ALBERT

Description: China, as the largest coal-producing and -consuming country in the world, is highly dependent on its coal industry, or “Black Gold” industry, for the national energy and economy. The consequent environmental crises, however, have persisted for decades, and the most serious effect is surface subsidence induced by underground mining. Underground coal excavation in China has ignored this problem for thousands of years, even though it causes conspicuous damage to the surface ecosystem and construction projects due to the subsidence of overlying strata. This study recommends paste backfilling to replace the space originally occupied by coal resources to avoid such subsidence and proposes backfilling schemes for two mainstream mining methods used in China’s collieries, namely, continuous mining and fully mechanised coal mining. These methodologies have been successfully implemented in some collieries, and the gob area can be backfilled immediately to prevent surface subsidence. To promote an ecological ideology when conflict exists between economic profits and environmental protection, experience from developed countries should be considered, support and appropriate legislation from the government are essential, and the perspective of colliery managers should be taken into account, and further in-depth study on strata subsidence and backfilling material must be pursued.

Description: There is a growing concern about human factors in green building, which is imperative in high-rise high-density urban environments. This paper describes our attempts to explore the influence of workplace green features (such as green certification, ventilation mode, and building morphology) on health perceptions (personal sensation, sensorial assumptions, healing performance) based on a survey in Hong Kong and Singapore. The results validated the relationship between green features and health perceptions in the workplace environment. Remarkably, participants from the air-conditioned offices revealed significant higher concerns about health issues than those participants from the mixed-ventilated offices. The mixed-ventilation design performs as a bridge to connect the indoor environment and outdoor space, which enables people to have contact with nature. Additionally, the preferred building morphology of the workplace is the pattern of a building complex instead of a single building. The complex form integrates the configuration of courtyards, podium gardens, green terrace, public plaza, and other types of open spaces with the building clusters, which contributes to better health perceptions. This research contributes to the rationalization and optimization of passive climate-adaptive design strategies for green buildings in high-density tropical or subtropical cities.