Flexi-Ed: Enhancing education through flexible form

<p>As cities evolve, change and grow, the need and desire for adaptable architecture becomes evident across the nation. Architecture needs to undertake techniques that are flexible in order to adapt and align with the development of future generations in New Zealand. The Education industry is a primary example of a sector which requires flexibility within both classroom architectural form and interior configuration. This is a resultant of the recently updated Ministry of Education requirements; which state that every new classroom built or renovated nationwide, must implement the MoE classroom design standards for Innovative Learning Environments. ILE teaching spaces are configured as an open plan interior, supporting flexibility in classroom arrangement and teaching techniques. ILE classrooms are capable of evolving and adapting as educational practices evolve and change, allowing schools to remain modern and future focused. As part of this movement to ILE, the Ministry of Education has also recently made an attempt to improve the quality of temporary classrooms. This has been done by looking into the initiation of a programme that utilizes relocatable classroom buildings. Relocatable classrooms have been selected for multiple reasons, primarily flexibility. Flexibility is key for a school environment as it allows the school to actively respond to fluctuating school rolls. It is anticipated that the programme will provide a faster delivery process with a standardised design that allows the classrooms to be relocated from one school to another with relative ease. Following the devastating February 2011 earthquake the Greater Christchurch Region, the Education sector is in the midst of the Canterbury Schools Rebuild Programme. As a repercussion of this natural disaster, the majority of Christchurch schools have redevelopment or rebuild projects in progress, with preliminary design phases already in action for a small group of select schools regarded as high priority. The primary funding for these projects are sourced from insurance money, implementing tight budget restrictions, affecting the architectural design, quality and speed of the construction and repair works. The available funding limits the affordable classroom options to basic teaching spaces that have been stripped back to simple architectural forms, dictating not only the re-design, but also how our future generations will learn. Thus causing the development of the new student-led learning ILE concept to become controlled by existing construction techniques and the Rebuild Programmes budget restrictions. This thesis focuses on the future proofing of New Zealand schools by providing an affordable and time efficient alternative option to the current static, traditional construction, an option that has the ability to cater to the unpredictable fluctuating school rolls across the nation. This has been done by developing a prefabricated system for standalone classroom blocks. These blocks have the ability to be relocated between different school sites, dynamically catering to the unpredictable school roll numbers experienced across New Zealand. This site flexibility is reflected with the interior flexibility in the classrooms, enhancing the internal teaching space composition and challenges the existing design standards set by the Ministry of Education for Innovative Learning Environments. This system is called “Flexi-Ed”. Flexibility has been a key driver for this thesis, as the prefabricated structure is have to be flexible in three ways; first in the sense of being easy to assemble and disassemble. Second by offering flexible interior learning environments and thirdly the joints of the structure are designed with the ability to be flexible in order to cope with seismic activity. These three principles will provide schools with long term flexibility, minimal on-site interruption and heighten the standard of ILE across the nation. I strive to provide schools with long term flexibility and minimal site interruption, whilst heightening the standard of Innovative Learning Environments across New Zealand.</p>

Flexi-Ed: Enhancing education through flexible form

<p>As cities evolve, change and grow, the need and desire for adaptable architecture becomes evident across the nation. Architecture needs to undertake techniques that are flexible in order to adapt and align with the development of future generations in New Zealand. The Education industry is a primary example of a sector which requires flexibility within both classroom architectural form and interior configuration. This is a resultant of the recently updated Ministry of Education requirements; which state that every new classroom built or renovated nationwide, must implement the MoE classroom design standards for Innovative Learning Environments. ILE teaching spaces are configured as an open plan interior, supporting flexibility in classroom arrangement and teaching techniques. ILE classrooms are capable of evolving and adapting as educational practices evolve and change, allowing schools to remain modern and future focused. As part of this movement to ILE, the Ministry of Education has also recently made an attempt to improve the quality of temporary classrooms. This has been done by looking into the initiation of a programme that utilizes relocatable classroom buildings. Relocatable classrooms have been selected for multiple reasons, primarily flexibility. Flexibility is key for a school environment as it allows the school to actively respond to fluctuating school rolls. It is anticipated that the programme will provide a faster delivery process with a standardised design that allows the classrooms to be relocated from one school to another with relative ease. Following the devastating February 2011 earthquake the Greater Christchurch Region, the Education sector is in the midst of the Canterbury Schools Rebuild Programme. As a repercussion of this natural disaster, the majority of Christchurch schools have redevelopment or rebuild projects in progress, with preliminary design phases already in action for a small group of select schools regarded as high priority. The primary funding for these projects are sourced from insurance money, implementing tight budget restrictions, affecting the architectural design, quality and speed of the construction and repair works. The available funding limits the affordable classroom options to basic teaching spaces that have been stripped back to simple architectural forms, dictating not only the re-design, but also how our future generations will learn. Thus causing the development of the new student-led learning ILE concept to become controlled by existing construction techniques and the Rebuild Programmes budget restrictions. This thesis focuses on the future proofing of New Zealand schools by providing an affordable and time efficient alternative option to the current static, traditional construction, an option that has the ability to cater to the unpredictable fluctuating school rolls across the nation. This has been done by developing a prefabricated system for standalone classroom blocks. These blocks have the ability to be relocated between different school sites, dynamically catering to the unpredictable school roll numbers experienced across New Zealand. This site flexibility is reflected with the interior flexibility in the classrooms, enhancing the internal teaching space composition and challenges the existing design standards set by the Ministry of Education for Innovative Learning Environments. This system is called “Flexi-Ed”. Flexibility has been a key driver for this thesis, as the prefabricated structure is have to be flexible in three ways; first in the sense of being easy to assemble and disassemble. Second by offering flexible interior learning environments and thirdly the joints of the structure are designed with the ability to be flexible in order to cope with seismic activity. These three principles will provide schools with long term flexibility, minimal on-site interruption and heighten the standard of ILE across the nation. I strive to provide schools with long term flexibility and minimal site interruption, whilst heightening the standard of Innovative Learning Environments across New Zealand.</p>

The Energy Consumption Control as Support to The Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Public Universities

Energy consumption at Universities follows specific standards related to the development of its education, research, and extension activities. For these activities’ continuity, the supply of energy must have a high level of reliability, without, however, compromising the economic sustainability of the institutions. That is because energy expenditures, in some cases, can be relevant for Universities, especially to public institutions in developing countries, which routinely deal with budget restrictions. On the other hand, energy efficiency and rational energy consumption, have a direct impact on these organizations' environmental sustainability indicators, such as their carbon footprint. In this sense, considering that the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul faces economic challenges, which often make investments in innovative technologies impossible, we compare strategies to optimize its energy consumption. These strategies should achieve better levels of emission reduction and economic costs related to this resource. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze how Public Universities, in developing countries, can optimize their energy consumption, even under budget restrictions. To this end, the results from three strategies adopted by the University, since 2016, to reduce the energy consumption are discussed: (i) increased individual monitoring of consumption points; (ii) optimization and detailed analysis of energy consumption data; and (iii) extensive implementation of reduced summer hours. With the adoption of these practices, it was observed an annual reduction in energy consumption of 6% and 20%, reaching 33.70% on average during the summer period. Thus, it was possible to guide the energy policies of the University, which can change consumption patterns, leading to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a better economic equilibrium

Discrete Network Design Problem

The network design problem aims to minimize the travelers’ total cost under budget restrictions. This research provides a framework to incorporate variable demand assignment in the discrete network design problem. The findings emphasized the impact of considering variable demand in discrete network design problem.

Features of consumer behavior of Russian tourists in duty-free shops

In the modern world, a new category of travelers (global shoppers) has appeared. They are people who spend their time for shopping on abroad trips. The article considers the problem of understanding the consumer behavior of Russian tourists (Russian global shoppers) in duty-free shops. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of consumer behavior, motives and habits of Russian tourists when shopping at duty free stores at airports. A pilot study was conducted by questionnaire survey at the airport. The results of the study showed that Russian tourists consider shopping (duty free) as part of their trip abroad. They are looking for a favorable price / quality ratio. Many of them do not plan their shopping in advance, but adhere to certain budget restrictions. The paper offers suggestions to improve customer satisfaction. The results of the study are useful for business persons and marketing managers in the international trade sphere.

Challenges to Implementing the New Homelessness Prevention Agenda in Wales

Devolution presented an opportunity for the Welsh Government to introduce changes to housing and homelessness policy, and the subsequent homelessness reforms are seen as one of the best examples to date of the Welsh Government using its powers. However, devolved governments in small countries face a number of challenges in terms of realising their housing policy ambitions. In this article we argue that there is inevitable dissonance between the policy behind the Welsh Government legislation (prevention) and practice (implementation) associated with structural challenges (for example, austerity and budget restrictions, Welfare Reform and the availability of affordable accommodation). In response we propose a number of actions the Welsh Government might undertake to attempt to mitigate such structural challenges which also resonate in the English context where welfare retrenchment and homelessness prevention policies operate simultaneously.