Marcus Vitruvious polio, the Roman writer, Architect and Engineer, was famous for asserting in his book De Architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas and venustas -that is, it must be strong or durable, useful and beautiful. Hugo Alvar Aalto the Finnish Architect and designer, argued that the responsible designer/Architect must "do no harm" on the end users of such a building nor provide environments unsuitable for their use. Part of the federal Government of Nigeria's transformation agenda is the provision of quality and affordable infrastructure through Housing and Urban Development. But the spate of collapsed buildings in the country has reached an alarming rate. The incessant cases are enough reasons to declare a state of emergency in the construction industry. A building collapse could be a total or partial failure of one or more components of a building leading to the inability of the building to perform its principle function of safety and stability. In an attempt to find a solution to this menace, this paper therefore tries to examine some of the major causes of building collapse and tries to proffer remedial measures that may curb its devastating effects. The paper also briefly outlines its implications on real estate investment and also briefly tries to advice on procedures for rescuing people from collapsed buildings. Keywords

Building indoor spaces requires constant access to fresh air for occupants’ health, well-being, and performance. Clean breathing air can be achieved through the removal of pollutants from within the building’s interior by ensuring a sufficient outdoor air exchange rate. This review set out to create a clear understanding of recent developments in indoor air quality (IAQ) studies and their relationship to sick building syndrome (SBS) impacts on occupants’ health and well-being, as well as the role architectural design plays in promoting a healthy indoor environment. It also provides support information as well as existing state-of-the-art practices in IAQ and SBS in office buildings, with a particular focus on monitoring, assessment, and space configuration. The information available here would provide building professionals, particularly architects, with the potential for incorporating design and the development of guidelines for the control of SBS-related environmental parameters in order to create a healthy and comfortable office indoor environment.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a China’s endeavour to globally connect the countries along two major routes. This paper examines the keywords defining the building blocks and priority areas under the BRI and their relationship in order to foster a practical understanding of the BRI for enhancing regional cooperation and connectivity along the routes. The methodology employed was a systematic literature review involving four stages. Firstly, a broad search in the Scopus database (2016-2020) using BRI or similar terms returned n=1,710 articles which were further limited using the keywords: building blocks, priority areas, policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people exchange. Other keywords considered were community and Silk Road. The articles were then screened and assessed resulting in 155 articles reviewed in this study. The review reveals that while the building blocks are the aim motivating the BRI, hence the spirit behind it, the five priority areas provide practical methods through which China and other countries along the Belt and Road routes will focus their collective development. The relationship between the two aspects owes to the fact that people are involved at all spheres of the initiative bringing about emphasis on the people-to-people exchange which is a core part of social dimension in sustainable development. In contribution, this paper presents a unique perspective for looking at the BRI for a focused discussion of its cooperative framework which could serve as a foundation for further research in various sectors

Marcus Vitruvious polio, the Roman writer, Architect and Engineer, was famous for asserting in his book De Architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas and venustas – that is, it must be strong or durable, useful and beautiful. Hugo Alvar Aalto the Finnish Architect and designer, argued that the responsible designer/Architect must “do no harm” on the end users of such a building nor provide environments unsuitable for their use. Part of the federal Government of Nigeria’s transformation agenda is the provision of quality and affordable infrastructure through Housing and Urban Development. But the spate of collapsed buildings in the country has reached an alarming rate. The incessant cases are enough reasons to declare a state of emergency in the construction industry. A building collapse could be a total or partial failure of one or more components of a building leading to the inability of the building to perform its principle function of safety and stability. In an attempt to find a solution to this menace, this paper therefore tries to examine some of the major causes of building collapse and tries to proffer remedial measures that may curb its devastating effects. The paper also briefly outlines its implications on real estate investment and also briefly tries to advice on procedures for rescuing people from collapsed buildings.

Urban morphological characters have implications for town-plan regionalization but have received little attention. This paper systematically reviewed urban form aspects, built form and morphological characters. The review highlighted built form is a reference aspect that coordinates other aspects of urban form and contains hierarchical plan-element complexes. Such complex relationship within the built form is vital to give urban form its morphological characters. Since urban morphological characters regionalize town plans, this role merits more study to establish relationships among morphological characters, town-plan regions, and sustainable development. There is also a shift to study town-plan regionalization in support of urban landscape management.