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In light of climate change, the design and construction of buildings needs to shift from conventional to lower-carbon practices to maximise carbon reduction. Over the past few years, the zero carbon buildings (ZCBs) approach has been promoted worldwide as an effective way to reduce environmental impacts and mitigate climate change. Although zero-carbon policies, technologies, processes and products are widely available in the construction market, construction stakeholders play an important part in adopting relevant strategies to implement ZCBs successfully. This study investigates the knowledge of construction stakeholders involved in the design and construction of buildings regarding zero carbon initiatives in New Zealand.

The research was conducted using a literature review and an online questionnaire survey with various New Zealand's construction stakeholders.

The findings indicate a low level of knowledge regarding the design and construction of ZCBs. To successfully deliver ZCBs, the study suggests that construction stakeholders must have their self-awareness increased, especially in improving knowledge of whole-of-life embodied carbon reduction. The governments and construction sectors should devote more effort to establishing training programmes and knowledge-sharing platforms to improve stakeholder knowledge in carbon literacy, building assessment methods, energy modelling and life cycle assessment.

The research implications may assist the real-world uptake of the ZCBs approach by offering academics and practitioners an insight into the ZCBs knowledge gaps.

Green Star is becoming a broadly accepted mark of design quality and environmental sustainability. Compared to other green tools, Green Star is considered as one of main streams green assessment tools, which cover almost sustainable criteria. Simultaneously, building information modelling (BIM) has also been introduced into the industry. BIM is expected to aid designers to shift the construction industry towards more environmentally and economically sustainable construction practice. Whilst the aspirations of Green Star rating and BIM implementation are broadly aligned, in the context of New Zealand this has led to some disconnects in design strategy and process. The purpose of this paper is to improve the practicality of BIM implementations for delivering Green Star certification in New Zealand.

The extensive literature review is conducted through a series of incremental steps. A conceptual framework focussing on the relationship between benefits and challenges of BIM and Green Star is then developed.

BIM supports practitioners to achieve the majority of Green Star criteria (75 per cent). Energy efficiency criterion is the key factor affecting the assessment process of Green Star and National Australian Built Environment Rating System in New Zealand. Research questions about lessening the challenges which can be encountered during the BIM and Green Star implementation are developed.

This paper is limited to a conceptual research. Further empirical research should be conducted to validate and modify the conceptual framework and the propositions presented in this paper to provide an initial insight into BIM and Green Star connectivity within the context of New Zealand.

This paper provided a clear picture for investors, developers, practitioners about benefits and challenges of BIM and Green Star implementation. The outcomes are anticipated to deliver visions for shifting the country further towards development of sustainable future cities.

Research into the library as place investigates the role of public library buildings as destinations, physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from making use of the library's resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information or reading need to less easily identified reasons that may include using the library's building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity. This study asks: How are one rural US public library system's newly constructed buildings functioning as places? The answer is derived from answers to sub-questions about adult library users, user, and staff perceptions of library use, and observed use of library facilities. The findings are contextualized using a framework built of theories from human geography, sociology, and information studies.

This case study replicates a mixed-methods case study conducted at the main public libraries in Toronto and Vancouver in the late1990s and first reproduced in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2006. It tests methods used in large urban settings in a rural, small-town environment. This study also expands on its antecedents by using thematic analysis to determine which conceptualizations of the role of the public library as place are most relevant to the community under investigation.

The study relies on quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys and interviews of adult library users, interviews of library public service staff members, structured observations of people using the libraries, and analysis of selected administrative documents. The five sets of data are triangulated to answer the research sub-questions.

Thematic analysis grounded in the conceptual framework finds that public realm theory best contextualizes the relationships that develop between library staff members and adult library users over time. The study finds that the libraries serve their communities as informational places and as familiarized locales rather than as third places, and that the libraries facilitate the generation of social capital for their users.

Currently trending as a practical approach to promote urban and seismic resilience, the adaptive reuse of historical buildings relies on expertise from various professional backgrounds ranging from conservation, urban planning, construction management, architecture, engineering to interior design. This paper explores the applicability of a performance-based multiple criteria decision assessment (MCDA) framework to prioritise underutilised historical buildings for adaptive reuse in Auckland, New Zealand while balancing the diverse interest of all relevant stakeholders.

A focus group workshop was conducted for relevant adaptive stakeholders in Auckland, New Zealand, to test the applicability of the performance-based MCDA framework developed by Aigwi et al. (2020) and prioritise four underutilised historical building alternatives for adaptive reuse interventions in Auckland, New Zealand.

Findings from this study revealed the significant potentials of the performance-based MCDA framework, both as an evidence-based measurement tool to prioritise underutilised earthquake-prone historical buildings in Auckland's central business district and as an effective decision-making strategy. Also, the framework allowed the inclusion of diverse stakeholders through the integration of collaborative rationality, ensuring consistency and transparency in the decision-making process.

The successful validation of the existing performance-based MCDA framework in Auckland, New Zealand, using multiple historical building alternatives, further strengthens its preceding validation by Aigwi et al. (2019) using only two historical buildings in Whanganui, New Zealand. The findings provide a theoretical platform for urban planning researchers to advance performance-based planning for adaptive reuse to other locations and fields. There are also interesting implications for local councils, heritage agencies, architects, urban planners, policymakers, building owners and developers in Auckland, New Zealand, as a guide to improving their understandings of: (1) the intangible values of optimal historical buildings perceived by the community as worthy of protection through adaptive reuse; and (2) the targeted needs of communities in the new functions of an optimal alternative from a group of representative historical building alternatives.

Most provincial town centres in New Zealand typically feature old and vacant historical buildings, the majority of which possess heritage values. The growing perception that it is cheaper to repurpose vacant historical buildings rather than demolishing and rebuilding them is one of the factors that have made the adaptive reuse approach so popular. However, will this also be the case for provincial town centres in New Zealand? The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the key factors that could influence the efficacy of adaptive reuse, and check for significant differences in the effect that each perceived factor would have on the adaptive reuse efficacy as a justifiable resilient and sustainable approach towards the regeneration of a major provincial town centre in New Zealand that is currently experiencing inner-city shrinkage.

A focus group workshop was conducted with 22 stakeholders involved in an existing town centre regeneration agenda for Whanganui. Closed-ended questionnaires were administered to the workshop participants to measure their opinions regarding the efficacy of the adaptive reuse approach for the regeneration of Whanganui’s town centre. The participant mix comprised a combination of structural engineers, quantity surveyors, architects, estate valuers, building owners/developers, legal representatives, heritage representatives and local government council representatives.

The study reported a high proportion of respondents that strongly agreed to the positive impacts of adaptive reuse with regards to the discussed priority aspects, hence, justifying the efficacy of the approach, towards delivering a vibrant town centre for Whanganui. Also, the Friedman’s analysis suggests that no significant differences existed among all perceived adaptive reuse efficacy criteria by the workshop participants, therefore justifying the approach.

This paper’s originality pertains to the practicality of changing the use of vacant historical buildings in Whanganui, which is one of New Zealand’s major provincial town centres, to renegotiate resilience and sustainable urban regeneration for the area.

Reviews the theory and principles of economic appraisal in redevelopment and rehabilitation/refurbishment. Explains some of the statistical research in housing and commercial office appraisals, including the results from computer simulations and sensitivity tests of the important methods of appraisal and analysis.

This paper aims to propose a new format to present the cost of building conservation works which will better reflect the actual cost components and have a higher relevance to building conservation works.

To achieve the study's aim of presenting a new format suitable for building conservation works, a total of 16 conservation projects were selected and work items of the highest frequency were identified and aggregated into the relevant elemental component to formulate a new elemental cost format.

Work items of the highest frequency identified are partitions, doors and ironmongeries, followed by roof finishes and rainwater goods, floor finishes, external walls and windows. In addition to the usual building works, new work items such as scientific analysis, archaeology excavation and temporary roof are also found to be important.

The proposed format has yet to be tested in the local industry, which is necessary to ensure compatibility with industry needs.

This new cost analysis format includes a list of work items that are specific to building conservation works, which may guide the quantity surveyor in preparing a budget/cost estimate with higher accuracy by reducing the risk of omitted work items that are pertinent in building conservation works.

Owing to the lack of cost data information for building conservation works, estimating and controlling the cost in this area of work is very challenging. The proposed new format of elemental cost analysis designed for building conservation works seeks to fill this void by providing a guide in estimating costs for building conservation.

This multiple case study investigates the impact of technology on organizational change in public libraries. Over the past 12–15 years, public access computers (PACs) have been introduced into public libraries. Once these PACs were connected to the Internet, they attracted patrons who had not previously used public library services. The main themes around which this study was organized relate to the implementation of technology with facilities and services, city government, and people. The main research questions were following: (1) How has public library culture changed since the introduction of computers for patron use? (2) What adjustments were necessary to deal with the influx of computers and other technology in public libraries? (3) Have PACs changed the way the libraries are organized and how they are staffed? The findings of the study included how technology influenced changes in staffing in the public libraries. Each of the libraries has undergone a culture shift due to the introduction of technology. One of the shifts is the change of the reference desk from general reference to the addition of a help desk with reference responsibilities. Another concern of the directors was constantly funding the upgrades necessary for software and hardware that technology requires. As not all of the directors have supportive city government, this can be problematic. Finally, the facilities where the public libraries were housed had undergone changes either through renovations or through new buildings to accommodate technology and the infrastructure needed to support it.

The process followed in amending building code creates problems for code users within the building industry. These problems include the need and frequency of changes made to building code, access to updated documents, method of communication, amendment interval and amendment pathway. This study aims to explore the viewpoints of building code users regarding building code amendments in New Zealand.

Using a closed-ended questionnaire survey, this paper examined the New Zealand building code amendments by evaluating the views of experienced and relevant stakeholders within the research area.

A high proportion (50.90%) of the survey participants agreed to a three-years building code amendment cycle, as against the current biannual Amendment practiced in New Zealand. Findings from the study affirmed the necessity for building code amendment and the support for free amended building code documents to the public and other building standards. The study concludes with strong support to the use of intensive research and learning gained from disasters in building code amendment in New Zealand. Implementing the code users opinions encourages disaster resilience through effective application of the building code requirements in design and construction.

The contribution from this study offered a unique insight into the perspectives of building code users on building code amendment in New Zealand and ways of incorporating the findings in the building code later updates to improve disaster resilience in the built environment.

This study aims to investigate how the local residents viewed a new public library project in Macao through the analysis of newspaper articles published in 2014–2019 and how these views have changed the decision-makers in selecting a different site for the new library.

Content analysis was used to analyze public views. 569 newspaper articles on the new library project published in local major newspapers from January 2014 to August 2019 were coded and analyzed. Percentage agreement for the two coders and Cohen's Kappa were used to calculate the inter-rater reliability.

The top 5 factors discussed in the newspaper articles were the general decision-making process (38.65%), location (18.20%), selection of the Old Court Building as the new library site (15.07%), budget (13.5%) and new library services (6.85%). The local residents tended to raise questions on the high cost, the appropriateness of the selected library site, the preservation of the local heritage buildings, and the role that the government should play in this project.

This study only collected and analyzed the data from the articles published in the major newspapers in Macao. Other types of media from sources such as Facebook were not included in this study. Articles containing similar information but from different newspapers were all counted as individual entries for data collection. The voices/options were not divided by groups. For further analysis, the articles could be separated by voices from politicians, librarians and other special interest groups. The chosen categories in this study were based on Voyant Tools and the authors' interpretation/focus of the research question. The categories could be subdivided for further study. For example, the overall support of the project could be broken into full support, support with some minor reservations, support with major reservations, etc. And some articles currently in the neutral category with some degrees of support might fit into one of the above new sub-categories.

The case carries new references for any communities embarking on similar projects.