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This article introduces a method for advancing environmental and social sustainability objectives in relation to home renovations laid out in European and Belgian policies. The comfort tool is an instrument that simultaneously addresses the energy efficiency and universal design aspects of a sustainable home renovation while being usable and meaningful to laymen homeowners and improving their communication with building professionals. It is based on recent research exploring a synergetic merging of energy efficiency and universal design in housing through the concept of indoor environmental comfort. It employs comfort as a way of intervening in the decision-making process for energy efficiency and universal design measures in home renovations. The comfort tool takes a user-centered approach and rests on an interdisciplinary set of theoretical constructs bringing together knowledge from psychology, nursing, design, and building sciences. Besides describing the method itself, the article lays out the theoretical underpinnings and motivations behind its development and discusses relevant future considerations for sustainable home renovations research and practice.

Retrofitting existing buildings is a cornerstone of Europe’s strategy for a sustainable built environment. Therefore, accurate short-term forecasts to evaluate policy impacts and inform future strategies are needed. This study investigates the short-term predictive modelling of renovation activity in Belgium, focusing on overall renovation activity (RA) and energy-specific renovation activity (EA). Using data from 2012 to 2023, linear modelling was employed to analyze the relationships between RA/EA and macroeconomic indicators, market confidence, building permits, and loan data, with model performance evaluated using Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). Monthly data and time lags of up to 24 months were considered. The three best-performing models for RA achieved MAPE values between 2.9% and 3.1%, with validated errors ranging from 0.1% to 4.1%. For EA, the best models yielded MAPE values between 4.4% and 4.6% and validated errors between 8.9% and 14%. Renovation loans and building permits emerged as strong predictors for RA, while building material prices and loans were more relevant for EA. The time lag analysis highlighted that renovation processes typically span 15–24 months following loan approval. However, the low accuracy observed for EA underscores the need for further refinement. This explorative effort forms a solid base, inviting additional research to enhance our predictive capabilities and improve short-term modelling of the (green) residential renovation market.

Green Building Practices (GBPs) are gaining prominence in many countries around the world. However, in many developing countries, Tanzania inclusive, little progress has been made in achieving its implementation. The current study sought to examine the factors attributable to low uptake, focusing on an appraisal of the stakeholders’ knowledge of GB design features, triggers, and the pathways for uptake. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam City in Tanzania, involving different stakeholders sampled from the construction industry, including architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, and property managers. Valid data were collected through 412 questionnaires. The study revealed a general consensus among the respondents that GBs are environmentally friendly and cost effective. However, it appeared that the ranking score of GB design features according to the respondents did not correlate with their ranking in existing GB rating systems. It was concluded that there exist misconceptions among the constructions industry stakeholders regarding what green building practices entail and the essential requirements for their implementation. Therefore, the study recommends pragmatic educational trainings to stakeholders in the construction sector of Tanzania on GBPs. Mandatory legislation of green building codes and regulations is also suggested as a potential pathway for enhancing GB practices in Tanzania.

Type is not expressive enough. Even the youngest speakers are able to express a full range of emotions with their voice, while young readers read aloud monotonically as if to convey robotic boredom. We augmented type to convey expression similarly to our voices. Specifically, we wanted to convey in text words that are spoken louder, words that drawn out and spoken longer, and words that are spoken at a higher pitch. We then asked children to read sentences with these new kinds of type to see if children would read these with greater expression. We found that children would ignore the augmentation if they weren't explicitly told about it. But when children were told about the augmentation, they were able to read aloud with greater vocal inflection. This innovation holds great promise for helping both children and adults to read aloud with greater expression and fluency.

Despite a growing awareness of the need to create more usable, comfortable, and sustainable buildings for everyone, in many countries, the adoption of universal design (UD) as a design strategy is still limited. As key stakeholders, architects can contribute greatly to making the built environment more inclusive for all, but many practitioners face difficulties in daily design practice that hold them back from implementing a UD approach. This study investigated architects’ perceptions regarding the barriers to and drivers of adopting UD as a design strategy at the start of the design process using a survey of 135 practicing Flemish architects. Results showed that budget constraints and skepticism from other stakeholders were perceived as the main barriers, while time-related issues were experienced as less problematic than the literature suggests. Responses to the open-ended questions revealed how architects carefully evaluate whether to apply UD as a design strategy for each design project according to design-related and client/budget criteria. These results offer insights into practicing architects’ motivations regarding UD, which can provide policy makers and researchers with the information needed to more efficiently and effectively address the barriers and drivers that architects face in implementing UD.

Reading is one of the most complex cognitive processes requiring attention. In this research, we investigated the differences in attention duration, measured as fixation duration, of the different sub-categories of Kinetic Typography when compared to Serial Presentation. We used an eye-tracking system to record eye movements of controlled stimuli. Each stimulus consisted of a match between a different word and sub-category of Kinetic Typography. The data collected revealed significant differences between Fluid Typography and Serial Presentation in attention duration. These results are a starting point to understand better Kinetic Typography readers' attention, which might lead to a better digital reading experience.

Type is a wonderful tool to represent speech visually. Therefore, it can provide deaf individuals the information that they miss auditorily. Still, type does not represent all the information available in speech: it misses an exact indication of prosody. Prosody is the motor of expressive speech through speech variations in loudness, duration, and pitch. The speech of deaf readersis often less expressive because deafness impedes the perception and production of prosody. Support can be provided by visual cues that provide information about prosody—visual prosody—supporting both the training of speech variations and expressive reading. We will describe the influence of visual prosody on the reading expressiveness of deaf readers between age 7 and 18 (in this study, ‘deaf readers’ means persons with any kind of hearing loss, with or without hearing devices, who still developed legible speech). A total of seven cues visualize speech variations: a thicker/thinner font corresponds with a louder/quieter voice; a wider/narrower font relates to a lower/faster speed; a font raised above/lowered below the baseline suggests a higher/lower pitch; wider spaces between words suggest longer pauses. We evaluated the seven cues with questionnaires and a reading aloud test. Deaf readers relate most cues to the intendedspeech variation and read most of them aloud correctly. Only the raised cue is di#cult to connect to the intended speech variation at first, and a faster speed and lower pitch prove challenging to vocalize. Despite those two difficulties, this approach to visual prosody is elective in supporting speech prosody. The applied materials can form an example for typographers, type designers, graphic designers, teachers, speech therapists, and researchers developing expressive reading materials.

Type enriched with visual prosody is a powerful tool to encourage expressive reading. Visual prosody adds cues to text to guide vocal variations in loud-ness, duration, and pitch. More vocal variations result in a less monotonous voice and thus more expression. A positive e!ect of visual prosody is known on the voice of normal hearing readers and of signed bilingual deaf readers who developed signed language and spoken language. These deaf readers rely on speech as well as sign language and both modalities can be used interchangeably to compensate each other. This preliminary study explores visual prosody in text in relation to Flemish Sign Language to see if sign language can be used to explain prosody. We asked deaf readers between 7 and 18 to relate prosodic cues to videos presenting prosodic components of Flemish Sign Language. We found that those readers connect the prosodic cues with the components in Flemish Sign Language as intended. Larger word-spacing cor-relates with a pause between signs, a wider font with a sign with ‘longer du-ration’, a thicker font with more ‘displacement’ in the sign, a raised font with a ‘faster velocity’ in the sign. However, some confusion occurred as participants seemed to extract only two prosodic components in the sign language: both the ‘faster velocity’ and ‘longer duration’ were referred to in terms of 'speed' and were not perceived as separate prosodic components. Participants were confused about why there were three cues in the text. Therefore, it is advised to re-evaluate and to re-design visual prosody for sign language with only ‘displacement’ and ‘speed’ in mind.

Various researchers have highlighted that Flanders/Belgium is in need of a more diversified range of housing options, especially for seniors. In this chapter, we focus on self-managed multigenerational dwellings. The main purpose of our chapter is to contribute to the understanding of attitudes toward multigenerational housing and to investigate challenges related to the design of these buildings. We build upon a design assignment given in the third year of the architecture bachelor's program at Hasselt University in Flanders/Belgium. Forty-nine architecture students conducted structured interviews with 396 respondents about their attitudes about and perceptions of multigenerational housing. Each student used the insights gained from their interviews to redesign an existing single-family townhouse as a multigenerational dwelling. Analyzing the survey data, the authors found that nearly half of the respondents considered multigenerational housing as a future option. Next, the authors used regression analysis to investigate interviewee preferences for shared versus private spaces. Using these results, the authors discuss the challenges of creating shared versus private spaces within a building and conclude that it is feasible to convert a single-family townhouse to a multigenerational building that includes both shared and private spaces.

A modelling approach is used to analyze several behavioural problems. Two game theoretical models are presented that predict the optimal copulation duration in insects as a function of seven variables. The models take the possibility of sperm mixing within the female genital tracts into account. The qualitative predictions of these models are supported by the data available, especially by odonates. An attempt is made to test the model quantitatively for the dragonfly Sympetrum danae. Therefore, it was necessary to model also the sperm competition mechanisms of this species. In a separate chapter, it is shown that linear regression is not a reliable tool to test models concerning sperm competition mechanisms. Another model, based upon stochastic dynamic programming, explains correlations between the copulation duration and other variables in the yellow dungfly Scatophaga stercoraria. Criteria are calculated to test if a species uses an Asymmetric War of Attrition to settle fights. The tests can be performed even if only roles of both opponents and the actual fight duration are known. Finally, it is shown that owners often loose from newcomers, and that adults loose from immatures in the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus). It is suggested that newcomers and immatures are more motivated during the interaction.