Supporting the Reuse of Design Assets in ETO-Based Components—A Case Study from an Industrialised Post and Beam Building System

The ability to offer customisation has been considered as a competitive advantage for industrialised house building (IHB) companies. Product platform approaches have been acknowledged as one of the prominent ways to improve both internal and external efficiency. However, the use of traditional platform-based strategies does not suffice for the design of engineer-to-order (ETO)-based components in a building system. The purpose of this research is to test and evaluate how the reuse of design assets can be achieved by using a parametric modelling approach to support the design process of ETO-based components in a post and beam building system. This is an additional study using the design platform approach (DPA) that contributes to expanding the knowledge for designing ETO-based components. This research proposes a parametric design platform method developed by following an inductive approach based on the findings from a detailed study on bracket connection with a single case study in a Swedish multi-storey house building company. The proposed method offers flexibility in modelling ETO building components, facilitates design automation, and shows a 20-times improvement in the modelling process. This approach can be used in any building system with ETO-based components by identifying, formalising, and reusing connected design assets. A key finding is that the ETO components can be shifted towards configurable solutions to achieve platform-based design.

A Systematic Review on Supply Chain Management in Prefabricated House-Building Research

Prefabricated house-building companies, as suppliers or supply chains, which use manufacturing as a business approach towards industrialization, struggle to implement principles and optimal practices driven from well-established and validated theories in operational research. Supply chain management has a mature body of knowledge that has been widely adopted by research on offsite construction to improve its performance at an organisational level. However, there is no comprehensive review available in the literature for supply chain management theory within prefabricated house building research from the perspective of suppliers. In this study, a systematic review was conducted on the available literature on supply chain management within prefabricated house-building research. Initially, qualitative analysis was performed to identify the key themes. Later, quantitative analyses were applied to validate the overlapping themes and keywords. Further, key trends related to focus, methods and theories or frameworks were reported. The findings were discussed in the context of recent developments in all principal component bodies of supply chain management for future work. This study also provides a brief guide for potential future review studies to explore interdisciplinary intervention within the offsite stream.

The sustainability of reforesting landscapes with exotic species: a case study of eucalypts in Ethiopia

Eucalypt reforestation has been a common feature of many countries, especially in the developing countries, such as Ethiopia. Farmers in Ethiopia plant large numbers of eucalypts on small areas of land and manage them to yield a variety of products, including leaves and small branches for fuelwood, and poles and posts for house building and other farm uses. Many people in Ethiopia are dependent on eucalypts as a source of fuel and house building material. The use of trees, especially eucalypts, as a living bank account, to be harvested when there is a need for cash, is widespread. This being the reality, the arguments for and against planting eucalypts in Ethiopia has been mounting from time to time, especially associated with water use, soil fertility, soil erosion, allelopathic effects, understory vegetation and plant diversity as well as wild animals. The paradox of reforestation using eucalypts results, mostly, from inappropriate species-site matching and poor management rather than the inherent biological characteristics of the species. Therefore, the debate on eucalypts under the pretext of concern for indigenous species and natural forests should shift to how both plantations established using eucalypts and indigenous species as well as natural forests can help in the enhancement of the socio-economic development and environmental conservation of countries, such as Ethiopia. Despite the claimed negative impacts of eucalypts, farmers in Ethiopia have utilized their traditional knowledge and experience in establishing and managing eucalypt stands. In addition, the available reports in Ethiopia are in favour of planting eucalypts since the authors acknowledge that: (i) the negative impacts can be minimized provided that the choice of species and site as well as the management of the stands are appropriate, (ii) the benefit derived can offset the losses that can occur from such plantations, (iii) no other species seems to replace them to bridge the ever-widening gap between demand and supply of wood and (iv) the profit derived from eucalypt plantations is considerably higher than cultivating crops. However, the choice of eucalypt species should be based on many criteria, for example maximum wood production, ecological sustainability, marketability of the planted species and usefulness of the species to the local populations. All these criteria involve not only a choice of species planted, but also a choice of plantation management methods from initial planting to final cutting of the trees. Careful selection of appropriate species and matching them with appropriate sites must be taken as prerequisite, and the right management practices should be employed.

The Existence of Stilt Houses Post-Disaster

Stilt houses are one of the architectural identities of the archipelago that are still commonly found in Indonesia. Stilt houses have proven to be sustainable products because they still exist today after going through various natural disasters. This is inseparable from the stilts house building techniques, including the process of finding and determining the form and implementation of adat (philosophy). So, this research aims to show the existence of post-disaster stilt houses which include tsunami disasters in Aceh and Palu. This research is a case study that uses a comparativeanalysis method to show the influence factors of the existence of stilts houses after disaster in Aceh dan Palu. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the stilt houses in Aceh and Palu have stilt buildings that are sturdy and stable in accepting the force load when a disaster occurs. The key of building sturdiness lies on building structures such as connection systems, foundation type, material type, and the buildings proportion. These factors caused the stilts houses to not suffer severe damage, and in some cases did not show any damage to the buildings after being affected by natural disasters.

The characteristics of riverbank slum settlement in Indonesia. Case study: Depok, Palembang, Surabaya, and Surakarta

Slum settlement is one of the problems faced by various big cities in developing countries, including Indonesia. Cities in Indonesia that are developing and functioning as a centre of activity have invited the surrounding population to migrate to cities in the hope of finding a better job and life. This is not in line with the limited housing and settlement facilities in urban areas, thus encouraging low-income people to live in slum settlements, including riverbank areas. Settlement in riverbank areas that grows uncontrollably has formed a slum area and degraded the riverbank’s main function. This research aims to find the characteristics of riverbank slum settlements in Indonesia with observational case study in Depok City, Palembang City, Surabaya City, and Surakarta City. The research method used is descriptive qualitative by describing the characteristics of the slum settlement at the location of the study. Data collection was carried out by direct observation, literature study, and interviews. The result shows that the characteristics of riverbank slum settlement in the observed locations are formed by several aspects: (1) physical aspects including land availability, infrastructure, and house building, (2) socio-economic aspects including people’s livelihoods, the local community awareness, ethnic, and kinship factor.