In chapter 9, it was found that the spatial indicators can reflect the airflow performance. There is a positive or linear correlation between the spatial indicators (connectivity, integration and depth) and the airflow indicator (airflow rate). The indicators that reflect the accessibility of the spatial configuration, i.e. connectivity, integration and depth, reflect the potential of achieving natural ventilation of a particular spatial configuration. In the other words, a high degree of connectivity, integration and low depth value mean a high accessibility of the spatial configuration and a high potential of obtaining natural ventilation. This result is useful for the architectural design practice, especially in the early design stage. In chapter 10, the extended space syntax methods in the program of Depthmap for natural ventilation potential analysis were proposed by the author. In this chapter 11, the proposed methods for spatial analysis will be used for design practice. The spatial configurations of a number of Chinese rural house designs in the area studied will be evaluated in terms of natural ventilation potential for thermal summer comfort by the proposed spatial analysis methods. The rural houses as a case study in this research is chosen because the Chinese rural houses normally using passive ways to achieve thermal comfort in summer, therefore the spatial configuration for natural ventilation is important, as the author concluded in part 1 in this thesis. In addition, the rural population in China accounts for 40% of the total population with a total amount of approximately 560 million at the end of 2018 (NBSC, 2018). At the end of 2014, there were more than 585,451 villages in China and the rural housing area is at present 22.6 billion m², within a total area of more than 40 billion m² of China’s urban and rural housing together. The amount of rural housing is constantly rising. According to 2010 data, the total floor space of newly built houses is 1.6 billion m², and half of them are rural residential buildings (NBSC, 2018). Therefore, improving the living environment for Chinese rural residential buildings is important for the sustainable development of China. Moreover, previous studies have been carried out on the sustainable development of Chinese rural residential building. However, many investigations and studies related to energy conservation and indoor thermal comfort have been proposed for northern China’s rural houses (Jin & Zhou, 2008; Lai, Zhang, Wei, & Zhang, 2011; Sun, 2003; Yang, Yang, Yan, & Liu, 2011; Zhao & Jin, 2007; Zheng, Li, & Yang, 2008), focusing on winter comfort. Studies of the Chinese rural residential building in the hot humid climate regions are scarce (Han, Zhang, & Zhou, 2009; Jin, Meng, Zhao, Zhang, & Chen, 2013; Liu, Tan, Chen, Chu, & Zhang, 2013; Xie & Shi, 2012). Studies of spatial configuration for passive cooling of rural residential building design are very scarce.

In the early design stages, architects are in constant search of a design direction that can determine the success or failure of the final design. However, in real design practice, most of the prediction methods for building performances, in this paper energy and thermal comfort, are utilised in the later design stages. Spatial configuration is one of the most important issues for architectural design in the early design stage. This study investigates the correlations between the spatial indicators connected with architectural design and the building physics indicators ventilation performance and energy performance. The main objective is to explore the potential of applying spatial indicators using space syntax to predict ventilation performance and energy performance in order to support architects for the evaluation of their concept and schemes in early design stage. The layout of a high-rise apartment in China in five different cities is chosen as a case study. The results show that the selected three indicators: connectivity value, air change rate and annual cooling saving ratio are linearly correlated, not just at building level but also at room level. R2, the correlation coefficient of determination, is between 0.53 and 0.90 (except for the case of Chongqing at building level).

Over the last decades, the perception of glass in the engineering world has changed from that of a brittle, fragile material to a reliable structural component of high compressive load-bearing capacity. Although the structural applications of glass in architecture are continuously increasing, they are dominated by a considerable geometrical limitation: the 2-dimensionality imposed by the prevailing float glass industry. Cast glass can overcome this limitation: solid 3-dimensional glass components of virtually any shape and cross-section can be made. Owing to their monolithic nature, such components can form robust repetitive units for the construction of free-form, all-glass structures that take full advantage of the compressive strength of glass; a solution little explored so far. Subsequently, there is a lack of design guidelines in the use of cast glass as a structural material. Scope of this research is, therefore, to investigate both the potential and the limitations of employing solid cast glass components for the engineering of transparent, 3-dimensional, glass structures in architecture. Accordingly, the design, development, prototyping and experimental validation of two distinct cast glass building systems for self-supporting envelopes, from unit level to the entire structure, are presented. First, an adhesively-bonded solid glass block system, using a colourless adhesive as an intermediary, is developed and applied in the Crystal Houses facade. Following, a dry-assembly, interlocking cast glass block system, employing a colourless dry interlayer, is explored as a reversible, circular solution. The results of this dissertation can serve as design guidelines for future structural applications of cast glass in architecture.

In view of the meticulous and lengthy cooling process discussed in the previous chapters, in architectural applications solid cast glass components have been commercialized up to the size range of standard masonry bricks. Owing to their large cross-sectional area, solid glass bricks are promising structural components that can fully exploit glass’s compressive strength. By forming repetitive components, self-supporting, 3-dimensional all-glass structures of undisturbed transparency can be achieved. Nonetheless, at present, little and rather sporadic exploration has been made in the use of casting as a manufacturing method for structural glass in architecture. To a degree, this is attributed to the existence of only a few realized examples of self-supporting structures made of solid cast glass elements. The, so far, limited demand has in turn led to the absence of a standardized manufacturing process, to a lack of consistent engineering data and to a general unawareness of the potential of cast glass in structural applications in architecture. Currently, including the contribution of this dissertation, there are 3 structural systems employed for creating self-supporting structures out of cast glass components: (a) with a metal substructure, (b) adhesively bonded blocks, (c) interlocking glass blocks. The former two have been applied in real structures, whereas interlocking glass blocks are for the first time introduced as a building system through this dissertation. In this chapter, the 3 concepts are briefly presented, analyzed and evaluated in terms of manufacturing, structural system, level of transparency, ease of assembly and disassembly.

Continuing from the experimental validation of the adhesively bonded system, this chapter presents the main challenges confronted and records the innovative solutions implemented during the consecutive construction steps of the adhesivelybonded cast glass facade. These include the manufacturing and quality control of the bricks, the set-up of the construction site, the levelling of the reference supporting beam, the bonding method used and the fabrication and installation of customized elements such as the architraves, window and door frames and the intermixing zone of glass with terracotta bricks. The experimental work on prototype elements, described in Chapter 5, resulted into the use of a colourless, UV-curing adhesive of the Delo Photobond family for bonding the solid glass blocks together. The tests indicated as well that the desired monolithic structural performance of the glass masonry system and a homogeneous visual result can only be achieved when the selected adhesive is applied in a 0.2-0.3 mm thick layer. In accordance, the bricks have to meet a strict dimensional tolerance of ± 0.25 mm. On the facade as a whole, this means that the overall size deviations will be limited to a few mm. The nearly zero thickness of the adhesive together with the request for unimpeded transparency introduced numerous engineering puzzles, addressed in this chapter. The fundamental difference between conventional brickwork and the developed glass masonry system is that a standard mortar layer compensates for the size deviations of the bricks, while the selected adhesive cannot. This manifests the level of complexity introduced by the manual bonding and the significance of constantly controlling the entire construction with high precision methods. Based on the conclusions of the research and the technical experience gained by the realization of the project, recommendations are made on the further improvement of the presented glass masonry system for future applications.

This paper deals with the design, production and monitoring of a bio-composite footbridge with a span of 14 meters across the river Dommel in the city of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The specific bio-composite material that was used for this research is a Natural-Fibre Reinforced Bio-Polymer (NFRBP). The goal of the research is to prove that NFRBP can be applied as a load bearing structure in an outdoor environment. For this purpose, a multidisciplinary team of academic researchers from two universities, together with a manufacturer from the NFRBP industry and the Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy (CoEBBE), developed a feasible design that could be produced by unskilled hands in a short period of time and within a limited budget. The footbridge was designed, built and installed within less than one year. In the two years after the installation of the footbridge, the structural behaviour of the bridge was monitored by means of optical fibre glass strands, integrated within the structure, with the purpose of measuring deformations and change in elasticity that occur over time.

This paper can be seen as the overall introduction in which the Rotterdam Rijnmond case study region and its spatial and flood risk challenge are introduced. It describes the strong historical relation between flood risk management interventions and the spatial development of the region. The region is protected against floods by an extensive system of (sea)barriers and dike-rings. Positioned on the edge of the Rhine-Meuse delta, the region developed as a port area and is part of the so-called Randstad area: the most densified area of the Netherlands. Due to climate change, increasing sea levels and peak river discharges are expected in the future, resulting in an increased flood risk. In order to address this future flood risk challenge, the second Delta Committee was established - the first Delta Committee was established after the 1953 flood that flooded part of the Netherlands. This Delta Committee develops regional strategies for flood risk reduction for the long-term period, up to 2100. As part of the strategy development process, four conceptual regional flood risk reduction strategies are developed, which can be perceived as cornerstones of the playing field of possible flood risk reduction strategies for the region. Those cornerstone strategies vary from the complete damming of the delta (thus lowering the extreme water levels behind the barrier) to opening up the delta and dealing with the expectedly high water levels by elevating the region’s dike-rings. The different cornerstones offer different potentials and threats for the spatial development of the region. In addition, at a local scale, the different cornerstones impact the spatial quality of the dike zones and flood plains in different ways. This strong relation between the flood risk management interventions and spatial composition and quality of the region supports the urgency of approaching the future flood risk reduction task in a comprehensive way.

Since 1978, urban redevelopment in China has resulted in large-scale neighbourhood demolition and forced residential relocation, which can severely disrupt established people-place interactions in the demolished neighbourhoods. Urban redevelopment in China has also been criticized by the public and scholars, because the position of the residents in decision-making processes of urban redevelopment is often marginalized. Conflicts have arisen between the residents, local governments and developers, against the backdrop of the uneven redistribution of capital accumulated via urban space reproduction such as the replacement of declining neighbourhoods in which low-income residents reside, with newly-build high-rise dwellings for middle- or high-income residents (Qian and He 2012, Weinstein and Ren 2009). The aim of the thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of the influence of urban redevelopment and its induced forced relocation on residents, by investigating their behavioural and emotional responses to the state-led urban redevelopment in Shenyang, a Chinese city. In particular, it highlights the agency of the affected residents, through exploring their interactions with other stakeholders and through displaying the ambivalence embedded in their neighbourhood experiences.

Worldwide, housing is increasingly unaffordable for young people, many of whom rely on intergenerational transfer of assets to enter home ownership. The explanation lies in two macro-structural shifts: the retrenchment of the welfare state and the rise of the home-owning society. A case study in Chongqing, China suggests an answer to the following research question: How does the expectation of reciprocity affect housingasset intergenerational transfer (HIT) in contemporary China where the welfare system is not equally distributed among urban and rural residents? Data derived from 31 in-depth interviews with young adults and parents show that HIT is perceived as an exchange of financial support in the present for generalized support in the future. Families with a rural migration background, who tend to have less access to the public welfare system due to China’s dual hukou system, are the most eager to invest in HIT and expect the most reciprocity.