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Understanding the thermal performance of sandcrete hollow block walls in the tropic is very essential for occupants' well-being, productivity and efficiency, due to its widespread application in buildings in the study area. Lokoja, in Nigeria, lies in the warm humid zone with its attendant's high temperatures all year round. Thus, providing an acceptable walling material that will control the high indoor air temperature becomes imperative. This paper assessed sandcrete hollow blocks as a walling material used in Lokoja, to determine the thermal performances for effective thermal comfort of the residents.

It involves the construction of a habitable model building with the commonly available sandcrete hollow blocks in the area. One unit of Cryopak iMINI Temperature and Relative Humidity Data Logger called new generation intelligent iMINI with Serial Number and Product Code MX-CI-145–0009 and MX-HE-S-16-L was installed, to record the indoor air temperature and relative humidity data at an interval of one hour, for 12 months covering dry and wet seasons. The results of the recorded data were downloaded to an excel spread sheet for assessment and analysis throughout the seasons. The values were computed using the temperature–humidity index (THI) equation, with a view to determine the indoor thermal comfort level category.

The study revealed that sandcrete hollow block walls provide thermal discomfort of the indoor environment for both seasons, with attendant adverse effects in the comfort of the occupants. The paper concludes that proper orientation of buildings, planting of trees, use of low absorbing or reflective surface materials, application of cavity walls to receive insulation materials in between the hollow spaces provided, instead of the single walling as well as providing shading device elements, can improve users' comfort and also ameliorate the heat effect on the external surface of building transferred into the interior by conduction, radiation or convection within the area and in the tropics at large. Other thermally eco-friendly wall materials available in Lokoja includes timber, stabilized laterite–cement blocks, burnt bricks and earth-mud bricks which can be used to replace sandcrete hollow block walls. These alternative wall materials are used for construction of residential and office buildings by the colonial government of Sir Fredrick Lugard in the study area.

The application of sandcrete hollow blocks as a wall material is in vogue, not minding its thermal discomfort to the users and the environment; this is due to its availability and ease of production. The acceptability of this walling material requires holistic study to unravel the best way to reduce the thermal discomfort inherent in its application.

The author succeeded in revealing the thermal performance of sandcrete hollow blocks as walling material in Lokoja, the study area. It is a first attempt at understanding the performance for human comfort in the area. This will greatly assist the resident and other researchers to improve on the application of sandcrete hollow blocks as walling material towards ensuring that maximum indoor thermal comfort is achieved.

Previous studies have identified a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) business models and have recognised the complexity related to the application of IoT technologies in business, along with the potential of the modularity concept application in organisational design. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main building blocks for the development of a business model canvas for companies that adopt the IoT in their business.

First, the authors carried a systematic literature review to identify theoretical, experimental and practical IoT business model canvas recorded in the literature. Then, the authors identified and analysed the characteristics of the building blocks present in these canvas using a statistical cluster technique. Based on the outcomes, the authors proposed a framework with standard and optional modules to allow flexible arrangements and suit different IoT business goals.

The results revealed that the IoT business model canvas recorded in the literature had been grossly designed to attend two drivers: manufacture and service organisations. Therefore, based on the frequency of building blocks present in IoT business model canvas recorded in the literature, it has been proposed two flexible frameworks which can be tailored to accommodate the immense variety of possibilities offered by IoT technologies in manufacture and service business.

The business model frameworks proposed in this research can support entrepreneurs structuring new IoT businesses or upgrading existing businesses.

This research offers a comprehensive IoT business model framework with their respective building blocks built from an extensive literature review.

Commercial buildings, which include office buildings, are one of the three major energy-consuming sectors, alongside industrial and transportation sectors. The vast increase in the number of buildings is a positive sign of the rapid development of Malaysia. However, most Malaysian government office buildings tend to consume energy inefficiently due to lack of energy optimization. Most of the previous studies focused on the performance of green buildings in fulfilling the green development guidelines. As such, it is essential to study the energy performance of existing government office buildings that were constructed before most energy-efficient standards were implemented to mitigate energy wastage due to the lack of energy optimization. This study aims to analyse the energy performance of existing non-green Malaysian government office buildings and the factors that influence building energy consumption, as well as to evaluate the efficacy of the existing energy conservation measures.

This study was conducted by a literature review and case study. The chosen buildings are six government office building blocks located in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. In this study, a literature review has been conducted on the common factors affecting energy consumption in office buildings. The energy consumption data of the buildings were collected to calculate the building energy intensity (BEI). The BEI was compared to the MS1525:2019 and GBI benchmarks to evaluate energy performance. SketchUp software was utilized to illustrate the solar radiation and sun path diagram of the case study buildings. Finally, recommendations were derived for retrofit strategies based on non-design factors and passive design factors.

In typical government office buildings, the air-conditioning system consumed the most energy at 65.5%, followed by lighting system at 22.6%, and the remaining 11.9% was contributed by office appliances. The energy performance of the case study buildings is considered as satisfactory as the BEI did not exceed the MS1525:2019 benchmark of 200 kWh/m2/year. The E Block recorded the highest BEI of 183.12 kWh/m2/year in 2020 due to its north-east orientation which is exposed to the most solar radiation. Besides, E Block consists of rooms that can accommodate large number of occupants. As such, non-design factors which include higher occupancy rate and higher cooling demand due to high outdoor temperature leads to higher energy consumption. By considering passive design features such as building orientation and building envelope thermal properties, energy consumption can be reduced significantly.

This study provided a comprehensive insight into the energy performance of Malaysian government office buildings, which were constructed before the energy-efficient standards being introduced. By calculating the BEI of six government office buildings, it is found that the energy performance of the case study buildings fulfils the MS1525 benchmark, and that all their BEIs are below 200 kWh/m2/year. Malaysia's hot and humid climate significantly affects a building's cooling load, and it is found the air-conditioning system is the major energy consumer of Malaysian government office buildings. This study discusses the efficacy of the energy-saving measures implemented in the case study buildings to optimize energy consumption. Recommendations were derived based on the non-design factors and passive design factors that affected the energy consumption of the case study building. It is envisioned that this study can provide practical strategies for retrofit interventions to reduce energy consumption in Malaysian office buildings as well as for office buildings that are in a similar climate.

During the post-World War II period, Turkey's housing supply models were limited to individual housings. Three main trends in the construction industry helped overcome this limitation to a certain extent. These were cooperative societies, spontaneous squatter housing and the build-sell process. Build-sell process later became the most obvious reflection of urban transformation in the 1950s and 1960s. Within this context, this study examines the housing policy of the period and the build-sell process as well as the Rer-1 Apartment Block designed in line with the build-sell process. The Rer-1 Apartment Block was designed and implemented by architect Nejat Ersin between the years 1962-1964, and was constructed in Aşağı Ayrancı District in Ankara. This specific apartment block was examined as an extraordinary example of the build-sell process - which rejects architectural concerns and prioritises profits - as it still incorporated such concerns despite being designed adhering to logic of the build-sell process. For the purpose of this study, an oral history study was conducted with Nejat Ersin. It was, therefore, possible to evaluate Nejat Ersin's apartment block, presenting a new experience in the build-sell context, within the scope of era's social, cultural, political and economic conjecture. The Rer-1 Apartment Block was scrutinized from the build-sell process aspect within the scope of the architect's professional approach.

There is evidence of increasing urban floods being aftermath of climate change. The purpose of this paper is to present findings-related analysis of vulnerability of building structures in informal settlements to floods and associated coping strategies.

The study adopted a case study strategy, supported by field surveys and laboratory experiments. The informal settlement taken as case study is Sunna sub-ward. Field surveys involved interviews, questionnaires and observations and tests were conducted to determine the strength of walls, blocks and mortar.

The findings reveal that vulnerability of building structures to floods are due to poor quality of materials used in construction of houses which are influenced by income levels, location (lower areas of Sunna sub-ward) and inadequate storm water drainage system. Moreover, socio-economic vulnerabilities do exist in the settlements and are related to lack of peace of mind, outbreak of disease and expenses related to repairing of flood affected houses. Coping strategies used in the sub-ward for built structures are building barrier walls at the front door of the house and use multiple strategies which are supported by reactive and recovery strategies.

The findings of this study were mostly affected by limited knowledge of respondents on construction materials and processes.

Findings of the paper provide an insight on the effects of climate change on building structures in informal settlements and coping strategies in place to protect buildings. The outputs can be used for any other informal settlement in Dar es Salaam the only limitation is the terrain.

The paper recommends use of quality building materials and technicians/artisans, improvement of surface water drainage and training of residents on the effects of climate change and variability. In addition, promising coping strategies should be adopted while those under-performing should be discouraged as they increase the cost burden among the urban poor.

The purpose of this paper is to describe sustainability of hollow and solid blocks in sub-Saharan Africa.

Indicators of stakeholder value are proposed for measuring block sustainability based on comparisons of user building value price and carbon emissions. Block manufacturing processes in Tanzania and Uganda are described and assessed in this context.

The results from Uganda indicate that there are economic and environmental advantages in using hollow blocks as long as they are produced to statutory compliance levels. However, where blocks are not produced to standard requirements, the results indicate that it is better to use solid blocks. This surprising result seems to indicate that blocks prepared using low additions of cement might have sufficient functional quality for simple residential building applications even though they might not meet current standard strength requirements and have low cement productivity. These results also indicate that the improvement potential indicated previously cannot be realised when hollow blocks are used for simple construction needs.

Clear benchmarks for the best practical level of cement block sustainability seem to be missing. The first reasons is that the lowest acceptable compressive strength has not been defined since standard requirements might not be relevant in the studied context. The second one is that the lowest possible practically achievable cement content with acceptable cement productivity has not been established.

Understanding sustainability can be very difficult and substantial work needs to be done to introduce operational sustainability indicators.

The results contribute to the discussion of understanding, defining and measuring sustainability.

In the stream of works showing the semantic dimension as a core concept of the product innovation (e.g. design driven innovation), the paper aims to present a new business modeling approach driven by design and meanings. Similarly to the concept that the product is not represented only by form and function but also by meaning, the entire business model of a company does not transmit economic and technological value only, but tells a lot of the company from a semantic point of view. The work seeks to point out that companies can focus on the management of meanings to “make sense” of their entire business model moulded in building blocks, and realize what the authors called meaning strategy.

After a detailed overview of the theoretical background grounded in the strategy literature and design one, to support the authors' perspective, an in‐depth study of meaning strategy performed by illycaffè is presented.

The value of the work lies in underlining that the design driven (product) innovation's application can be extended further than only describing successful (product) strategies of design‐intensive manufactures and in the suggestions on how to implement a meaning strategy, creating new meanings not only in the products, but also in the building blocks of a company's business model.

The meaning strategy content and action‐oriented framework proposed and the matrix business model meanings versus building blocks can become tools to communicate the company strategy's pivotal elements and its evolution and they can drive strategists in developing and managing new/existing meanings and building blocks.

The purpose of this study is international business strategy (IBS) has evolved into a complex and vast domain of study. Given this fact, the author first proposed a set of screens that a firm’s IBS manager was required to assess before venturing into a foreign country. Then the author developed an integrated IBS framework to secure a holistic view regarding IBS. Finally, the author proposed a typology to classify IBS archetypes.

The author undertook a systematic and integrated literature review of IBS literature. The literature review was carried out with a conceptual perspective in mind. Incremental and argumentative logic was applied to develop the integrated IBS framework from a wide domain of literature. Furthermore, the typology on IBS initiatives was also developed based upon a classification scheme developed in the framework.

The author developed the integrated conceptual framework based upon six building blocks which were conceptual elements. The framework consisted of the antecedent variable as internationally deployable organizational resources and capabilities (IDORC), the mediating variables as internationally implementable organizational process (IIOP), internationally executable practices and activities (IEPA) and international market product service offerings (IMPSO). The moderating variable was international initiatives management direction and control (IIMDC), while the dependent variable was international market performance assessment (IMPA). Thus, IDORC, IIOP, IEPA, IMPSA, IIMDC and IMPA were the building blocks of IBS framework. There were 12 types of IBS typologies based upon the dominant role played by the home and host countries in the six building block elements of IBS mentioned. The 12 typologies were domestic reproduction (DR), foreign country centric offerings (FCCO), international offerings perspective (IOP), foreign country-driven activities (FCDA), international-driven activities (IDA), foreign country-driven process (FCDP), international-driven process (IDP), foreign country initiatives domestically controlled (FCIDC), international initiatives domestically controlled (IIDC), international initiatives home-dominant foreign dyad controlled (IIHDFDC), international independent initiative (III) and international coordinated network approach (ICNA).

In this study, an integrated framework on IBS was developed. In the theoretical framework, antecedent (DORC), mediating (IIOP, IEPA and IMPSA), moderating (IIMDC) and dependent variables (IMPA) have been incorporated. This was the first theoretical contribution of this paper toward IBS theorization. Second contribution of this paper was toward typology development regarding IBS initiatives archetypes. The 12 typologies were DR, FCCO, IOP, FCDA, IDA, FCDP, IDP, FCIDC, IIDC, IHDFDC, III and ICNA. The IBS typology is based upon the six constituent concepts developed from literature.

Managers who are responsible for the planning and execution of IBS initiatives could from the integrated IBS framework comprehend what would be the steps required to plan and execute an IBS strategy in its entirety for success in foreign markets. Furthermore, managers could understand the various mediation and moderation roles regarding the IBS factors present in any firm internationalization effort. This would help managers not only to amplify the mediating effects but also to tweak the efforts of moderation so as to arrive at better internationalization performance. The section on typology on IBS initiatives would help managers to secure a better fit for the IBS initiative of the firm. The typology would anchor managerial perspectives regarding how the home country firm organizational contributions on resources and capabilities, processes, practice activities and products and services need to be offered in foreign countries.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is one of the first frameworks regarding an integrated perspective on IBS and a typology on IBS based upon a set of antecedent (resources and capabilities), mediation (process, activities and market offerings), moderation (management control) and dependent (performance) variables building on firm resource-based view perspectives.

This paper aims to report an analysis of the graphical representations of 14 corporate real estate (CRE) models. It does this to establish the systematic, metatheoretical requirements for modelling CRE alignment which to date have been disguised in a multitude of models.

This meta study of CRE alignment models used a qualitative hermeneutic method to inductively develop understanding of the models’ constituent parts. Several iterations of graphical and textual analysis were required to do this. Further deductive analysis sought to understand the individual models relative to this new understanding.

The analysis showed that a total of 12 components have been used to model CRE alignment. These are divided into four Building Blocks: understanding corporate strategy; understanding real estate performance; making real estate strategy; and implementing real estate strategy. While every model’s representation contained the four Building Blocks, few models contained all 12 components, though all contained at least seven. Completeness of representation in this study should not be inferred as equating to effectiveness as an alignment process. Various feedback mechanisms were also evident between the components.

The analysis provides the most complete map of the modelling requirements for CRE alignment. It differs from previous theoretical work on alignment by synthesising a metatheory of alignment representation. By providing a more coherent theory by which to model CRE alignment the metatheory provides a consistent basis on which to investigate and theorise aspects of CRE alignment.