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Housing quality is determined by both objective and subjective dynamics. This research was conducted to explore the importance of users’ memory as a tool for assessing housing quality. While objective features of the surroundings generally require physical measurements, subjective features can be supported by residents’ memories. Memory studies can therefore be used as a research tool to understand the housing environment as they provide important references to the past, present, and future. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between users’ (residents) memory and housing quality.

The methodology comprised a literature review of spatial quality studies and a field study of a modern housing estate in Istanbul. For the field study, housing quality was examined through the memories of residents in the neighbourhood, buildings, and units. With the research, site observations were made, a questionnaire was issued to residents, and in-depth interviews were conducted with residents who had lived there the longest. New dimensions of housing quality problems were then discussed in the conclusion with reference to residents’ memories.

Memory studies can be used as a research tool to understand the housing environment, as they provide important references to the past, present and future. In the conclusion, new dimensions of the housing quality problems were discussed with the help of the residents’ memories. It was seen that different dimensions of housing quality can be revealed with the help of user memory.

In all, 40 of the total residents (101) accepted to make questionnaires. In-depth interviews were conducted with three long-term residents that are the only ones still alive and had lived the area since the beginning of the life after construction.

With the aim of developing new tools and methods to analyse housing quality, this research presents a new perspective by utilising users’ memories to evaluate spatial quality.

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation has had a tremendous impact on the social networks and neighbourhood life of urban residents. This chapter challenges the common perception of neighbouring in demise and argues that neighbouring remains an important form of social relationship, even if the meanings and role of neighbouring have changed. This chapter first charts the changing role of neighbouring from the socialist era to post-reform China. It then provides an account of four common types of neighbourhoods in Chinese cities – work-unit estates, traditional courtyards, commodity housing estates and urban villages – and considers how and why neighbouring in different ways still matters to them. In pre-reform socialist China, neighbourhood life and neighbouring comprised much of the daily social life of residents. Since the reform era, with the proliferation of private commodity housing estates, middle-class residents prioritise comfort, security and privacy, such that neighbouring levels have subsided. Nevertheless, in other neighbourhood types, such as work-unit housing estates, traditional courtyards and urban villages, neighbours still rely upon one another for various reasons.

The paper discusses the position of low rise, high density housing in Hungary on a theoretical level, from the conceptional point of view. The purpose is that the dissemination and popularization of the housing type would be beneficial to the society. Before and after World War Two different nature of this housing type was present in the country, but after the regime change in 1989 the continuity has been lost.

This paper aims to support the above assumptions - discussing the benefits of the installaton type in the light of global and local issues, and search of the housing type’s local positions. The actuality of housing issue is relevant because of the planning of 2014-2020 housing program, the fall of yearly built houses, the imbalance of housing allocation and the urgent questions of global problems.

The paper’s method is threefold (1) discusses the potential of the housing type in correlation with the three pillars of sustainability, (2) analyses past examples from three different periods of the past century and (3) searches its position according to actual social changes and suggests strategic objectives for the future use of low rise, high density housing in the country.

This paper aims to address convenience as a prominent feature of a scheduled society and examines the nature of convenience, identifies the waste collection system and recycling programmes in some densely populated areas in Asia and discusses the existing barriers to enhancing the convenience of the recycling facilities in Hong Kong. The paper further identifies some recommendations for the policy and design of recycling practices and facilities.

In this qualitative study, two districts in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2014 were used as case studies. The research methods included field observations, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic research. The locations for field observation included lobbies, corridors, lifts, ground floors and streets. Direct interviews were conducted with residents, cleaners, government officials and expert planners and environmentalists. In-depth interviews and observations were conducted with six families following the interviews to identify important issues that might have been ignored in the semi-structured interviews and field observations.

A holistic understanding of convenience in a scheduled society is effective in the design of high-quality recycling facilities. In terms of convenience, the gap between recycling and not recycling is rather obvious in Hong Kong. Therefore, it is necessary and important to adjust the difference in the degree of convenience regarding refuse disposal and recyclable collection. In addition, the enhancement of economic incentives could shift the degree of convenience and encourage public participation in recycling. The challenges of specific living conditions and social contexts should also be taken into account to enhance the convenience of recycling.

Further case studies are expected in other countries and cities with the purpose of gaining an in-depth understanding of the means by which to approach the convenience of recycling programmes within various social contexts. Comprehensive and continuous studies on these factors are recommended throughout the design and implementation processes to account for constantly changing situations. A clear understanding of convenience from the perspective of the users is important.

The findings provide reference and direction for a holistic approach to the design and management of recycling facilities in Hong Kong. The findings also advocate the consideration of convenience from the perspective of the users.

The findings illustrate how to design and manage public facilities for waste recycling in ways that encourage household and community participation in terms of convenience.

The paper identifies the manner by which the culture of convenience and an institutionalised rhythm influence recycling practices. Although substantial studies on recycling indicate that convenience is a necessary characteristic of designs and services, the nature of convenience and the means by which to approach convenience in terms of public facilities are seldom discussed. The paper proposes several recommendations on the basis of the studies of the refuse collection programmes in other areas of Asia and case studies in Hong Kong. The findings provide insights for policymakers, researchers and designers to improve the design of public facilities.

Culture has always been important for the character of the cities, as have the civic and public institutions that sustain a lifestyle and provide an identity. Substantial evidence of the unique historical, urban civilisation remains within the traditional settlements in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, manifested in houses, palaces, temples, rest houses, open spaces, festivals, rituals, customs and cultural institutions. Indigenous knowledge and practices prescribed the arrangement of houses, roads, and urban spaces giving the city a distinctive physical form, character, and a unique oriental nativeness. In a technical sense, these societies did not have written rules for guiding development. In recent decades, the urban culture of the city has been changing with the forces of urbanisation and globalisation and the demand for new buildings and spaces. New residential design is increasingly dominated by distinctive patterns of Western suburban ideal comprising detached or semi-detached homes and high rise tower blocks. This architectural iconoclasm can be construed as a rather crude response to the indigenous culture and built form. The paper attempts to dismantle the current tension between traditional and contemporary ‘culture’ (and hence society) and housing (or built form) in the Kathmandu Valley by engaging in a discussion that cuts across space, time, and meaning of architecture as we know it.

The purpose of this paper is to examine asset management in three cities. It is informed by polyphony as a theoretical perspective and draws on the fact‐building process to explore the practice of asset management in these study settings.

A comparative case study approach was adopted to have a broader understanding of the levels of complexity in the study of polyphony in asset management. With this aim, the three Scottish cities were analysed presenting a spectrum of city types.

The paper finds evidence of polyphony. The three cases show different degrees of controversies and achievements, providing a highly variegated picture of the effectiveness in pursuing an asset management policy.

Polyphony recognises the many voices of actors present in organisations. This perspective on asset management is an important, but relatively neglected facet of this aspect of city management. The paper provides an insight in this, showing the potential for the multiple voices of the many different actors within local government, all of whom may have distinct views on asset utilisation.

Rapid development of information technology (IT) has posed constant challenges to business information management. By using a case study, this paper discusses the main components and development of an information system (IS) for public housing management in Singapore. It was found that the IS has evolved around a core of transaction processing system, with value‐adding sub‐systems which reflect the use of the latest IT. The paper not only contributes to the understanding of IS for public housing management, but also to the planning of IS for business management.

Telford personifies an area that has gone through the traumas of birth, decay and rejuvenation. Now, with a growing population and an influx of new industry that has so far escaped the brunt of recession, this West Midlands conurbation is undergoing its second Industrial Revolution. Dave Grayston reports.

OUR readers may be amused this month by the microfilm imaginings of our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs,” but there is undoubtedly a more marked disposition now than formerly to reduce to a mechanism many of the usual routines of libraries. We suppose routine is always mechanical, is repetitive and, for the enterprising ambitious library worker, a matter of boredom. How far the “electronic brain” and other more recent developments of science can be adapted to our simple processes remains to be seen, but all experiment is good even if it does not survive the initial stage. What is to be most feared in any profession is the standardizing inflexibly of its techniques ; that way lies its old age, perhaps its petrification. It is for this reason that we welcome such things as those we have already discussed at times in our pages—the central cataloguing experiment of Harrods, the punched‐card vouchers and other records sponsored (so far as libraries are concerned) by Mr. T. E. Callender, the highly mechanised method of classing propounded by Dr. Ranganathan, the placing of D.C. numbers on the title pages of the books they publish by Jonathan Cape and Harrap, the visible fines receiving box and many more such things. No one uses them all. They free librarians, it is urged, for more specifically library service. We hope that they do. We have always before us the undoubted truth that the good man scraps methods that are obsolescent and the librarian (if one now exists) who is not a business man—especially if he is charged with a large library—is a somewhat pathetic person.