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How does social capital matter to the creation of neighbourhood networks in cities? Social housing in Portugal is some times viewed as a single architectural and building environment development failure. This article discusses a relevant Portuguese urban planning landscape and aims to contribute to the discussion of one of its main purpose – the social housing experiment. The author discusses the case of this landscape as urban policy-making and evaluates its implementation and relevance. She hypothesizes that “neighbourhood units” have become a relevant case in the context of neighbourhood planning and housing social-mix in Lisbon. Firstly, she uses theoretical arguments and findings to discuss an urban experiment - Alvalade Landscape. Secondly, the paper analyses relevant data that demonstrates its links to the housing policies thus enriching the urban design. The article offers evidence from the Alvalade Landscape case study in Lisbon of theoretical and empirical community ties in the 1940s. Thirdly, the paper identifies some elements such as community units, social mix, sidewalks, and that have an impact on neighbourhood design as well as people’s lives. The findings show that supportive neighbour ties provide important network resources (social capital) concerning daily life, illness, support or financial aid. Finally, the paper suggests the relevance that social neighbourhood community has in housing programs and policies.

Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house Fallingwater has been the subject of enduring scholarly debate centred on the allegedly clear parallels between its form and that of its surrounding natural setting. Despite these claims being repeated many times, no quantitative approach has ever been used to test this argument. In response, this paper uses a quantitative method, fractal analysis, to measure the relationship between the architecture of Fallingwater and of its natural surroundings.

Using fractal dimension analysis, a computational method that mathematically measures the characteristic visual complexity of an object, this paper mathematically measures and tests the similarity between the visual properties of Fallingwater and its natural setting. Twenty analogues of the natural surroundings of Fallingwater are measured and the results compared to those developed for the properties of eight views of the house.

Although individual results suggest various levels of visual similarity or difference, the complete set of results do not support the claim that the form of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater exhibits clear visual similarities to the surrounding landscape.

In addition to testing a prominent theory about Wright's building for the first time, the paper demonstrates a rare application of fractal analysis to interpreting relations between architecture and nature.

This chapter explores how knowledge of landscape has been produced by different groups of interests in the Mark 3 partnership New Town of Warrington, UK, referring specifically to a neighbourhood called Birchwood. I introduce my on-going research project Days of the New Town and present findings as a point of encounter between knowledge of landscape as professional expertise and as socially lived experience. I place this encounter within the theoretical context of Lefebvre’s writings on social space. Specifically, I use his spatial triad, three overlapping concepts on how space is produced as lived, conceived and perceived (see The Production of Space 1973 translated into English in 1991). Having grown up in Birchwood, I carry with me a knowledge of this space in terms of lived experience. Whilst I do not call upon personal experience in this chapter, the aim of bringing about a greater awareness of the New Town as a space of lived experience has been a motivational factor in researching and writing about the ways we formulate our knowledge of New Towns: knowledge which can co-exist with the official archives of New Town Development Corporations.

The purpose of the current research is to examine the student’s residential satisfaction (SRS) of dormitories in Tehran and Shiraz. Providing homes for non-native students is considered as one of the key issues in university development.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative measurements (mixed methods) was used to compare some of the design features between middle-rise and high-rise student housing. Questionnaire forms were distributed between male students of “Shahid Beheshti University” and “Shiraz University” dormitories. Cluster sampling is done among residential blocks in each university. Students assessed perceived attributes of dormitories by indicating their satisfaction from different categories. The obtained data were analysed by SPSS software and the Mann-Whitney test.

Findings show that although in comparing two samples with only some of the criteria, Shahid Beheshti University dormitory was ranked higher, generally Shiraz University dormitory was more successful in meeting resident’s satisfaction. Among the physical features, the pleasant views and landscape are important components which are related to aesthetic preferences.

More research examining student/environment interactions is needed to pay close attention to cultural aspects. The consideration of culturally diverse individuals in the assessment may also provide valuable insight into the students’ residential satisfaction.

In sum, the design implications resulting from the data analysis act as a step toward an evidence-based design approach. Housing designers can integrate the research findings with design solutions. They take active part in the design process by developing new methodologies to highlight their role in creating high-quality student housing.

The relationship between students and their residential environment has been a mainstream topic in environmental psychology. Some previous studies have focused on socio-demographic characteristics, whereas others have dealt with the physical characteristics of the student housing that affect SRS.

Although the Singapore model of ethnic integration through its public housing programme is well known, the formula for replicating its success elsewhere remains underexplored. This study aims to identify the criteria for successful transplantation, specifically by identifying the housing tenure types that are most amenable to the implementation of the Singapore model.

Through a comparative study of two common law jurisdictions – Singapore and England – this article highlights the differences in their housing landscapes and how such differences impact upon the adoption of ethnic integration policies through housing. The article also unpacks, through a cross-disciplinary lens, the concepts of public housing and housing tenures, drawing heavily on socio-legal and housing literature.

The authors observe that the implementation of ethnic integration policies is best justified and most easily achieved in leasehold estates that exhibit a strong tenurial relationship with the state retaining a more than notional role. Public housing in Singapore being an exemplar of this model, the implementation of its ethnic integration policy is relatively straightforward. By contrast, the shrinking public housing sector in England means that adoption of a similar policy would have limited reach. Even then, the political–legal environment in England that promotes home ownership is potentially hostile to the adoption of such policy as it may be seen as an infringement of private property right.

The cross-jurisdiction comparison is supplemented by an interdisciplinary analysis that seeks to bridge differences in the categorisation of tenure in housing and law literatures so as to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Most of the native citizens in the UAE live in public or private single-family houses. Given the tremendous cost of developing this type of housing and the inability of providing single-family houses to cover all the current and future needs for public housing, high-rise residential buildings seem to offer an alternative. But the question is; does this type of housing suit the local communities in the UAE, especially in light of the failure of the previous western experiences?. Through addressing this question, the research proposes an approach towards a community-oriented design for high-rise residential buildings in the UAE.

The research first investigated the reasons behind the community-relevant shortcomings of the traditional high-rise residential developments in the West. Afterwards, it briefly reviewed the status quo of the community-relevant considerations in the design of the recently built high-rise residential buildings in the UAE, where it has been found that little concern has been devoted to the community needs. In an effort to find an answer to this problem, the research examined four recent design experiences as examples for the current universal efforts to design community-responsive high-rise residential developments. Some conceptual approaches were derived from these experiences that are envisaged to help reach an approach for the case of the UAE. Nonetheless, because of the unique social and cultural traits of the UAE native society one cannot rely on these global conceptual approaches alone. Instead, the research proposes an approach that, while benefiting from the relevant global experiences, is chiefly pivoted on the vertical reconfiguration of the idea of the ‘fareej’ as the smallest unit in the residential urban context both traditionally and in the future official urban plans in the UAE.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the experiences of a small business, Deer Creek Land Developments (DCLD), which has been very successful in negotiating the competitive pressures in a mature industry over time and has built sustainable competitive advantage. The firm has been quite successfully navigating the ups and downs of the market. The case provides an excellent example of how small businesses can open their business models to respond to changes in the external environment, such as an economic downturn, and/or simply to grow.

The paper uses a single case study approach. Detailed interviews of the owner and the manager were used to collect data for the case study.

DCLD's success is found to be hinged on its ability to consistently enhance operational efficiencies, move to higher valuations by adopting an open business model that exploits core in‐house capabilities and those acquired through contractors and partner organizations.

The paper provides several interesting insights useful for small business managers and entrepreneurs. Small businesses can use openness of both types, as demonstrated in the case, to create strategic differentiation and also to reduce operating costs.

This paper initiates a rich field enquiry, which provides some interesting insights to small business managers. The case study is used to demonstrate how a small business can effectively use an open business model to negotiate competitive and environmental pressures.

The new town concept originated from the ideal city model of Ebenezer Howard and expanded from Europe to America in the 1900s. It has reemerged as a site for accommodating population from highly dense urban centers of China and India since the early twenty-first century. The massive infusion of public and private investments has enabled the emergence of new towns in China and India as planned centers of world-class residential, commercial, and work spaces. The rational goal of de-densifying the crowded central cities can lead to a more balanced distribution and use of resources across the metropolitan regions with more spacious housing for the growing middle class in China and India. Yet it is a relatively small number of the wealthy and mobile people who have turned out to be beneficiaries of the mostly high-end housing and well-developed transport infrastructure that evokes social and economic polarizations and political contestations. In this chapter, we will examine: (1) how these top-down planned and developed new towns have reshaped the urbanization process of the megacities in India and China, (2) the socio-spatial influence of these settlements on the central city as well as the surrounding rural areas, and (3) the expected and actual spatial users (both old and new residents) of the new towns? We address these questions by organizing two pairs of cases in a systematic framework: Anting New Town and Thames Town in Shanghai, China and Rajarhat New Town and the Kolkata West International City (KWIC) near Kolkata, India.

At present, the rural folk ecotourism has been paid attention to by the public, so it is inevitable to analyze the architectural planning and design of folk ecotourism. Based on this, in this article, an analysis of the architectural planning and design for the protective development of rural folk custom ecotourism was proposed. First of all, the development background of folk custom ecotourism was briefly analyzed; then, the research status of ecotourism was expounded; next, the planning and design of rural folk tourism were put forward, and the essentials of architectural planning and design were analyzed; with specific rural folk custom ecotourism projects as examples, the planning and design were carried out; in addition, caves, temples, roads and other buildings were analyzed emphatically. These measures can provide references for the architectural planning of folk custom tourism.

Strategies to enable alternative urban food systems cannot be developed alone by those involved with the production and distribution aspects of food systems. It is important for architects, landscape designers and planners to be part of the process of conceiving and implementing innovative food-system thinking. Environmentally focused building standards and models for sustainable communities can easily incorporate farmers' markets, greenhouses, edible landscapes, permeable paving, green roofs, community gardens, and permaculture and other food-related strategies that complement energy generation and conservation, green roofs, living walls, and other approaches that have been more commonly part of sustainable built-environment initiatives.

Recently, architecture faculty and students at Ryerson University in Toronto and at a number of other universities have been exploring the intersection of these disciplines and interests. This paper will show how Ryerson tackled agricultural and food issues as design challenges in projects that included first-year community investigations, student-run design competitions, third-year studio projects and complex final-year thesis projects. These projects that dealt with food issues proved to be excellent entry points for addressing a range of design challenges including social inclusion, cultural context, community design and sustainable building practices.