Technologies, Inbetweenness and Affordances

Categorization of technologies by the order of their inbetweenness is a useful device for parsing complex structures info fundamental parts and understanding the application of a technology. This promises a coherent foundation for explaining how we deploy technologies in design, in particular with respect to the affordances they create. By...

Surrogate modeling for water reuse planning in complex water systems∗

Integrated management of water reuse technologies and coordinated operations with other water system components is fundamental to fully exploiting reuse potential. Yet, these technologies are primarily designed considering their individual efficiency more than possible synergies with traditional water management practices. In this paper, we...

Canada's oil sands industry from a sustainability perspective

The present study aims to investigate the impacts of oil sands development in Canada on the economy, society and the environment as the three pillars of sustainability. Factors such as aquatic ecosystems, land disturbance and reclamation, air quality, public health, safety, aboriginal and local communities, gross domestic product, employment...

The Interplay of Economic Development and Environmental Protection: Dunkirk and the Search for Balance

Port authorities who once considered the inclusion of local actors in the decision-making process a threat to efficiency have begun to see their inclusion as an opportunity. The notion of inclusion can bring together the sometimes diverging objectives of port and city actors. In the Northern Range – the most important European ports between Le...

Supporting Interventions to Reduce Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Transdisciplinary Role-Playing Game Development

Background. Designing interventions for conserving the food, energy, and water nexus at household level poses a significant challenge due to the complex interplay between human behaviors, technologies, and policies. Games show potential to increase awareness for environmental issues and influence behaviors towards more sustainable practices....

The Dalian Port Cluster: Spatial Practice of the One Belt One Road Initiative

The Chinese government is heavily investing in trade-related infrastructure with its One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR), a proposal to build a new Silk Road or network of trade routes. This infrastructure-driven innovation will have a large economic, spatial and environmental impact on China; it is also likely to transform entire regions...

Victor Gruen: the environmental Heart

Victor Gruen is the pioneer of the regional shopping centre, he is the “Mall Maker”, which, is also the title of a book by M. Jeffrey Hartwick about this Austrian-born architect. Well known for his first commercial projects, which have been copied and analysed worldwide, mostly negatively influencing the structure of cities and societies, Gruen...

Historic vehicles: an overview from a transport policy perspective

Historic vehicles (HVs) are the heritage of road transport that have surprisingly received little attention in the academic literature. This study presents an overview of the literature on HVs, focusing on the three topics that dominate the policy debate on transport: environmental, safety and congestion impacts. We observed that polluting...

Teaching urbanism: the Delft approach

The Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology has a long tradition in educating generations of internationally oriented designers, planners and researchers in urbanism. Here the domain of urbanism is defined as an interdisciplinary approach that engages in real-world...

Courtyards as solutions in green architecture to reduce environmental pollution

After the industrial revolution, men intended-more than ever-to use energy, specifically the fossil fuels. In spite of providing comfort conditions for human life, too much use of these energy resources can cause the pollution and destruction of environment. The result is the threatening of the environment and the continuity of life on the...

Towards an environment interface standard for agent platforms

We introduce an interface for connecting agent platforms to environments. This interface provides generic functionality for executing actions and for perceiving changes in an agent’s environment. It also provides support for managing an environment, e.g., for starting, pausing and terminating it. Among the benefits of such an interface are (1)...

'iPortals' as a case study pre-prototype of an evolving network of interactive spatial components

The art and craft of desiesign and creation of buildings is undergoing a radical paradigm shift. This shift is being driven by diverse novel cross-disciplinary technical possibilities, as well as by ongoing cultural transformations. They all, directly or indirectly, originate from omnipresent advancements in information technologies. Instant and...

Analysis of Dry Bulk Terminals: Chances for Exploration