The housing industry of today produces homes that are poorly prepared for the future. Rapidly changing demographics and related societal pressures will inevitably transform the home into a center for preventative health care, distributed energy production, work, learning, and communication requiring us to rethink how we design and integrate technology into our places of living. In addition, peo...

This paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and the spread of SARS. I focus on the SARS infection rates in 295 large-scale Hong Kong housing complexes. Using pre-SARS property values as indicators of SES, I identify a negative SESSARS link. I also find that density, proximity to the city centers and availability of communal facilities increase the spread of SARS....

Collective Self-Organised (CSO) housing projects are an emerging trend in Europe. In these projects communities engage in co-design throughout the process. Little knowledge exists that can support CSOs with the process of managing their projects by using state-of-the-art building information (BI) technologies. The authors introduce a BI supported CSO housing design process that can support CSOs...

Although gestation stalls have provided a reduction in building and labor costs to producers, they remain a controversial system of swine production in terms of animal welfare. Gestation stalls physically limit the sow to standing, sitting, and lying. Several studies have suggested that repetitive abnormal behaviors, termed stereotypic and considered an indicator of poor welfare, can be induced...

For 2000 years, the inter-connexion between the specific structure of the Chinese eastern climates and the cultural background have produced remarkable vernacular housing types, both well adapted to the local conditions, and reflecting consistent values and knowledge. Stemming from a similar archetypal form, each house plan is translated through the specificity of the climate and resources of i...

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IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE that in the 21st century, upwards of 100 million people in the United States live in housing that is physically inadequate, in unsafe neighborhoods, overcrowded or way beyond what they realistically can afford. Yet it could be quite different. We could and should guarantee high-quality, truly affordable housing in “good” neighborhoods for all and thus finally achieve the Na...

BACKGROUND Improvements in health are an important expected outcome of many housing infrastructure programs. The authors aimed to determine if improvement in the notoriously poor housing infrastructure in Australian Indigenous communities results in reduction in common childhood illness and to identify important mediating factors in this relationship. METHODS The authors conducted a prospecti...