The development of tropical built environment performance indices – ‘TROBEP’ (Hardi, Ahilan, Gleeson, Hamzah, Hatmoko, Manewa, Ruikar, Suraji, Tambunan, Zakharova)

Environmental performance indicators have been used in various built environment assessment methods for planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of buildings, facilities and infrastructure assets. There are many internationally developed indices available to evaluate the environmental performance of built environment assets; however its credibility to cater for tropical climate has been poorly acknowledged. Therefore, this research aims to assess and develop suitable tropical built environment performance indices for Indonesia, and used to improve local government’s performance evaluation in the delivery of sustainable built environment implemented by the Ministry of Public Work. First phase of this research reviews the existing methods and its indices to identify transferable good practice and lessons learnt to Indonesian context. Second phase assess and highlights the key performance indicators that most fit Indonesian context. Most suitable indices that fit the tropical climate in the national and subnational scales will then be identified by the research team.

Bamboo composite as a multi-functional material for low-cost, sustainable and resilient housing (Suryanto, Bennett, Chmutina, Surjamanto,Widyowijatnoko)

With the constant drive towards sustainable and resilient structures in Civil Engineering, there is an increasing demand for materials that contribute to less carbon footprint. Bamboo is one of the sustainable, versatile building materials available widely not only in Indonesia, but also in other tropical and subtropical countries. In spite of this wide availability, the use of bamboo in today’s housing and building construction has been very limited, mainly for non-structural and secondary elements. Lack of durability and flammability appear to be the two primary restraining factors. By combining the expertise of the UK and Indonesian partners, this project aims to develop a bamboo composite for building components that are lightweight, durable, fire resistant and thermally efficient. In particular it intends to explore the potential use of locally available bamboo and industrial by-products in Indonesia, to manufacture a novel bamboo composite with abovementioned properties. The project will investigate the mechanical and thermal properties of the developed material under normal and accelerated test conditions. Both LCC and LCA will also be carried out to assess the greenness of the material.

Monitoring infrastructure (Laori, Goodier, Ophiyandri)

Infrastructure is a complex system which provides energy, transport, water and other essentials that are the basis of a society and economic well-being. Monitoring infrastructure has the potential to improve maintenance (i.e. save money) through early detection and replacement avoidance. Furthermore, such activities will support engineers to enhance infrastructure’s resilience against aggressive environment and climate changes (e.g. extreme weather events and earthquakes). In this project, we will attempt to develop methodologies for infrastructure monitoring and employ them to evaluate existing infrastructure in Indonesia. A range of infrastructure performance features will be identified and monitored continuously under environmental variations.

Adopting bottom-up approach in developing technical and social guidelines for disaster relief shelter (Brunner, Rostiyanti, Soetanto, Wedawatta)

The project aims to gather data on much needed supplies related to personal hygiene and sanitation facilities and disaster management during a natural disaster event. The preliminary data will be gathered from locals who are affected by flooding in Jakarta and had to be evacuated into relief shelters. A preliminary survey will be conducted with several key persons to capture the baseline picture of the affected areas, which will be followed with a more intensive survey to capture the detail requirements related to personal hygiene and sanitation facilities managing the victims of the disaster. The outcome will be a bottom-up guideline to make relief shelters more adaptive to the local needs, which are usually constrained by local demographic, socio-economic, and cultural aspects.

Quantifying the emissions from construction activities (Hajji, Huang, Larasati)

The research is to develop a methodology with tools for quantifying the emissions of common construction activities in Indonesia. Currently, there are methods, models or tools for estimating construction emissions. However, none of these address the productivity rate, energy and environmental impacts in a coordinated approach. Emissions from construction activities are largely underestimated due to a lack of standard method and industry benchmark data. This research plans to review internationally recognised datasets, model the construction activities associated with buildings and highways in Indonesia, and develop a framework for measuring and presenting emissions results. Case studies will be carried out on projects in Indonesia, China and the UK. The developed tool can be used by all project stakeholders (e.g. designer, contractor, client) to quantify the construction emissions, either as a stand-alone computer package, or integrate into sustainability assessment schemes (e.g. BREEAM, Greenship). Scope of this research can be expanded to include wider environmental impacts.

Low-cost energy efficient housing in Indonesia (Zeeshan, Ahmed, Jaya, Larasati, Murti, Park, Setiawan, Soetanto)

Population growth coupled with scarcity of fossil-fuel resources and climatic change has increased demand of low-cost energy efficient houses in Indonesia. The research strongly links various enabling methods (e.g. modern methods of construction) and techniques (e.g. offsite precast) with methodological, social and cultural aspects specific to Indonesia. This requires the integration of advances in many disparate fields. Specific objectives include capturing end-user requirements and housing data, reviewing and optimising existing pre-cast based processes, benchmarking with global best practices in low and high-rise low house practices, exploration of various tools/methods for carbon footprint reduction and optimisation of indoor air-quality and investigating various innovative financial models for realisation of low-cost energy efficient housing.