FARU - 2007

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/14702

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    item: Conference-Abstract
    Building numbers: the case of post Tsunami housing in Sri Lanka
    Munasinghe, H
    Top-down approach used to build housing for the Tsunami victims in Sri Lanka evolved around the number of houses destroyed. The selection of land and the number of units to be built were donor-biased decisions. This Building-Numbers may have satisfied the donors and builders for quantification of their achievements but not necessarily the recipients for various reasons. Many recipients have left those houses and some never occupied theirs. Enlarging schism between man, society and place, and further displacing the settler as a result are defined here as the research problem. We have studied a few housing projects in the Southern Province, using a 4 multidisciplintfry approach framed by sociocultural based settlement planning and morphologically oriented house types. We used qualitative research methods to collect field data. Our findings suggest that building of settlements that are beyond mere collections of numbers could have had more success in term of resurrecting the lost villages.
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    item: Conference-Abstract
    Study of effect of selected underlying factors of sitting comfort and discomfort on comfort and discomfort perception
    Thariq, MGM; Munasinghe, H
    The present study was carried out under university class room settings to investigate the influence of selected underlying factors of sitting comfort and discomfort at their different levels on the perception of sitting comfort and discomfort while sitting. Questionnaires with 7-point rating scales were used to obtain feelings elicited with five different chairs while sitting. Questionnaires filled by 49 subjects were analyzed. In the factor analysis, comfort and discomfort factors were extracted validating the factor structure of comfort and discomfort obtained in previous studies. The results obtained indicated that comfort and discomfort factors can co-exist at the same time at different levels. The results further showed that back pain was the most important discomfort factor while relief feeling is the most important comfort factor in sitting comfort and discomfort perception. From the findings of the study it is suggested to study seat features that may influence relief feeling in comfort perception.