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    O espaço universitário tem sido amplamente discutido nas últimas décadas. No âmbito das economias e sociedades do conhecimento, a universidade é, cada vez mais, entendida como um agente importante nas dinâmicas económicas e urbanas, e... more
    O espaço universitário tem sido amplamente discutido nas últimas décadas. No âmbito das economias e sociedades do conhecimento, a universidade é, cada vez mais, entendida como um agente importante nas dinâmicas económicas e urbanas, e valorizada como elemento dinamizador.Considera-se que o espaço universitário funciona em si mesmo como veículo de conhecimento. É através da sua dimensão física, localização e nível de participação nas dinâmicas urbanas, que a universidade expressa a sua missão, valores e estratégias pedagógicas. É também através do seu espaço físico que a universidade se integra na envolvente, podendo estabelecer-se como estrutura contínua e complementar ou disruptiva no tecido urbano. Deste modo, o recinto universitário assume não apenas um papel passivo, de contentor de actividades, mas um papel dinâmico, integrador e dinamizador, que transcende o universo académico, estendendo-se a todos os utilizadores do espaço universitário e da sua envolvente. Neste artigo explora-se o papel do espaço físico universitário como elemento de ligação entre academia e sociedade e de transição entre as escalas do espaço (privado) de aprendizagem e do espaço (púbico) da cidade. Através da análise morfológica centrada na escala urbana e do recinto, enfatizam-se as condições espaço-funcionais com influência na capacidade de a universidade se estabelecer como entidade sinergética e activa, comprometida com a sua missão, tendo em conta a relevância da relação universidade-cidade no contexto das sociedades do conhecimento. O artigo está organizado em duas partes. Na primeira são apresentados diferentes modelos de recintos universitários, definidos em função das suas características morfológicas e de localização no território, assim como das funções que oferecem e do tipo de vivências que proporcionam. Na segunda, são definidas as variáveis utilizadas na observação deste tipo de recintos, criando uma metodologia de análise aplicável a larga escala. Argumenta-se que estas variáveis influenciam o nível de relação morfológica que a universidade estabelece com a cidade. São considerados factores como a distância ao centro urbano, a compacidade do recinto ou o tipo de limites deste, analisando as relações de continuidade ou descontinuidade com as malhas adjacentes. Salienta-se o impacto que o limite do recinto tem na sua inserção urbana. Finalmente, são extrapoladas as condições espaço-funcionais com influência na capacidade desses recintos contribuírem para que a universidade se institua como um organismo sinergético.
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    The existing city must be redesigned with the elderly population in mind. This paper aims at questioning the way urban designers, architects and landscapers are forced to rethink the existing city and all new public spaces to fit the... more
    The existing city must be redesigned with the elderly population in mind. This paper aims at questioning the way urban designers, architects and landscapers are forced to rethink the existing city and all new public spaces to fit the needs of an active-ageing population. In fact, if we want the elderly to remain living inside the city-centers, we must provide them with urban spaces designed and conceived for their physical and psychological constraints. Rethinking the transportation system will also be an important clue for a population who lives longer without a drivers’ license, therefore depending on easy public transportation. Lisbon is an example of this grey revolution: in 2001 it was already the European capital with the largest proportion of seniors among its residents. And for the first time in History, the elderly outnumbered the young in Portugal during the 1990’s (Machado, 2007). The paper is organized in four parts. The first one reviews demographic tendencies and ident...
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    This paper tells the strange tale of a glass chair. Creating a glass chair might seem a perverse ? maybe impossible ? enterprise. After all, chairs are normally held together by moment connections, such as those joining the legs to the... more
    This paper tells the strange tale of a glass chair. Creating a glass chair might seem a perverse ? maybe impossible ? enterprise. After all, chairs are normally held together by moment connections, such as those joining the legs to the seat. Glass is a notoriously bad material for forming moment connections; it is brittle, and quickly snaps if you subject it to bending. But there are advantages to such startling formulations of design problems. They force you to challenge conventional wisdom, to ignore standard prototypes, and to ask interesting new questions. How might you design a chair without moment connections? How might you do so without making the result impossibly heavy? How would you built it? And what interesting qualities might such a chair have? These were questions investigated in the design project pursued jointly by students at an American and a Portuguese school, in collaboration with glass and molding fabricators. The students explored many possibilities, and in doi...
    In 2001, Lisbon was already the European capital with the largest proportion of seniors among its residents. Living inside the ageing city, the elderly will need urban spaces designed and conceived for their physical and psychological... more
    In 2001, Lisbon was already the European capital with the largest proportion of seniors among its residents. Living inside the ageing city, the elderly will need urban spaces designed and conceived for their physical and psychological constraints. The first part of the paper reviews demographic tendencies and identifies the main needs of the elderly in public spaces. The second part discusses the advantage of active ageing neighborhoods, the issue of intergenerational spaces and new design solutions for inclusive urban spaces, focusing on case studies. The paper concludes that in terms of urban space, active ageing means, for the elderly, the possibility of leading a normal life in an urban environment free from obstacles, where they can easily move about, the possibility of shopping in local commerce, working in part-time or volunteer jobs in the community, while keeping the routines of visits from family and friends. KEY WORDS: assisted living / active ageing / accessibility / inc...
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    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... more
    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. Introduction The increase of complexity in school buildings to support users comfort and social and functional demands is changing the reso...
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    ABSTRACT Buildings are complex dynamic systems composed of sub-systems and components in continuous interaction with human behavior. Occupancy and movement data are crucial to deepen the understanding of the built environment performance.... more
    ABSTRACT Buildings are complex dynamic systems composed of sub-systems and components in continuous interaction with human behavior. Occupancy and movement data are crucial to deepen the understanding of the built environment performance. Observation data is paramount in space–use studies. However, there is a lack of automatic observation techniques, which enable the continuous and systematic recording of the mobility behavior, the producing of non-arbitrary registries, the gathering of big data and the emergence of patterns. This study is divided into two companion, although autonomous, papers. The first paper [M. Kuipers, A. Tomé, T. Pinheiro, M. Nunes, T. Heitor, Building Space–Use Analysis System — a Multi Location/Multi Sensor Platform, Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 10–23] describe the video-based analysis system and give account of preliminary use patterns obtained by data fusion of video plus RFID inputs; the present paper expand the obtained results and focus on investigating analytical procedures aimed at the study of the functional condition of architectural artifacts, and promotion of a better understanding with the spatial conditions, based on computer vision based tracking. Computer vision allows the simultaneous recording of the user and the spatial container and a full description of the movement behavior. The proposed method for the analysis of the space–use interactions is evaluated in two main atriums of a university department building. It allows to: a) represent, describe and quantify occupancy/co-presence patterns and movement/navigation patterns; and b) establish correlations between the occupancy/movement patterns and the morphological properties of space. Several mobility indexes and its mapping are obtained, such as the number of users, time occupancy, average speed, and users' encounters. The results show how space–use data can be interfaced with spatial analysis tools to arrive at an understanding of the relationship between space–use and building design.
    ABSTRACT Occupancy and movement data is key information in all phases of the life cycle of built environments, because it has direct repercussions on multiple aspects of their performance. Knowledge on how built spaces are really used... more
    ABSTRACT Occupancy and movement data is key information in all phases of the life cycle of built environments, because it has direct repercussions on multiple aspects of their performance. Knowledge on how built spaces are really used remains scarce, despite the technological advances currently available. This paper proposes a system that combines the capacities of computer vision based tracking and the identification capacities of radio frequency-based sensing (RFID) to aid the analytical procedures of the study of the functional condition of architectural artifacts. This will enable us to gain a better understanding of the connections established within the spatial conditions. The process allows one to: a) represent, describe and quantify occupancy/co-presence patterns and movement/navigation patterns; b) characterize the types of users (e.g., professor, student, staff) associated to them; and c) establish correlations between the occupancy/movement patterns and the configurational properties of space.
    4 Remote Collaborative Design: The Lisbon Charrette Experience Joao Bento, Teresa Heitor, and Jose Pinto Duarte INTRODUCTION Design is very often a collaborative activity, involving the cooperative work of experts from multiple... more
    4 Remote Collaborative Design: The Lisbon Charrette Experience Joao Bento, Teresa Heitor, and Jose Pinto Duarte INTRODUCTION Design is very often a collaborative activity, involving the cooperative work of experts from multiple disciplines. Moreover, design activities do ...
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    ... Ref 040 040:1 Teresa Heitor Instituto Superior Técnico - IST, Department of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal teresa@civil.ist.utl.pt Ana Tomé Instituto Superior Técnico - IST, Department of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal... more
    ... Ref 040 040:1 Teresa Heitor Instituto Superior Técnico - IST, Department of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal teresa@civil.ist.utl.pt Ana Tomé Instituto Superior Técnico - IST, Department of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal anatome@civil.ist.utl.pt ...