The capitalization of ‘certified’ sustainable building sector will be investigated over the power theory of value approach of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. The study will be initiated by questioning why the environment problems are one of the first items on the agenda and by sharing the ideas of scholars who approaches the subject skeptically, because the predominant literature underlying the necessity and prominence of the topic is already well-known and adapted by the majority. Over the theory developed by Nitzan and Bichler, the concepts of capitalization, strategic sabotage, power, legitimacy, and obedience will be discussed. The hypothesis of “the absentee owners of the construction sector, holding the whip hand and capitalizing the ecology, control the growth and the creativity of green building production and make it carbon-dependent, in order to increase their profit margin” will be questioned. To strengthen the arguments in the hypothesis, the factors, the institutional arrangements, value measurement methods, which affect directly the net present value, will be investigated both in corporation and in building scale in detail, because net present value/ capitalization is asserted as the most important criteria by Nitzan and Bichler to make the investment decisions in the capitalist economic system. To trace the implications of power and the strategic sabotage that power caused, as the empirical dimension of this dissertation, an interface exploring the correlational ties between the climate responsive architecture and the ever changing political, economical, and social contexts and building economics praxis by decades will be developed and the expert interviews will be conducted with the design teams and the appraisers.
Monitoring systems usually used to control tailings, primarily pore water pressure gages and observation wells, are not self evidently representative for mechanical considerations. Therefore an effective risk assessment and risk management is necessary to get additional information to determine indicators for critical situations. Several tailings observations showed an alteration in chemical and radiological parameters during rising saturation induced by climatic changes. These parameters are appropriate to stress indices. A systematically research on correlations between changes in stress indices and the phreatic surface is part of the research activities of the Bauhaus University in Weimar. The contribution presents the principle of this kind of monitoring, the soil mechanical background, details of the equipment and first results.
The present study analysis the environmental benefits of urban vegetation within the municipal boundary of a megacity through multi scale integrated modelling to estimate its benefits approximately. The advantages (and challenges) that Nature, inserted into cities, offers to the population are observed from different viewpoints. As geographical reference the profile of megacities located in low (tropical) latitudes was observed, in a case study on the city of São Paulo/ Brazil. Commonly, urban vegetation is overlooked by local people, governments and economical structures. Although sparse vegetation exists, it is hardly recognized. Along the brief history of rapid urbanization which is accompanied by massive environmental degradation, urban green becomes, in the dispute for space, a true luxury in cities like São Paulo. Not as retrogression but as advance, it demonstrates that the integration between nature and city would be desirable. The approximated quantification of the variations which occur between actual scenario and greened scenarios shows the need to rethink the urban biome as a man-dominated ecosystem. The benefits of the urban vegetation are diverse. This work details plants as agents of climatic and ecosystem balance and performance. It also approaches current issues like climate change, energy efficiency and thermal comfort, as well as the purification of natural resources, through the treatment of water, soil and air. Especially because at present no efficient technical solutions exist, that could substitute the environmental services of the vegetation. These benefits contribute to quality of life and increase socio-environmental equity especially important in high-contrast megacities. The vegetation assumes two important roles in cities. The functional dimension brings concrete and measurable benefits to the environment. From a symbolic vision, vegetation represents Nature in cities, approximating humans to their origins. Conclusively the study defends the importance of the valorization of Nature and of the united efforts for literally green cities because it proves that financial investment in urban vegetation has direct effects on the costs destined to the areas of health and infrastructure. The City of São Paulo, invested in 2008 about US$ 180 million (one hundred and eighty million dollars) in urban green (and environment) which tends to save US$ 980 million (nine hundred and eighty million dollars) of expenses annually. In other words, for each US$ 1 invested in planting and maintenance of urban green, the society saves at least US$ 5 of expenses in health, construction of French drains, energy etc.
The characteristic values of climatic actions in current structural design codes are based on a specified probability of exceedance during the design working life of a structure. These values are traditionally determined from the past observation data under a stationary climate assumption. However, this assumption becomes invalid in the context of climate change, where the frequency and intensity of climatic extremes varies with respect to time. This paper presents a methodology to calculate the non-stationary characteristic values using state of the art climate model projections. The non-stationary characteristic values are calculated in compliance with the requirements of structural design codes by forming quasi-stationary windows of the entire bias-corrected climate model data. Three approaches for the calculation of non-stationary characteristic values considering the design working life of a structure are compared and their consequences on exceedance probability are discussed.