Suchergebnisse

Climate changes point to the needs to find sustainable materials for residential multistorey housing as a growing proportion of populations across the world live in urban areas. Despite positive environmental effects, wood has a limited use in multistorey constructions even in countries with a strong tradition to use wood in residential housing, such as Sweden. As new materials, techniques were developed and studies of properties of wood as a construction material were communicated, and legislation was altered in Sweden in the mid-1990s, allowing for the use of wood in multistorey housing. The expected market growth was slow and uneven even when incentivizing programs were developed. This chapter explains consumer perspectives in a town, Växjö, where the tradition of using wood in multistorey construction is strong. It points to the needs of knowing more about consumers' perspectives—in order to communicate added values, that is, environmental benefits, in suitable market channels.

The multi-story wood construction industry has been on the rise in the past decades because of new regulations making it legal in Sweden and Finland. Politicians have been suggesting more wood materials in buildings because of the positive environmental impact when wood stores carbon dioxide. Concrete is still the most used material in buildings and many developers have a poor perception of wood. The aim of this project was to analyze the wood construction industry in Sweden and Finland. More specifically to identify enabling and limiting factors and suggest measures for increased usage of wood. The method used was a qualitative and quantitative web survey directed to architects and structural engineers experienced in wood construction. The target group was reached by using connections from the project "Knock on wood" and reaching out to interest organizations. This project found that knowledge gaps among developers and contractors, high costs, and lack of standardized processes were limiting the industry. To overcome these issues and increase the usage of wood, the conclusion was: Industry actors need more education about wood construction, carbon taxes should be implemented on materials, and more prefabricated wood products should be made by the manufacturers. Flervåningsbyggandet med trä har ökat i Sverige och Finland de senaste decennierna efter ändringar i reglerna kring träbyggnad. Politiker föreslår att vi borde använde mer trä inom byggandet för den positiva miljöpåverkan trä ger när det lagrar koldioxid. Cement är fortfarande det materialet som används mest inom flervåningsbyggandet och många byggherrar har en dålig uppfattning av trä. Syftet med den här studien var att analysera träbyggnadsindustrin i Sverige och Finland. Mer specifik, så vill studien identifiera drivkrafter och begränsande faktorer, och sen föreslå åtgärder för att öka användandet av trä. Metoden som användes var en webbenkät för arkitekter och byggnadsingenjörer som har erfarenhet av att jobba med trä. Målgruppen nåddes genom att ...

This study analyses the history of a large hydroelectric scheme – the Great Ruaha power project in Tanzania. The objective is to establish why and how this specific scheme came about, and as part of this to identify the key actors involved in the decision-making process, including the ideological contexts within which they acted. Although the Tanzanian actors and the World Bank (IBRD) are discussed, main focus is on the Swedish actors on project level.Kidatu, the first phase of the Great Ruaha power project (constructed between1970-1975), became the first large-scale hydropower station in Tanzania. As such, it paved the way for Tanzanian entrance into the Big Dam Era and significant changes within the Tanzanian landscape. As well as the dry river bed at Kidatu, and the small reservoir that precedes it, the Great Ruaha power project also involved the creation of a huge artificial lake, the Mtera reservoir. The Kidatu hydropower station was the first large undertaking within Swedish bilateral aid, and implied the takeover of control of hydropower construction in Tanzania by Swedish enterprises, replacing the enterprises of the former colonial power. A hydropower plant is a complex technoscientific artefact. The construction of a hydropower plant is preceded by a large number of technological choices, scientific prestudies and estimations of costs and revenues. A hydropower plant is also a complex social creation, and is as such filled with social actors engaged in conflicts, compromises and power structures. The decision to construct Kidatu hydropower station was a result of negotiations and activities within what is called "development assistance". This brings in yet another dimension, the political one, involving export and import of technology, foreign capital, and foreign influence in decision-making processes, as well as ideas about how to bring development and progress to a people supposed to be living in "poverty and misery". The study is divided into three main parts. The first part analyses the context of Swedish development assistance in the support to the construction of hydropower plants. This part discusses Swedish state-supported hydropower exploitation of indigenous people's territory within Sweden's borders in the 20th century and the background of Swedish development assistance, from the 1950s to the early 1960s. The second part analyses the event of Swedish development assistance entering Tanzania and the Great Ruaha power project, with the main focus being on the period 1965 – 1970. The third part is an analysis of the technoscientific basis for the decisions taken to implement the Great Ruaha hydropower scheme. Main focus is on the period 1969-1974, discussed against the backdrop of precolonial and colonial studies. While focus is on the 1960s and 1970s, in both part two and three events in the 1980s and 1990s are discussed. The study shows that although Sweden was not a colonial power in Tanzania, colonial imagery, and relations to the colonial era, as well as Sweden's background of internal colonialisation, exerted an influence on the decision-making process and the actors involved in the Great Ruaha power project.The study is mainly based on archival sources, complemented with oral sources from Tanzania and Sweden. Recognizing the complexity of large-scale hydropower and the attempts to control watercourses that large scale hydropower necessitates, in the specific context of decolonisation and development assistance that the decision-making process behind the Great Ruaha hydropower scheme reveals, the analysis of the actors involved is based on feminist and postcolonial perspectives.