Teresa Valsassina Heitor

The increase of complexity in school buildings to support user comfort and social and functional demands is changing the resources consumption patterns, namely energy. Users indoor comfort conditions also play a significant role in energy demand in school buildings. A significant number of Portuguese public secondary schools were recently refurbished, under a national modernization program. The present paper shares the main results of a multiple case study, comprising eight secondary schools, regarding resources use monitoring (energy and water) and the observational field work concerning users’ attitudes and behaviour.Promoting best practices to enhance school buildings sustainability has a double goal: addressing the environmental impact of a large stock of service buildings and simultaneously raise awareness among the younger generations.
(This paper was presented by the first author (Lourenço) in the Word SB14 Barcelona, October 2014.

ABSTRACT Mobile devices and wireless networks have a prominent place in our interaction with the environment and with each other. Like every new technology, it has been a subject to inflated expectations. Scholars, writers, artists and architects have explored how this new digital layer could reconstitute our experience of the ̳real‘ urban world, reconfigure space and finally, recompose social interactions within it. In reality although hardly negligible, its impact has not been that spectacular. In this paper, we will outline a set of design and artistic practices attuned at understanding and articulating the interplay of the social, digital and physical infrastructures. These artistic and design artefacts outline a tangible territory of interactions which contributes to our understanding of the physicality of wireless communication and its coexistence within built architecture. Aesthetic experiments, playful interventions and critical designs all conceptualise interaction with an otherwise insensible infrastructure. We will identify common threads in the ways these artworks manipulate the wireless ̳material‘ with a focus on the underlying motivation and resulting outcomes. Based on this, we will discuss these practices in the light of their relevance for and reference to architecture.

The increase of complexity in school buildings to ensure for users comfort and social and functional demands are changing energy consumption patterns. In the Portuguese context, a recent rise in energy consumption, after a major national refurbishment programme, confirms the need to improve energy management in schools in order to reduce their environmental impact. Besides building design and systems, users are also a determining factor impacting energy consumption in buildings. However, behavioural issues are still among the areas least covered by scientific literature.

The present paper analyses the energy consumption patterns of eight Portuguese case-study schools, with a methodological approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The approach made it possible to link the energy consumption patterns of the schools (selected as Key Performance Indicators) with the user behaviour and management strategies. As a result, six Key Performance Strategies (KPS) were identified so as potentially to enhance the energy performance of school buildings through use and management. Some of the identified KPS can be implemented directly through school management policies to reduce energy use and enhance efficiency. Others can be incorporated in future building design strategies. Some have the potential for being hereafter integrated into the simulation models of buildings’ energy performance.

The increase of complexity in school buildings to ensure for users comfort and social and functional demands are changing energy consumption patterns. In the Portuguese context, a recent rise in energy consumption, after a major national refurbishment programme, confirms the need to improve energy management in schools in order to reduce their environmental impact. Besides building design and systems, users are also a determining factor impacting energy consumption in buildings. However, behavioural issues are still among the areas least covered by scientific literature.

The present paper analyses the energy consumption patterns of eight Portuguese case-study schools, with a methodological approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The approach made it possible to link the energy consumption patterns of the schools (selected as Key Performance Indicators) with the user behaviour and management strategies. As a result, six Key Performance Strategies (KPS) were identified so as potentially to enhance the energy performance of school buildings through use and management. Some of the identified KPS can be implemented directly through school management policies to reduce energy use and enhance efficiency. Others can be incorporated in future building design strategies. Some have the potential for being hereafter integrated into the simulation models of buildings’ energy performance.

Mobile devices and wireless networks have a prominent place in our interaction with the environment and with each other. Like every new technology, it has been a subject to inflated expectations. Scholars, writers, artists and architects have explored how this new digital layer could reconstitute our experience of the 'real' urban world, reconfigure space and finally, recompose social interactions within it.
In reality although hardly negligible, its impact has not been that spectacular. In this paper, we will outline a set of design and artistic practices attuned to understanding and articulating the interplay of the social, digital and physical infrastructures. These artistic and design artefacts outline a tangible territory of interactions which contributes to our understanding of the physicality of wireless communication and its coexistence within built architecture. Aesthetic experiments, playful interventions and critical designs all conceptualise interaction with an otherwise insensible  infrastructure. We will identify common threads in the ways these artworks  manipulate the wireless 'material' with a focus on the underlying motivation and resulting outcomes. Based on this, we will discuss these practices in the light of their
relevance for and reference to architecture.

The emergence of new religious movements is a global phenomenon. Although becoming subject of inquiry by recent academic works concerned with new spiritual content and practices, the places of worship persist an overlooked subject. The aim of this research is to understand the implications of spatiality in the constitution of the new places of worship within Lisbon suburbs after the 1970’s. It analyses the relationship between place centralities and new spatial cultures and urbanities in suburban landscapes. It also analyses change and persistence of traditional pattern of sacred spaces. To pursue these aims space syntax methodology was used in order to analyse street networks configuration to understand location of places of worship. The main technic was segment analysis. The syntactic measures were calculated to understand the relationship between global and local structures and read the city as a whole (urban and suburban). Using GIS software, places of worship were mapped within Lisbon region according to different religions. The patterns of distribution are then compared with the syntactic measures. The results have confirmed the hypothesis of space dematerialization and placelessness which characterizes the new religious movements. The pattern of distribution of places of worship (factories, warehouses, shops, cinemas, etc.) in Lisbon region follow places of good accessibility (global and local). The value of space remains not in its simbology but in its accessibility and functionality.