Study of the Compositional Rules of Design in Chaoshan Traditional House: A Computational Approach - Afonso, Filipe (ARTECH 2021: 10th International Conference on Digital and Interactive Art, 2021)

Study of the Compositional Rules of Design in Chaoshan Traditional House: A Computational Approach - Afonso, Filipe (Association for Computing Machinery, 2022)
This study is an attempt to understand and describe the compositional principles of Chaoshan traditional houses (CTH) through a computational space syntax. In this approach, the space syntax is used to describe and verify the compositional rules of Chaoshan houses. Chaoshan rural residence is a classical Lingnan style building in Chaoshan area of eastern Guangdong province, associated with Teo-Swa people, a Han Chinese minority. This study takes the example the prototypes existing in the village of Zhupu, Haojiang District, Shantou city as a case study, to analyse the spatial form of the residences. The Zhupu village houses date from the Qing Dynasty - Qianlong period, around 1700 AD. The hypothesis of this study is that CTH buildings are a result of a space compositional rule system that can be described and replicated through a computational design methodology. This study will establish a computational architectural syntax, and is the first stage of an extended research work on the evolution of Chaoshan residential types. The understanding of this evolution may help, as future work, to develop urban strategies for adaptation of the CTH heritage buildings to the contemporary living conditions. As the result of this study is a computational 3D graphics modelling algorithm, the ability of the system to generate the house layouts is not limited to the reconstruction of existing typologies of CTH and its variations. The same algorithm will allow the generation of new housing schemes, with adaptation to design variables extracted from a particular site and region.
Keywords: Chaoshan house; Qing dynasty; Space syntax; computational design; courtyard house

Potential for the design of an energy saving facade system using agglomerated cork: Implications in subtropical climates - Afonso, F. (Sustainable Buildings and Structures: Building a Sustainable Tomorrow, 2019)
Agglomerated cork is a known material by its contribution to the sustainment of the environment, not only because it is a wholly natural material, without chemical additives, but also because its industrial process of production results from the lowest quality residues of cork or industrial waste material, unsuitable for other applications. It is a reusable material, which means, the cork facade elements can be converted into a new agglomerated material, demonstrating a huge potential for adaptation to existing buildings following a reversible process. It is durable, lightweight, water resistant, low-cost material, some of the properties that may qualify it as suitable for application in large surfaces of vertical construction façades. The aim of this article is to analyze the mechanical, thermal and acoustic characteristics of cork composites against site-specific climatic conditions of subtropical climates and its suitability as an external coating system for residential buildings with the goal to reduce the energy consumption for cooling the inner environment. In high-density cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong the majority of the buildings starting from the 1960s until early 21st century (Brach & Song 2006), did not integrate thermal insulation systems into external walls, producing a high level of heat transfer through the external façade from the outside environment during spring and summer seasons. Due to the extremely fast urban growth of the modern Chinese city, little importance is given to the quality of the external walls in current residential building construction. For at least during six months each year the consumption of energy due to air conditioning in Guangdong province is extremely high. The study concluded that substantial energy could be saved by implementing an external coating upgrade to existing buildings. Additionally, this study details the result obtained through software for energy simulations (Design Builder, ENVI-met) demonstrating the potential of this project to produce homogeneous and comfortable inside temperatures, which cools the indoor ambient temperature in summer time.

LISTENING TO CHILDREN’S IDEAS TO IMPROVE IN LEARNING AND DEVELOPING HIGHER-ORDER THINKING SKILLS THROUGH REFLECTION WITH DAILY DOCUMENTATION - Ae, Young Choi; Ho, Ka Lee Carrie (University of Saint Joseph, 2022)
Listening to children’s voices is still not considered an essential part of education in some schools, including many in Asian countries. The authority of schools and teachers is still highly valued under the continued influence of Confucian Heritage Culture in many Asian schools, including a significant number in Macao. Teachers in international schools in Asian countries often experience some difficulties when communicating with young children because of their low English proficiency and the traditional views supported by many parents who grew up with the Confucian Heritage Culture, which encourages children to be quiet in the classroom to be good listeners. This Action research took fifteen months between two school years, 2018- 2019 and 2019-2020, with two groups of four and five-year-old students in a kindergarten classroom. Documentation posters were created for young children to use the next morning to reflect on their learning. The pedagogy of listening and pedagogical documentation from the Reggio Emilia approach were implemented to discover and record young children’s ideas and interests, work with daily documentation posters, and help them reflect on documentation posters to improve their learning and develop their higher-order thinking skills. Photos and videos, observation notes with the children’s comments, documentation posters, and reflective discussions were used as interventions to collect the children’s ideas and record their learning activities. The children learned to use documentation posters to remember, think, share, and improve their learning. The children’s comments from Learning Centres, recess, and reflective discussions were used to examine their understanding of learning and higher-order thinking skills. During one Pilot Cycle and three structured data collection cycles, the children demonstrated improvement in learning for each learning project and development of their thinking skills both with and without the teacher’s support. The children demonstrated higher-order thinking skills more often from Learning Centres and recess when they had to solve problems. They also demonstrated higher-order thinking skills more often during the whole group reflective discussions than in small group reflections, when a bigger number of children joined or when they had enough time to think. The thinking skills when children were reflecting were observed to concentrate on remembering and understanding as they focused on remembering and sharing the previous day’s work. The children’s other higher-order thinking skills did not show an increase in frequency during reflective discussions. However, the children demonstrated active engagement and a range of higher-order thinking skills when the teacher asked openended questions and provided support and comments to help them to connect their learning to their past experiences. Findings indicated that the children’s learning from each Learning Centre showed change and improvement during their play over time according to their interests, indicated by their material use and comments. The research was limited by its small number of participants within their age group due to convenience sampling and the children’s relatively limited ability to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills. This study has shown how teachers could help children use daily documentation posters to develop their learning and thinking skills by visualizing their ideas and the teacher’s important role in supporting children’s learning with active listening and support in the classroom
Keywords: Bloom’s Taxonomy; Early Childhood Education; Pedagogical Documentation; Reggio Emilia Approach; Thesis and Dissertations PhD in Education (D-SE); University of Saint Joseph

Pandemic (Im)mobilities - Adey, Peter; Hannam, Kevin; Sheller, Mimi; Tyfield, David (Mobilities, 2021)

Acquired hearing loss in the zebrafish model: investigating the mechanisms underlying aging and noise effects on the vertebrate auditory system (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Beyong Mirrors: Research Pathways (CeiDE 2013-2017) (Attitudes and self-beliefs of ability towards mathematics and science and their effects on career choices: A case study with Macao-Chinese girls., 2018)

Classroom management strategies for children with emotional challenges: voices of special education teachers (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Attitude and Practice among Teachers in Macau (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Education for justice-oriented and participatory citizenship in a politicized era in Hong Kong. (Handbook of Research on Education for Participative Citizenship and Global Prosperity, 2018)

In search of aesthetic education: Student teachers’ perspective and practice with sensory-based approach in Infant Education (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Modelling the Neuromarketing application framework for tourism and entertainment industries in Macau and the Greater Bay Area (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Preparing Pre-service Teachers to Become Effective Inclusive Practitioners: Impact on Self-Efficacy (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Secondary Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Curriculum Reform in Macau (University of Saint Joseph, 2019)

Use of apparatuses in science laboratory: developmental characteristics of didactical interactions. (The International Education & Learning Review, 2018)

Visual Studies of Infrastructure: the case of the Belt and Road Initiative* (CLBrief, 2022)
Dennis Zuev* The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become the largest infrastructure program in history, and has become a symbol of growing significance of China and its power.