Job Momoh M.Arch, PhD

House prices in the UK have risen in the last ten years, yet house construction is at its lowest level since 1924. According to estimates, Britain will face a housing shortage of roughly a million homes by 2025 in a nation where up to 70% of adults are accustomed to owning their own home. The UK is known to have the highest rates of homeownership in Europe, but it is getting more difficult due to lack of affordable housing due to low wages and high standard of living increases. LSBU's Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment (IDoBE) is at the forefront of this research looking at developing solutions for sustainable living.

The aim of this study is to investigate how the use of Panelised systems and materials can increase the current housing shortage. The housing industry is generally dominated by traditional method of construction which has a limited range of products to resolve this housing crisis. The methodology adopted will be the use of both qualitative and quantitative data which includes carrying out extensive literature review and case study analysis.

The findings suggest that the housing shortage in London is a crisis that stems from affordability/availability and subsequently suggests the adoption of Panelised Offsite Construction as a smart and affordable solution to the problem. However, it is necessary to implement new policies that would effectively support, stimulate, and maintain housing growth. This outcome will be used to understand how best to implement modern methods of construction.

Purpose-Sustainable urbanism is the study of both cities and the practices to build them, which focusses on promoting their long-term viability by reducing consumption, waste and harmful impacts on people and place while enhancing the overall well-being of both people and place. This paper analyses the implications of adopting sustainable urbanism principles and developing resilient places with Abuja as the area of focus to tackle the highlighted issues. Design/methodology/approach-The paper is based on qualitative research which is centred on an extensive literature review and archival retrieval of historical documents. This includes the emergence of urbanism, sustainable urbanism definition and current issues surrounding its adaptation. The paper also focusses on a case study area in the capital city of Abuja, Nigeria which is currently undergoing massive urban development. Interviews are conducted with academics (13), practitioners (12) and government officials (10) making a total of 35 participants. Findings-The main findings will create an understanding of the definition of sustainability and sustainable urbanism with a special focus on Abuja city. It was realised from the interviews that sustainable urbanism in broad terms encompasses economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and that these dimensions vary across different contexts even in the developing world. Also, sustainability can be achieved through deploying the right combination of measures, policies, assessment tools, sustainability assessment, good governance, and training/education and incentives. Originality/value-By reviewing the selected studies which explore a wide range of disciplines and research areas, and conducting this qualitative research, this paper shares insights into how sustainability and sustainability urbanism can be achieved in the development of urban spaces in Abuja environs.

All over the world and in the UK, the Architecture Engineering Construction Operational (AECO) industry has been significantly impacted by Covid 19 pandemic in recent times. In the UK, construction activities in key projects were put on hold from June 2020 due to the exponential rise in cases as it was deemed to be too dangerous to work. This in turn has had a detrimental effect on financial stakeholders and landlords of commercial properties who suffered a decline in the returns on their investments. This paper, therefore, seeks to analyse the direct and indirect impact of Covid-19 on the construction industry in the UK and to explore and develop an insight into how the Stakeholders in the industry are currently dealing with issues surrounding the commercial property investment and key financial outcomes. Subsequently, this paper will predict the expected reactions of the stakeholders in the construction industry in adapting to the 'new normal' going forward and the ability to maximise the return on their investments.

Abstract
Façade is a major building component with the potential for enhancing sustainable construction through effective preservation of energy and economic contributions by using green materials, labour, and plant. Therefore, it can be an important contributor towards sustainable development goal. In recent times, many innovative building
facades are evolving, with the aim of ameliorating the challenges relating to environmental and energy factors. Building facades are capable of behavioural changes in real-time such as change of indoor and outdoor factors in response to any environmental situations thereby improving efficient use of energy. Although the need for building façade is increasing, the success of these innovative building façades will
depend on balancing technical specification and application of innovative/green materials with cost benefit realised on a long term. However, there is lack of detailed information of the initial cost impact during the design stage, necessary for evaluating their cost savings or any inherent economic benefit to support informed decision.
To address this, this research aims to evaluate the cost impact of using building facades in building projects in terms of its sustainable benefit, relative to the economic challenges and benefits to the built environment. A secondary research approach using existing cost information/data substantiated with explorative view from professionals working with facade systems is adopted. The research reveals the significance of
considering cost benefits using life cycle cost rather than the initial cost to support informed decision-making on the use of building facades as a means of enabling a sustainable built environment.

The urban environment in Nigeria accounts for over 51.16% of the population and is the main source of economic development within the country. With the increase in population as a result of rural-urban migration, population growth, urban development, decrease in mortality rate amongst others, there is a need for affordable housing provision. It is has been argued based on extensive research, that the development of good housing and infrastructure, can increase the average life expectancy of people, quality of life, increase the health standard and also attract investment and thus, further develop the economy. Unfortunately, the discourse on affordable housing has not developed a model that meets the Nigerian urban populace that is in desperate need of housing. With a larger percentage of Nigerians living in these areas, coupled with the continual rise in rural-urban migration, it is imperative to ensure that focus should be placed on the developing modern methods of construction (MMC) that can meet housing needs. Modern methods of construction is a broad terminology that embraces a variety of offsite manufacturing and onsite practices that provides a range of options to traditional house buildings. It is in light of these facts, this paper analyses the effects of affordable housing in the urban environment and the role MMC plays in its development. This qualitative study is based on current knowledge from preliminary research, analysing how affordable housing can be achieved with MMC. The conclusion of this research will suggest the benefits of MMC practices and create an avenue for further research on affordable housing.

Purpose-Developing countries are currently on the verge of adopting principles used in achieving a sustainable urban future. As the urban population increases due to factors like urban-rural migration, increase in birth rate, migration, industrialisation, commercialisation, amongst others, there is a drastic need to adopt sustainability principles within urban spaces. To understand how sustainability can be achieved, there is a need to recognise how developed countries have designed assessment tools that work within their context which can inform how developing countries can work on their assessment tool. Urban neighbourhood sustainability assessment tools are used to reflect on the overall goal of the project and the most important indicators needed to be implemented within the project. Sustainability indicators are used to measure the levels and progress at which sustainability has been implemented within a project based on the data collected and these results can be used to make informed decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of urban sustainability assessment tool. Design/methodology/approach-This research investigates the techniques utilised in developing an urban sustainability assessment tool Sustainable Composite Cities Environmental Evaluation and Design (SUCCEED-ND) tool within the Nigerian context. The data instrument used includes a questionnaire survey that sampled 50 correspondents, and the results were used to develop an urban assessment tool tailored for the Nigerian countries. Findings-The findings used social, environmental, economic and planning sustainability dimensions in the design of the assessment tool which composes of 21 core sustainability indicators and 105 indicators to develop SUCCEED-ND tool. Originality/value-This work developed the first urban sustainability assessment tool for the Nigerian urban environment. The result is meant to evaluate and implement sustainability within existing and proposed neighbourhood development.

As data-driven approaches are introducing and establishing a new set of economic, social and cultural values, we have started to question some of our age old assumptions, conceptions and practices about our built habitat. One of the most profound implications is the transformation of the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry from a document based to an information based business. Both the impact and scale of this transformation will become more dramatic with the increase in global data traffic two thirds of which is predicted to move on to cloud computing systems by 2016 (Cisco Global Cloud Index, 2011-2016). This implies the introduction of even more complex and diverse interactions (e.g. through internet of things) between buildings, infrastructures and humans. Such developments have already made significant impact in other industries and are likely to be a step change in how we build and operate in the near future. “Data” is not new to our industry, however what is new is the amount of data that is currently available to us and our improved capacity to share, capture, measure, compile, process and translate data into meaningful and actionable information. Although the potentials are vast, Architectural/Engineering practice and Construction sector are slow to adopt the data-driven approaches. The IDDF (Intelligent Data-Driven Design Futures) symposium brought together some of the world-leading thinkers, practitioners and innovators from the Built Environment and Urban Informatics research and practice to explore what “data-integrated” future might hold for our sector. The presentations and discussions challenged our “business as usual” mode of thinking and highlighted diverse insights and perspectives for more agile and adaptive solutions for the future, and in discovering sustainable modes of imagining, creating and working intelligently. With this document we aim to summarize the presentations and discussions, and highlight some of the diverse insights and perspectives we captured from this day-long symposium.

Social interaction among diverse ethnic groups motivates people within communities to visit urban parks towards achieving social cohesion. Malaysians of different ethnic backgrounds spend their leisure time in urban parks because it offers opportunities for social interaction. The perception and requirement of attributes needed varies among the
various ethnic groups of Malays, Chinese and Indians in order to be assured of their full utilization of the parks. This study investigates the urban park attributes that encourage the utilization of urban park by these three ethnic groups toward achieving social cohesion. Using a survey questionnaire method a total of 274 respondents were sampled at Batu Pahat urban parks in Johor, Malaysia. Afterwards, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyse and validate respondents’ perception of urban park utilization. The findings show that aesthetics, safety, lighting, maintenance and cleanliness
in public spaces attracted people to visit the urban park and contributed towards social cohesion.

The continued growth of urban population in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa has brought along with it, a myriad of challenges. Exacerbated by high birth rate and a continued increase in the level of rural-urban migration, the economic, infrastructural, and social conditions in these urban centres have been incapable of providing a good standard of living for its inhabitants. With a population of about 188 million and a HDI of 152 in 188 ranked countries, urban centres in Nigeria are plagued with poor security, epileptic power and water supply, poor sanitation, health challenges, high cost of construction amongst other challenges (NPC, 2017). This qualitative study expands on current knowledge with regards to the current challenges facing Nigeria's urban environment with focus on Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria as a primary case. This paper also analyses some of these long standing challenges, their interrelatedness and how they exacerbate the inability of the Nigerian government to solving them. Furthermore, the conclusion lays a response to these challenges with recommendation on the process of unravelling the complex conglomerate issues.

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Neighbourhoods is recently a thriving area that is gaining recognition within the built environment. Past studies on sustainability assessment and the implementation of sustainability indicators have focused mainly on buildings; whereas the assessment of neighbourhood sustainability has received very little attention. Current research suggests that there is a need for developing an assessment tool that is designed specifically to take into account the local context. This qualitative study expands on current knowledge with regards to the concept behind sustainability assessment, sustainability indicators, protocols and their uses in measuring neighbourhood development. It also creates an understanding to how sustainability indicators can be used in the design and development of urban spaces by comparing four main cases across the globe and analysing how the indicators change and adapt to each context. In order to propose an assessment tool adapted to developing countries, it is important to analyse the principles behind sustainability indicators selection, implementation and the methodology behind the design of the assessment framework. This paper aims to understand how sustainability indicators can be used in proposing a neighbourhood assessment tool for developing countries.

Keywords: Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment, Sustainability, Sustainability Assessment, Sustainable Indicators, Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods.

The world is urbanizing rapidly, with cities today concentrating more people prior to urbanization. Today it is estimated that more than half of the world's population resides in towns and cities. This population explosion has affected the development in urban areas. Such uncontrolled growth often results in the destruction of arable land vital food production, slums growth, uncontrolled and haphazard development with the spread of vast shanty towns. This perspective brings a pressing reality to the necessity to build tomorrow’s world on sustainable principles. In view of the above subject matter, this paper will analyse, investigate and develop strategies on how sustainable urbanism can be implemented in developing countries by understudying various environmental assessment tools. This study will showcase a brief analysis and comparison of existing assessment tools across the globe.