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Urban population growth has increased housing density, which has expanded the construction of low-cost low-rise residential in urban areas. Good building performance and effective low-cost low-rise residential quality lead to higher user satisfaction and improve building sustainability. This study aims to focus on the factors influencing the sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential in the West Malaysia urban area to assess resident satisfaction.

A mixed-mode approach with both qualitative and quantitative were used in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 stakeholders to identify the common factors influencing sustainability in low-cost low-rise residential. Subsequently, questionnaire surveys were formed and distributed among building users to determine the satisfaction level with low-cost low-rise residential building performance.

The finding demonstrates that accessibility is the key factor to achieving sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential. The finding also related to the factor that influences both stakeholders and building user satisfaction levels. This study also identifies key areas that require attention to improve user satisfaction with building sustainability and building performance of low-cost low-rise residential.

This study aims to determine stakeholder and building user satisfaction levels in relation to the sustainable building factor. A few indicators have been set up to identify the factors that most influence the sustainability and environment of low-cost low-rise residential buildings. Each subchapter has a few recommendations to improve the performance of low-cost low-rise residential. Each of the factors mentioned is related to social, economic and environmental sustainability. In addition, the study discovered a strong connection between low-cost low-rise residential performance and user satisfaction.

Prefabricated housing has become a boom industry across the world; however, the uptake of offsite construction (OSC) approaches in Australian low-rise buildings is rather low compared with high-rise buildings in other countries. This study aims to investigate and analyse the adoption of different levels of OSC approaches and the selection of different procurement options in Australian low-rise residential buildings.

The research objectives were pursued through a mixed research method. An empirical questionnaire survey was carried out with 35 professionals in the Australian building and construction industry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 interviewees and analysed using thematic analysis method in NVivo software.

The research results found that the most suitable OSC level for Australian low-rise buildings is components-based prefabrication and identified the barriers to OSC uptake for each OSC level. The study also showed that the best option of procuring prefabricated products is from Australian manufacturers, followed by Australian suppliers/dealers and overseas manufacturers. Panelised prefabrication and components-based prefabrication are ranked as the most suitable OSC approaches for Australian manufacturers. Modular prefabrication is regarded as the most suitable for overseas manufacturer, while components-based prefabrication is the most suitable for Australian suppliers/dealers.

The selection of various OSC approaches and different procurement options in the low-rise residential buildings are scarcely explored topic, and thus, this study provides knowledge of interest for both researchers and practitioners.

As an important indicator of the quality of life of individuals, residential environments are continuing to evolve, due to the rapidly changing production–consumption relations. However, in this evolving process, the effect of the differentiated residential environments on the individuals' residential satisfaction remains unclear. This paper aims to measure the effects of the varying residential environments on the overall quality of urban life (QoUL) in Kayseri, one of the most developed cities in Central Anatolia.

It is based on empirical data on the quality of life in the different residential environments of Kayseri. The research method used stratified purposeful sampling, and the household survey data were analyzed using factor analysis, multiple regression and ANOVA statistical methods.

The most influential factors on the overall QoUL of individuals living in different Kayseri residential neighborhoods were satisfaction with neighborhood and city-level urban services, neighborhood relations and belonging factor groups. The critical finding obtained in this study is that residential satisfaction in low-rise and compact form housing areas in Kayseri is higher compared to residential satisfaction in high-rise neighborhoods. This result reveals that the high-rise building typology that is dominant in Turkey's big cities should be seriously questioned, and urban development policies should be re-evaluated.

The study was designed to produce baseline data so that future changes in residential conditions as perceived by the residents of Kayseri could be monitored to support decisions for residential areas.

Comparative case studies, particularly on low-rise versus high-rise environments, are scarce. As a result, this research contributes to the field of comparative studies on residential environments.

Under Malaysian Law, the maintenance and management of common property have traditionally been viewed as insoluble challenges in the self-organisational efforts for high-rise low-cost housing developments. As the population increases, more shared resources become heavily exploited with few willing to contribute towards the sustainability of resources. Many researchers argued a better way would be to convert these shared resources into a private or state-managed entity. Hence, with that assumption, this paper aims to examine how better physical characteristics can result in greater collective action.

This research paper adopted a quantitative method approach to determine how the standard of physical characteristics influenced the quality of collective action in high-rise low-cost housing. The method included a questionnaire survey of 519 parcel holders chosen via stratified purposeful random sampling from four high-rise low-cost housing areas.

The paper found a positive correlation between the quality of physical characteristics and the collective action gained. The findings highlighted that the standard of workmanship of high-rise low-cost units (including the common properties), the crime rate in the neighbourhood and the condition of lift systems – when improved – were significant positive predictors of collective action.

Housing developers should pay attention to the quality of both low-cost units and related common properties, as this endeavour will assist greatly in future collective action management.

The study was justified in terms of its originality as few research studies adopted the social-ecological system framework that focused on the correlation between the quality of physical characteristics and the collective action of parcel holders.

The first paper, entitled “Crime and the design of residential property: exploring the theoretical background” (Property Management, Vol. 19 No. 2), has argued that “perceptions” and the “image” of housing designs remain a largely untested avenue of investigation in the design‐effects‐crime debate. Presents and discusses exploratory research into the perception of crime/deviancy, fear of crime and “defensible space”, in relation to a range of characteristic UK housing designs. This investigation concerns the perceptions of planning professionals, convicted burglars and other users and provides both qualitative and quantitative analysis of results from a series of interviews which presented slide representations of terraced, semi‐detached and detached housing designs in addition to low‐rise/walk‐up flats and high‐rise flats. Where possible, two contrasting versions of the same design were presented to probe the influence of “image” in the perception of crime and “defensible space”. The results from this exploratory investigation underpin Newman’s theory of “defensible space” in that a “hierarchy of place” appears to exist with regard to housing designs. However, the “image” of each design is perceived to be a significant contributing factor in relation to the criminogenic capacity of each design presented. Wilson and Kelling’s “Broken Windows” theory is also supported by these research findings.

This study aims to develop workplace well-being indexes for construction sites of different project types (infrastructure, high-rise and low-rise). Accordingly, the study objectives are to identify the critical factors that affect workplace well-being at construction sites, compare the critical factors between different project types, categorize the critical factors into subgroups and compute indexes for the critical factors and subgroups.

Data from a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with construction industry professionals were used to extract 19 potential factors that affect workplace well-being. Then, a structured questionnaire survey was distributed, and 169 valid responses were collected. Finally, the data were analyzed using normalized mean analysis, agreement analysis, factor analysis and fuzzy synthetic evaluation.

The study findings revealed that there are 11, 11, 8 and 12 critical factors across overall infrastructure, high-rise and low-rise construction projects. Out of those, six critical factors are overlapping across project types, including “general safety and health monitoring,” “salary package,” “timeline of salary payment,” “working hours,” “communication between workers” and “planning of the project.” Accordingly, the critical factors can be categorized into two subgroups within each project type. Finally, the development of indexes shows that infrastructure construction projects have the greatest index compared to other project types.

This study contributes to filling the current knowledge gap by developing workplace well-being indexes at construction sites across different project types. The indexes would assist decision-makers in understanding the current state of workplace well-being. This increases the commitment and recognition of well-being across different construction project types.

Urban built-up has been increasing exponentially in the world. Urban population growth and migration are depleting the land resources and creating thermal discomfort. Cities all around the world are facing urban heat island effects and increased temperatures. This study aims to map land cover and formulate local climate zones for enhancing urban resilience against disaster and climate risks.

This study uses exploratory research to identify local climate zones for Lahore, Pakistan. Landsat 8 imagery was used to develop a land use land cover map. For mapping local climate zones, the standard World Urban and Access Portal Tool procedure was used.

Results have revealed that Lahore has grown exponentially. Compact low rise and open low rise were the two most common local climate zones prevalent in the city. In contrast, the outer regions of the city consisted of LCZ D (low plants) and LCZ F (bare soil).

This study highlights the need to consider local climate zones in future development plans and policies for ensuring sustainable, resilient and climate-friendly cities.

Local climate zone studies are missing in Pakistan. This study has empirically analyzed the ground situation of local climate zones for Lahore metropolitan city. This study will provide baseline support for future studies on urban heat island and climate change adaptation planning.

It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified, establishing housing with a specialised status in economics, sociology, politics, and in related subjects. As we would expect, the new literature covers a technical, statistical, theoretical, ideological, and historical range. Housing studies have not been conceived and interpreted in a monolithic way, with generally accepted concepts and principles, or with uniformly fixed and precise methodological approaches. Instead, some studies have been derived selectively from diverse bases in conventional theories in economics or sociology, or politics. Others have their origins in less conventional social theory, including neo‐Marxist theory which has had a wider intellectual following in the modern democracies since the mid‐1970s. With all this diversity, and in a context where ideological positions compete, housing studies have consequently left in their wake some significant controversies and some gaps in evaluative perspective. In short, the new housing intellectuals have written from personal commitments to particular cognitive, theoretical, ideological, and national positions and experiences. This present piece of writing takes up the two main themes which have emerged in the recent literature. These themes are first, questions relating to building and developing housing theory, and, second, the issue of how we are to conceptualise housing and relate it to policy studies. We shall be arguing that the two themes are closely related: in order to create a useful housing theory we must have awareness and understanding of housing practice and the nature of housing.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the effects of thermal conductivity (TC), dielectric constant and dissipation factor (DF) of circuit laminates on the temperature rise with active components and RF trace heating.

Temperature rise measurements were made on surface mounted chip resistors (to simulate active components) at various dissipated power levels, with and without “via farms”. The RF heating temperature rise of 50 ohm microstrip transmission lines on 0.5 mm laminates was also measured by the same method.

The chip resistor temperature rise correlated with the independently measured TC of the laminate materials. The use of a “via farm” substantially reduced the temperature rise in all materials, but the higher TC laminates still conferred a measurable advantage. The trace temperature rise due to RF heating correlated with both TC and DF.

It was shown that the one‐dimensional heat transfer model does not accurately calculate the temperature rise due to significant in‐plane heat spreading, particularly with lower TC materials.

This paper details how temperature rise of both active components and 50 ohm transmission lines is affected by the thermal and electrical properties of the circuit laminate.