The Teaching of Technology-Mediated Architectural Design

This work presents the strategies used in the development of the teaching of the subject of Architecture Project III of the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal Fluminense University from the return to classes during the period of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic which started in 2020. The course was carried out in the online teaching system mediated by technology. Considering the complexity that the teaching of architecture design requires in the fourth semester of the course, and given the conditions imposed by the pandemic, the development of technology-mediated design teaching was a challenge faced by the teachers of the subject. The teaching project theme is complex and extensive and considers a mixed-use high-rise building, with residential and commercial units in a consolidated urban environment, oriented towards the design and development of open and closed spaces, as well as public, collective and private spaces. This article covers the experiences, the strategies adopted, the difficulties and the results obtained in the teaching of architectural design from September 2020 until February 10, 2022. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Minecraft Design Build: Teaching Teamwork and Project Planning in a Virtual World

In a time of online learning it is difficult to give students team-based experiences. This paper demonstrates how a virtual gaming environment can be used to teach project-based learning and teamwork using the Minecraft Education Edition. The positives, but also the limitations and challenges are summarized using both data and qualitative feedback from over 200 students in MIT's Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP). Students were asked to build a virtual emergency shelter on the MIT campus according to strict requirements, and teams were scored both on the size of their facility, but also adherence to the promises they made upfront. We observed a 232% average improvement of scores between rounds 1 and 2 and this created a measurable positive impact on learning, despite the physical separation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this successful experiment most students still prefer in-person learning such as the traditional “Skyscraper” exercise. The hypothesis that teamwork and project planning can be effectively taught in an online environment was, however, confirmed. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

The Teaching of Technology-Mediated Architectural Design

This work presents the strategies used in the development of the teaching of the subject of Architecture Project III of the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal Fluminense University from the return to classes during the period of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic which started in 2020. The course was carried out in the online teaching system mediated by technology. Considering the complexity that the teaching of architecture design requires in the fourth semester of the course, and given the conditions imposed by the pandemic, the development of technology-mediated design teaching was a challenge faced by the teachers of the subject. The teaching project theme is complex and extensive and considers a mixed-use high-rise building, with residential and commercial units in a consolidated urban environment, oriented towards the design and development of open and closed spaces, as well as public, collective and private spaces. This article covers the experiences, the strategies adopted, the difficulties and the results obtained in the teaching of architectural design from September 2020 until February 10, 2022. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Post-pandemic architecture: a critical review of the expected feasibility of skyscraper-integrated vertical farming (SIVF)

Can skyscrapers survive after COVID-19? Can the idea of integrating vertical farming (VF) into vertical architecture support the environmental, economic, and social issues in the post-pandemic era? Answering these questions is the main objective of this study. Therefore, it explores a) the impact of the pandemic on the built environment, especially skyscrapers;b) the challenges facing the survival of skyscrapers;c) the design parameters and main components of VF;and d) the expected feasibility of integrating VF into vertical architecture to reduce the effects of the pandemic. The research concludes that the skyscraper-integrated vertical farming (SIVF) paradigm can create a closed ecosystem that preserves the environment by a) supporting food security, b) improving indoor environmental quality, c) enhancing psychological and physical health, d) saving energy, e) reducing greenhouse gas emissions and releasing oxygen, and f) supporting the local economy. Consequently, the SIVF paradigm can inaugurate an innovative approach that provides insights into new research trends and discoveries. However, further constraints in the adoption of SIVF should be addressed, and collaborations between researchers and multidisciplinary experts must be created to achieve suitable solutions.

UV-C VentGuard: An IoT-based Monitoring and Disinfection System for Pathogen Inactivation in Ventilation Pipes of High-rise Buildings

SARS-CoV-2 traveling through ventilating pipes in high-rise buildings present an urgent concern to address. This paper describes an IoT monitoring system designed to disinfect the air traveling through the pipes. Site tests demonstrate that the system provides a cost-effective solution for pathogen inactivation in ventilating pipes of high-rise buildings, and that it can play a positive role in mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in built environments. © 2021 IEEE.

Towards Post-Crisis Tall Buildings and Cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive and sudden rethink of how tall office buildings, and cities as a whole, should operate. With national and local government responses varying widely across the globe, and much about the virus still unknown, it is impossible to generate a single safe operational model for the immediate near term. However, the aggregate knowledge of the building industry can be activated by creating an indicative, general assessment of how today’s tall buildings and their cities could be modified. This report collates the advice of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Expert Peer Review Committee and its database of the global tall building industry, as well as the consultancies and professional organizations in the wider CTBUH orbit, forming a hypothetical model of the potential changes coming to the existing stock of tall office buildings and the cities where they are located, and speculates on the urban implications of extrapolating these changes. © 2020, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

New Solutions for the New Normal

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted social and economic global norms and accelerated many of the key trends shaping the building industry. The ongoing aftermath of uncertainty has led to a sharp drop in real estate investment volumes and commercial rental prices. Owners/operators and tenants are grappling with several key questions and searching for solutions and strategies on how best to move forward. While the economic impact is unprecedented, with billions of dollars of dry-powder capital in the market and record low interest rates, there are significant possibilities for owners/operators to pivot and take advantage of new opportunities. The design and development community, emerging from the defensive stage of pandemic response to a more forward-looking approach, is responding. This paper explores some of the key questions from the owner/operator community and presents the “New Solutions Toolkit,” a growing collection of holistic, practical solutions for lasting resilience and a roadmap to future opportunity. © 2020, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

Post-Pandemic HVAC Systems Strategies For High-Rise Office Buildings

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on building design and strategy will be as revolutionary as the rise of the first skyscraper. COVID-19 and potential future pandemics have forever changed the design approach and methodology for high-rise office buildings. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) operational changes since the onset of the pandemic have been important to improve wellness and increase occupant comfort. These include moves recommended by ASHRAE (such as more outside air, better filters), along with air-cleaning technologies that can readily be added to existing systems, such as Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) and Bipolar Ionization (BPI). But what if future tall buildings were designed to better respond to a pandemic from the start? Moving forward, high-performing buildings should be configured with mechanical systems that minimize or eliminate air mixing between floors. They should optimize ventilation effectiveness within the space. In the increasingly connected world, intelligent sensors can provide air quality data that is useful for both operators and occupants. With forward-thinking transparency, the data can be compiled into meaningful metrics and shared with occupants to give them insight into building operations and performance. © 2020, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

The Tall Building Strategically Reconsidered— Seattle 2030: The Post-Crisis Tower

The current perception of a post-COVID world is highly divisive and despairing. The “death of the tall building” is touted by prognosticators as a fait accompli. The concept of the city as a microcosm of commerce, urban living, culture, and civic uses has been put into severe doubt and paranoia. Density, mass transit and assembly uses are suddenly deemed as anathema to “normal” lifestyles, and the flight to the suburbs is touted as the new mantra. This paper is an exploration of what a post-crisis vertical vision would reflect in urban America, responding to changing norms of the workplace, urban living, leisure, and transit. Its prototype is a hybrid 400-meter mass timber structure ensconced within a steel exoskeletal frame. With 90 percent of the tower comprised of mass timber, the 88-story structure would sequester carbon, reduce emissions, enhance structural performance and set new paradigms of the tall building as a modular, living-breathing machine, responding to the “new normal” of the contemporary urban condition. © 2020, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

Overcoming Carbon, Climate, and Societal Challenges in Cities

The tall building, the city, and by extension, urban life, are all facing unprecedented challenges, in multiple aspects—carbon, climate, and societal. The planet’s rapid urbanization and climate crisis are on a collision course, requiring huge corrections in the way we build and the resources we use. There are many ways forward for sustainable vertical urbanism, as seen through dozens of optimal examples. But as we have learned from the resilience of cities through other calamities, such as 9/11, weather events, and the COVID-19 pandemic, within these challenges lie tremendous opportunities. The great question is, do we as a planet have the collective political will to implement the best practices we identify?. © 2021, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

The Pandemic-Resilient Office Tower

This paper examines architectural design strategies to create a “Pandemic-Resilient Office Tower.” In addition to incorporating a suite of measures to impede the spread of disease, the design’s defining feature is its ability to flex between normal and health-crisis modes. The building’s operation is optimized for both of these conditions, and will seek to anticipate unknown stressors. A proposed Class-A office building in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards that features this approach is analyzed, including qualitative and quantitative considerations. Building entrance sequence, lobby layout, vertical circulation, core design, wellness, and productivity aspects are considered, lessons learned and insights for further research are shared, and larger questions relating to a resilient design ethos and its lessons for both health and climate crises are explored. © 2020, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

Tall Buildings in 2020: COVID-19 Contributes To Dip in Year-On-Year Completions

In 2020, the tall building industry constructed 106 buildings of 200 meters’ height or greater, a 20 percent decline from 2019, when 133 such buildings were completed.* The decline can be partly attributed to work stoppages and other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report provides analysis and commentary on global and regional trends underway during an eventful year. © 2021, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

Megacities vs. Urban Sprawl;Densifying vs. Social Distancing

Decentralization and the “15-minute city” are ideas that are currently being put forward to tackle urban challenges, but how will these issues be tackled in the design of tall buildings? What is the implication for these ideas in a future, pandemic-aware context? Can future vertical expansion be addressed through new models that take into account the same multiple and complex challenges currently being faced in the horizontal realm? It is time that we stop understanding vertical development in terms of autonomous single-program buildings, and instead approach it as the holistic extension of multiple urban systems along the vertical axis. © 2021, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. All rights reserved.

Implementation of Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems During COVID-19 Pandemic on High-Rise Building Construction Projects

Indonesia is one from many countries that is struck by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Indonesia still needs to recover from economy crisis caused by the pandemic. Indonesia’s evolvement can be seen from their development in their infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Occupational Safety and Health (OHS) Management System is a crucial part of the contractor organization’s management system that is used to implement and develop OHS policies in all of the existing development project. In this research study, it will discuss about the application of OHS management systems in high-rise building projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. The result from the analysis and calculation in this research are compared with the Minister of Public Works Regulation No. 9/2008 regarding the Management System and Work Safety and the Instruction of the Minister of PUPR No. 2/IN/M/2020 concerning about the Protocol to Prevent the Spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the implementation of construction services. In its implementation, the OHS Management System is divided into 3 important parts, namely the Implementation and Operation of OHS Activities, OHS Evaluation/Inspection and OHS Management Review. The implementation of OHS Management System during the COVID-19 pandemic in high-rise building was obtained 77.09% (Good Enough). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.