents across the different building types. China presently dominates developments in the global level building stock. The SSP2 projections show a stock saturation towards 2050 for China. In other regions, such as India and South East Asia, stock growth is presently just taking off and can be expected to become dominant for global developments after 2050. The database is created to be used as input for resource and climate policymaking as well as assessment of environmental impact related to residential buildings and assessment of possibilities for urban mining. In the future, we hope to extend it as new data on materials in the built environment become available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a social constructionist approach and Philipsen's theoretical framework of cultural communication, this study examines how rural–urban migrant workers in China construct the meaning of home in their communication about migration. Interviews with migrant workers and participant observation of their everyday conversations reveal that migrant workers frequently evoke a cultural code of home attachment and actively construct a political code of displacement to construe their prolonged liminality between the city and the countryside. Implications for studying the use of culturally specific and politically situated discursive practices to address common challenges of displacement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2014, China will pilot its first earthquake insurance program, and the inhabitants' perception of earthquake risk in the pilot area is significant for the implementation of this plan. In this study, the authors conducted a field survey in four districts in the insurance pilot area to investigate the factors affecting the earthquakes risk perception of residents. The survey concentrates on the factors of hazard experience and residents' house type and shows that people who have experienced more earthquakes tend to have a lower risk perception while people who have suffered serious earthquake loss tend to have a higher risk perception. For the house type factor, the author finds that house type is correlated with the risk perception from an earthquake. The effect on risk perception is significantly reduced when people enhance their house type with brick walls, concrete beams, and column. Furthermore, gender, income, and education level also have direct effects on how residents perceive of the risk from an earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the study and research of Chinese architectural history during the 21st century, often referencing architecture historiography. The role that the group of Chinese architects known as the First Generation plays in the study of Chinese architectural history in Chinese universities, including in regard to their study of Chinese building design, is discussed. The historiography of architecture in Shanxi province, China, including its cave-temples, is discussed.

The article discusses vernacular architecture of the Dong ethnic group in southwest China. The author describes Dong ganlans, or elevated, multistory wooden houses, and discusses rituals performed during the construction process. Other topics addressed include the chuandou structural system of south China and its influence on Dong houses, the use of timber from the Dong region to construct Dong houses, rituals used to select the golden beam or ridge pole for the houses, and the use of frames and crossbeams in the construction of Dong houses. Also discussed is the ceremony of the "opening of the door of wealth" performed on Dong houses.

Research on journey-to-crime distance has revealed the importance of both the characteristics of the offender as well as those of target communities. However, the effect of the home community has so far been ignored. Besides, almost all journey-to-crime studies were done in Western societies, and little is known about how the distinct features of communities in major Chinese cities shape residential burglars' travel patterns. To fill this gap, we apply a cross-classified multilevel regression model on data of 3763 burglary trips in ZG City, one of the bustling metropolises in China. This allows us to gain insight into how residential burglars' journey-to-crime distances are shaped by their individual-level characteristics as well as those of their home and target communities. Results show that the characteristics of the home community have larger effects than those of target communities, while individual-level features are most influential. Older burglars travel over longer distances to commit their burglaries than the younger ones. Offenders who commit their burglaries in groups tend to travel further than solo offenders. Burglars who live in communities with a higher average rent, a denser road network and a higher percentage of local residents commit their burglaries at shorter distances. Communities with a denser road network attract burglars from a longer distance, whereas those with a higher percentage of local residents attract them from shorter by. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]