This paper try to provide basic insight of the changing functions of urban parks for the future direction of the maintenance and management of the urban parks using the results of the case study done for the city of Osaka, Japan. To accomplish this purpose this study considers the behavior characteristics of the elderly within the parks in Osaka, Japan. Based on the findings of the study authors propose the chaining meaning of urban parks in the users perspective and summarize the results of the study. Study results show high values on the environmental factors of the park, such as the fresh air and the shadow of trees and low values on noise and stairways in it. The multidimensional quantitative III classifies the purposes of the elderly using the parks into 3 types: a multi-use type, a walking type and a sightseeing type.

Since the late 1990s Korean housing authorities and private companies have been pursuing various initiatives towards sustainable neighbourhood design, however, there has been no attempt to examine their progress. This research aims to suggest a sustainability evaluation framework and analyse the progress of sustainability of a cutting edge project: Shinjung Environmentally Friendly Housing Estate Development, using that framework. The results of the analysis suggest that the project failed to make Significant progress in the sustainability evaluation criteria compared to normal projects in Korea and there exist significant barriers: economic/financial barriers; institutional/structural barriers; and implementation barriers within current planning and design practices. Most of the project's design strategies were simply adopted and used as a marketing tool without public participation, sustainability targets or benchmarking for sustainability. Furthermore, most of the responsibility for maintenance was left to residents who normally lack the knowledge, experience, interest and money to carry out such tasks. These problems cause significant concerns over the future success of the project toward sustainability. The experience of the Shinjung project also highlights the need for a more proactive central and local government stance towards sustainable neighborhood design.

This study addressing the underlying strategies for Andong municipal museum complex development is in timely view that Andong has obtained a worldwide reputation as a treasury of traditional Korean Confucian culture. Thus far, there has been a tendency that various local museums are proposed to meet architectural aspirations architects and users commonly hold. Overall, though, the major role they play in making overall city image has not been considered in a systematic manner. Based on Lee's (2001) two previous studies, this study summarized the utility of cognitive distance and cognitive map concepts, which are proposed by Kevin Lunch (1976) to evaluate city image, in planning Andong municipal museum complex (AMMC). Sample is stratified into city residents and outsiders, and also into the general public and design-related professionals to see if there is any group difference in constructing their mental image. Three major findings are obtained. First, familiarity, so-called the degree of knowing, is the function of the length of stay in a designated area. That is, the longer people stay in Andong, the more likely they are familiar with its overall environmental aspects. Second, mental proximity of Andong municipal museum complex relative to existing cultural landmarks is closely related to the degree of how people value those landmarks in terms of their significance. Dosan Seowon and Hahoe folk village are most highly valued, which means higher proximity. Third, functional diversity turned out to be the most important design dimension, while display mechanism are least valued. Cognitive simulations of this sort are meaningful in that projected composite image might be a rough first approximation of true public image.

Concern about global environment has been increasing in recent years. Efforts to minimize the environmental impact to the globe as well as human beings have increased, especially in the late twentieth century. The study researches one of the solutions for the environmentally friendly building construction, which can contribute to sustaining the world environment. Assessment and proposals are made for high-rise apartments, one of the most popular construction types nowadays in Korea. Since the volume of high-rise apartment construction is so great, a small improvement in each building will make a great contribution. Assessments are made over the life-span of apartment buildings. A tool named EIAHA (Environmental Impact Assessment for High-rise Apartment) has been made through references from western examples, mainly in the UK. The components of EIAHA include passive design strategies, building materials, energy consumption during building operation and management/maintenance. Although the issues are on a global scale, solutions are sought on regional scale. Korean high-rise apartments are assessed with the tool and suggestions for sustainable development are made mainly for improvement of embodied energy of building materials and the life of buildings.

This study aims to find out sector effects with the appraisal of building energy systems of urban ecosystem considering cost effects and environmental constraints condition such as climatic change factors including $CO_2$ gas which are not dealt in the institutional boundary as components standards and performance standards on energy performance of each part of a building applied on heavy energy spending buildings at present. The results of the appraisal of building energy systems shows that the existing building energy systems are not enough to fulfil the environmental condition under the environmental constraints supposing QELROs(Quantified Emission Limitation and Reduction Objectives) of carbon-dioxide exhaust. Henceforth, it is needed to fulfill the environmental criteria required by the Climatic Change Agreement for improving the adiabatic performance of each part of a building and active using of the solar energy.

In this paper, a pressurized single vertical arch and a pressurized leaning arch composed of flexible fabric material are considered. These arches have also been considered as a possible support structure for the tent-like structures. Two different boundary conditions are considered in leaning arches with fixed bases and pinned bases. The behaviors of the leaning arches are investigated for two tilt angles as 15, 30. For each angle, two loading conditions are considered as uniformly distributed load and wind loads. The F.E.M. is used through the all analysis procedures. For the results, load-deflection relationships, buckling modes, differences between two boundary conditions and deformed configurations are discussed.

The proposed building upgrading technique employs prestressing cables to function as bracing to improve the seismic performance during future events. A four-story reinforced concrete moment resisting frame damaged from an ultimate limit state earthquake is assessed and upgraded using the proposed technique. Both existing and upgraded buildings are evaluated in regard of seismic performance parameters performing static lateral load to collapse analysis and dynamic nonlinear time history analysis as well. To obtain realistic comparison of seismic performance between existing and upgraded frames, each frame is subjected to its critical ground motion that has strength demand exceeding the building strength supply. Furthermore, reliability of static lateral load to collapse analysis as a substitute to time history analysis is evaluated. The results reveal that the proposed upgrading technique improves the stiffness distribution compared to the ideal distribution that gives equal inter-story drift. As a result, the upgraded building retains more stories that contribute to energy dissipation. The overall behavior of upgraded building beyond yield is also enhanced due to the gradual change of building stiffness as the lateral load increases.

The paper is intended to propose design strength of slender steel reinforced beam-columns by using the modified superposed method. The design of composite members is carried out by a superposed strength method in AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) design method. The bearing capacities of the steel part and the concrete part have to be determined separately and then added to a combined capacity. Authors have proposed a new superposed method in a modified form for the slender composite beam-columns and reinforced column. The modified superposed method is adopted for the slender steel reinforced beam-columns. Validation of the modified superposed method is undertaken by comparison with analytical results calculated assuming a sine curve deflected shape of the beam-columns, and with the test results conducted in Japan.

It is quite difficult to calculate the collapse probability of a system such as statically indeterminate structure that has many possible modes or paths to complete failure and the problem has remained essentially unsolved. A structure is synthesized by several components or elements and its capacity to resist the given loads is a function of the capacity of the individual element. Thus it is reasonable to assess the probability of failure of the system based upon those of its elements. This paper proposes an efficient technique to directly assess the reliability of a complex structural system from the reliabilities of its components or elements. The theory for the calculation of the probability of a structural system is presented. The target requirements of the method and the fundamental assumptions governing the method are clearly stated. A portal frame and two trusses are selected to demonstrate the efficiency of the method by comparing the results obtained from the proposed method to those from the existing methods in the literature.