School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/13907
AUT is home to a number of renowned research institutes in architecture and creative technologies. The School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao strong industry partnerships and the unique combination of architecture and creative technologies within one school stimulates interdisciplinary research beyond traditional boundaries.

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Browsing School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao by Subject "0502 Environmental Science and Management"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
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    A Preliminary Investigation into the Degradation of Asbestos Fibres in Soils, Rocks and Building Materials Associated with Naturally Occurring Biofilms
    (MDPI, 2024-01-19) Berry, TA; Wallis, S; Doyle, E; de Lange, P; Steinhorn, G; Vigliaturo, R; Belluso, E; Blanchon, D
    Bioremediation utilizes living organisms such as plants, microbes and their enzymatic products to reduce toxicity in xenobiotic compounds. Microbial-mediated bioremediation is cost effective and sustainable and in situ application is easily implemented. Either naturally occurring metabolic activity can be utilized during bioremediation for the degradation, transformation or accumulation of substances, or microbial augmentation with non-native species can be exploited. Despite the perceived low potential for the biological degradation of some recalcitrant compounds, successful steps towards bioremediation have been made, including with asbestos minerals, which are prevalent in building stock (created prior to the year 2000) in New Zealand. Evidence of the in situ biodegradation of asbestos fibres was investigated in samples taken from a retired asbestos mine, asbestos-contaminated soils and biofilm or lichen-covered asbestos-containing building materials. Microbial diversity within the biofilms to be associated with the asbestos-containing samples was investigated using internal transcribed spacer and 16S DNA amplicon sequencing, supplemented with isolation and culturing on agar plates. A range of fungal and bacterial species were found, including some known to produce siderophores. Changes to fibre structure and morphology were analysed using Transmission Electron Microscopy and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy. Chrysotile fibrils from asbestos-containing material (ACMs), asbestos-containing soils, and asbestos incorporated into lichen material showed signs of amorphisation and dissolution across their length, which could be related to biological activity.
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    Biodiverse Residential Development: A Review of New Zealand Policies and Strategies for Urban Biodiversity
    (Elsevier BV, 2024-04-01) Varshney, K; MacKinnon, M; Zari, MP; Shanahan, D; Woolley, C; Freeman, C; Heezik, YV
    Urban residential development is expanding globally to accommodate increasing housing demand, greatly impacting biodiversity and human wellbeing. Enhanced sustainability of these developments requires an integrated approach to conserving, supporting, and restoring biodiversity through the built environment and understanding the implications of residential development policies, regulations, and guidelines. This paper details a review of current New Zealand policies, strategies, planning documents, and design guidelines that inform urban design and planning at national, regional, and local levels. Three major gaps in biodiversity considerations and opportunities for improvement in residential developments were identified. Firstly, current policies and strategies tend to protect significant indigenous habitats, but the interventions required to improve or retain biodiversity in residential developments are not explicitly considered. Secondly, there is a need for design guidelines with explicit biodiversity outcomes. Thirdly, existing planning documents and guidelines do not account for biodiversity monitoring and management and could be amended to include biodiversity-related outcomes. We conclude that current New Zealand policies and strategies related to residential developments are inadequate and fail to recognise or encourage the enhancement of urban biodiversity in any meaningful way. Holistic and strategic ecosystem-based approaches are required to protect and enhance urban biodiversity and human wellbeing through the built environment to ensure that biodiversity continues to thrive in New Zealand cities and enrich the lives of urban residents.
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    Centring Localised Indigenous Concepts of Wellbeing in Urban Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation: Case-Studies from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands
    (Frontiers Media SA, 2024-02-02) Mihaere, Shannon; Holman-Wharehoka, Māia-te-oho; Mataroa, Jovaan; Kiddle, Gabriel Luke; Pedersen Zari, Maibritt; Blaschke, Paul; Bloomfield, Sibyl
    Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer significant potential for climate change adaptation and resilience. NbS strengthen biodiversity and ecosystems, and premise approaches that centre human wellbeing. But understandings and models of wellbeing differ and continue to evolve. This paper reviews wellbeing models and thinking from Aotearoa New Zealand, with focus on Te Ao Māori (the Māori world and worldview) as well as other Indigenous models of wellbeing from wider Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania. We highlight how holistic understandings of human-ecology-climate connections are fundamental for the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania and that they should underpin NbS approaches in the region. We profile case study experience from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands emerging out of the Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO) research project, that aims to develop nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledges that support climate change adaptation and wellbeing. We show that there is great potential for nature-based urban adaptation agendas to be more effective if linked closely to Indigenous ecological knowledge and understandings of wellbeing.
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    Ecologically Regenerative Building Systems Through Exergy Efficiency: Designing for Structural Order and Ecosystem Services
    (MDPI AG, 2024-08-28) Hecht, Katharina; Ortega Reboso, Abraham; van der Vegt, Michelle; Appelman, Jaco; Pedersen Zari, Maibritt
    Regenerative design is being increasingly explored in urban environments to counteract and adapt to the changing climate and degradation of ecosystems. A critical success factor for the implementation of regenerative design is the evaluation of urban and building systems in relation to ecological performance and benefits. In biological ecosystems, the availability of high-quality energy, called exergy, and structural order can be used as indicators of the efficiency of on-going ecological processes. Structural order refers to the organization and systematic arrangements of biotic and abiotic elements within an ecosystem based on the available space and interactions with the goal to form a functional system. Ecological processes use the available exergy and generate ecosystem services (ESs) upon which human survival and that of other living organisms depend. In this article, structural order and ESs generation are proposed as indicators for exergy efficiency and accumulation in building systems, respectively, which can evaluate to what extent they are ecologically functional and regenerative. Based on this insight, design strategies are derived from the functioning of ecosystems that describe how buildings could become habitats that host living, non-living, and hybrid systems with optimized thermodynamic efficiency and that can generate ESs. This research suggests that when buildings improve structural order (an ecological concept) and implement ESs generating processes similar to biological ecosystems, they can facilitate regenerative processes more effectively that consume and generate resources and, with this, destroy but also accumulate exergy.
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    Impact Assessment of Climate Change on Energy Performance and Thermal Load of Residential Buildings in New Zealand
    (Elsevier, 2023-07-17) Jalali, Z; Shamseldin, AY; Ghaffarianhoseini, A
    While it is evident that climate change will have an impact on the energy demand for heating and cooling in buildings, the exact extent of this impact is not yet fully understood. Quantification of future cooling and heating need in buildings provides a basis for taking appropriate measures for building climate change adaptation. The focus of this study is to examine how future climate change scenarios will impact the heating and cooling of residential buildings across different climatic regions in New Zealand. The future weather data under changing climate were generated for six climatic zones of New Zealand employing the statistical downscaling method. The study used various climate change scenarios, which represent concentration pathways (RCPs), to generate weather data. Specifically, the RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 scenarios were employed in the building performance simulations for different prototypes of residential buildings. The results showed there would be a significant change in the thermal performance of residential buildings, with a noticeable increase in cooling load and a decrease in heating load. These changes include a maximum thermal load change of 3 kWh/m2 in Auckland by 2090, 2.7 kWh/m2 in Hamilton, 8.3 kWh/m2 in Wellington, 4.2 kWh/m2 in Rotorua, 11 kWh/m2 in Christchurch, and 11.6 kWh/m2 in Queenstown. The warmer climatic zones are expected to change from a heating dominated to a cooling-dominated zone. The results indicated the importance of considering present and future climatic conditions in design and establishing a foundation for actions for the resilience of buildings to climate change.
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    Improving Urban Habitat Connectivity for Native Birds: Using Least-Cost Path Analyses to Design Urban Green Infrastructure Networks
    (MDPI AG, 2023-07-21) MacKinnon, M; Pedersen Zari, M; Brown, DK
    Habitat loss and fragmentation are primary threats to biodiversity in urban areas. Least-cost path analyses are commonly used in ecology to identify and protect wildlife corridors and stepping-stone habitats that minimise the difficulty and risk for species dispersing across human-modified landscapes. However, they are rarely considered or used in the design of urban green infrastructure networks, particularly those that include building-integrated vegetation, such as green walls and green roofs. This study uses Linkage Mapper, an ArcGIS toolbox, to identify the least-cost paths for four native keystone birds (kererū, tūī, korimako, and hihi) in Wellington, New Zealand, to design a network of green roof corridors that ease native bird dispersal. The results identified 27 least-cost paths across the central city that connect existing native forest habitats. Creating 0.7 km2 of green roof corridors along these least-cost paths reduced cost-weighted distances by 8.5–9.3% for the kererū, tūī, and korimako, but there was only a 4.3% reduction for the hihi (a small forest bird). In urban areas with little ground-level space for green infrastructure, this study demonstrates how least-cost path analyses can inform the design of building-integrated vegetation networks and quantify their impacts on corridor quality for target species in cities.
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    Integrating Energy Retrofit with Seismic Upgrades to Future-Proof Built Heritage: Case Studies of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Elsevier BV, 2023-06) Besen, P; Boarin, P
    Deep energy retrofit can improve historic buildings’ indoor environmental quality and protect them from decay and obsolescence while reducing their energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions. Although this practice has been growing internationally, in Aotearoa New Zealand there are currently no policies or initiatives to encourage energy retrofit in historic buildings and no substantial examples of projects. Most retrofits currently focus on much-needed earthquake strengthening, due to high seismic risks and national policies which mandate all existing earthquake-prone buildings to be either structurally retrofitted or demolished over the next decades. As seismic upgrade projects are widespread, this study explores the potential of applying energy retrofit concurrently with seismic strengthening, with a focus on unreinforced masonry (URM) – the main type of earthquake-prone historic construction in the country. The research investigates three case studies of listed heritage URM buildings using Post-Occupancy Evaluation and simulation. Their current performance was investigated, and retrofit scenarios were analysed through energy and hygrothermal simulation, utilising the EnerPHit standard as a guide. The energy models demonstrated a potential reduction of up to 92% in heating demand when comparing the most comprehensive retrofit scenario with the baseline in the coldest climate. The potential energy savings from each intervention were balanced against their heritage impact, based on the standard EN16883:2017. The study provides a methodology for balancing several considerations in integrated retrofit to make historic buildings more resilient not only to seismic threats, but also to a changing climate, while keeping a respectful approach to heritage.
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    Multiple Roles of Green Space in the Resilience, Sustainability and Equity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Cities
    (MDPI AG, 2024-07-08) Blaschke, P; Pedersen Zari, M; Chapman, R; Randal, E; Perry, M; Howden-Chapman, P; Gyde, E
    Green space is needed in urban areas to increase resilience to climate change and other shocks, as well as for human health and wellbeing. Urban green space (UGS) is increasingly considered as green infrastructure and highly complementary to engineered urban infrastructure, such as water and transport networks. The needs for resilient, sustainable and equitable future wellbeing require strategic planning, designing and upgrading of UGS, especially in areas where it has been underprovided. We explore the implications of these needs for urban development through a detailed review of cited UGS analyses conducted on the larger cities in Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ). There are important differences in UGS availability (i.e., quantity), accessibility and quality within and between cities. Some of these differences stem from ad hoc patterns of development, as well as topography. They contribute to apparently growing inequities in the availability and accessibility of UGS. Broader health and wellbeing considerations, encompassing Indigenous and community values, should be at the heart of UGS design and decisionmaking. Most of AoNZ’s cities aim (at least to some extent) at densification and decarbonisation to accommodate a growing population without costly sprawl; however, to date, sprawl continues. Our findings indicate a clear need for the design and provision of high-quality, well-integrated UGS within and servicing areas of denser housing, which are typically areas in cities with a demonstrable UGS deficiency.
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    Unlocking the Potentials of Sustainable Building Designs and Practices: A Systematic Review
    (Elsevier BV, 2024-12) Poorisat, Tharaya; Aigwi, Itohan Esther; Doan, Dat Tien; GhaffarianHoseini, Ali
    Sustainable building designs and practices are gaining traction as a blueprint for constructing eco-friendly and economically viable buildings that can enhance the quality of life for occupants. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics, drivers and barriers of existing sustainable building designs and practices using the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) process. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) protocol, 40 characteristics, 63 drivers, and 48 barriers of sustainable building designs and practices were identified, categorised and analysed from peer-reviewed articles (n = 130) published in the Scopus database between 2013 and 2023. Accordingly, the categorised characteristics (i.e., energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, sustainable sites, water efficiency, economic aspects, material and resources, waste management and social equity), drivers (i.e., financial and economic, environmental protection, policy and government-related, technological, educational awareness, health and socio-cultural, and organisational and marketing) and barriers (i.e., financial and economic, policy and government-related, technological, organisational and marketing, educational and awareness, and socio-cultural) were discussed, and recommendations provided. This study’s findings will serve as a crucial benchmark for relevant stakeholders, including governments, investors, building professionals, and researchers, to foster progress in the built environment field and encourage more sustainable approaches to building design and practices.
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    Urban Microclimate Impacts on Residential Building Energy Demand in Auckland, New Zealand: A Climate Change Perspective
    (Elsevier BV, 2024-01-31) Jalali, Z; Shamseldin, AY; Ghaffarianhoseini, A
    Urban development affects the urban microclimate (UMC) and, consequently, buildings' energy consumption patterns. Considering the urban heat island (UHI) effect in the energy simulation of buildings, especially regarding the uncertainty of future weather data, can support more accurate results and sustainable building designs. This study aimed to analyse the impact of urban microclimate on the energy consumption of an existing residential building in Auckland, New Zealand. The weather data was morphed using the Urban Weather Generator (UWG) and the data from an airport weather station. An existing building was simulated using the EnergyPlus simulation engine to examine the heating and cooling needs of a residential building under varying urban weather conditions and district characteristics. The inputs and assumptions were set based on the New Zealand energy code and available building documents and details. The results showed that the UHI effect has a noticeable impact on cooling demand in summer and heating demand in winter, with a difference of approximately 4.35% and 2.6%, respectively. The findings emphasise the role of urban morphology and characteristics in influencing local weather conditions, thereby highlighting the significance of urban design and arrangement in energy efficiency.
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