The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and its extensive variants have caused drastic changes to people’s habits and routines in many countries worldwide, including Aotearoa—New Zealand. The levels of lockdown and/or movement limitations affected how people used outdoor spaces, often keeping them away from nature’s benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures adopted to control it provide an interesting experiment investigating the links between nature exposure, recreational use of outdoor spaces, and people’s health and wellbeing under extreme conditions. Using an online survey distributed during lockdown and based on 212 responses, this article explores the different typologies of the outdoor spaces that people had access to during lockdown and the associated physical activities practised. It investigates how outdoor space affects our emotional response and how such space and related activities can help us cope with confinement. The results of this study enable us to better understand those spatial elements and characteristics of outdoor spaces that are essential to people’s wellbeing, especially in unusual circumstances where access is restricted.

To achieve rigorous performance in sustainability toward zero-carbon in the Built Environment, the New Zealand government also promotes Living Building Challenge (LBC) in design. The LBC seeks detailed material specifications till disposal with environmental impacts to measure sustainability in design and insists 75% of the project materials supply within 90 km of the project location. This study explored the constraints related to LBC material requirements and found the major barriers for designers are a) the sustainability imperatives namely red list and material lifetime are not considered by online material catalogue providers, b) no material data is shared among the primary stakeholders for acceptance and compliance evaluation, and c) no facility to identify the supply chain and suppliers within a certain distance of the project location. As a solution, this research designed a hybrid material catalogue having all possible material parameters classified into 5 major categories and developed an integrated material environment visibility framework linking the processes among the designers, contractors, suppliers, and the client. This proposed integrated framework provides a shared environment on material viewing, similar alternatives, accurate compliance evaluations in design, material suppliers availability, and other supply chain details at design stage itself. This new framework is currently under industry evaluation for compatibility, reliability, and industry professionals' acceptance.

Forecasting is very fundamental in real estate where the past transactions become the evidences while decision making for the present and the future. Several techniques and validation approached that were commonly used in housing price index forecasting. Beside the appropriate forecasting method, error calculation is one of the critical constraints in accuracy out of all methods. This paper overview the available methods and the types of error being considered in forecasting techniques. Then the forecasting methods, namely Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) and Artificial Neural Network which are highly applied in forecasting modelling are compared over its error accuracy.

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The issues of sustainability in road maintenance management have been widely discussed in recent years. In some countries the maintenance of roads were based on selected indicators or commonly known as key performance indicators. In some countries such as Indonesia the allocation of budget and road maintenance planning were based on the age of these roads. The budget for and the planning of roads based on age have resulted in poor road conditions in Indonesia. The main objective of this study is to develop a sustainable road maintenance and management model (SRMM model) for the city of Padang, West Sumatrea that are in consonant with the vision, mission and goals of road authority towards meeting sustainable road maintenance management program. Using data obtained from selected roads in that city, after reviews of literature to identify key factors that contributed to the sustainable maintenance and management of roads, an opinion survey was conducted. Eleven experts in the field of road infrastructure and facilities management were selected as respondents. These experts were asked to identify the key factors that contributed to the quality of road maintenance management. Using the cut-off point approach, ten KPIs listed from the reviews are connected with the vision, mission and goals of the Directorate General of Highways, Ministry of Public Works Republic of Indonesia as the road authority. Respondents were asked to provide an assessment of the criticality level of the KPIs to the vision, mission and goals. Based on the calculation results, ten CSFs were identified to develop the (SRMM) model. The use of SRMM model based on statistically selected CSFs by the road authority is anticipated to help develop a reliable and sustainable road maintenance management system in Padang.