Aurecon | Environment & planning expertise thinking

Major Projects Director, Built Environment Ralph Belperio discusses the benefits of timber in replacing concrete as the material of choice in construction.

The case for timber in the construction industry

Aurecon’s Major Projects Director, Built Environment Ralph Belperio explains the potential of timber in replacing concrete as the material of choice in construction.

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Five criteria of sustainable asset transformation

Aurecon Technical Director Pieter Scholtz discusses what it takes to ensure a mining asset's financial, socio-economic, and environmental sustainability.

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Ensuring the successful delivery of Africa’s complex renewable energy projects

Aurecon's careful and innovative planning methods ensure the smart and efficient delivery of Africa's renewable energy projects in the most suitable locations.

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What if the last infrastructure in South Africa has already been built?

Does South Africa need more infrastructure? Francois Joubert shares how physical asset management can benefit SA's public and private sector.

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Alice Chang, Samista Jugwanth, Shamiso Kumbirai

Gender in civil engineering – building an equal future

Alice Chang, Shamiso Kumbirai and Samista Jugwanth unpack some of the broader gender inequality issues in the civil engineering industry. They have collated thoughts and opinions from women across the industry, and hope to provide a fair view of the need for discussion, growth and change.

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Shaping New Zealand’s future with collaboration and community engagement

The Auckland City Rail Link in New Zealand is an extraordinary engineering feat that brought the best and brightest minds to the table to solve the project's biggest challenges.

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Is low-cost housing the future of urban living?

The demand for land and natural resources poses obvious threats to every sphere of city building, bending yesterday’s question marks into panicked exclamation marks over a sustainable future.

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How drones are changing the way we design, deliver and manage assets

Aurecon’s Ralph Loesche explores how drones are having a significant impact on how we design and deliver aspects of our built environment, which has the potential to change the way we live and work.

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Aurecon’s John Webb shares how Buildings of the Future can fare against the existing building performance practices in Hong Kong.

Buildings of the Future: A Hong Kong Perspective – Data for Optimising Building Performance

Maximising the opportunity to improve building’s performance can usher Buildings of the Future in Hong Kong.

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Charter cities: What if we could start from scratch?

With the world’s urban population predicted to surpass six billion by 2045 many are asking how cities can cope.

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How the Internet of Things will change the future of waste management in Africa

Aurecon's Nick Mannie discusses how the Internet of Things will transform waste management in Africa.

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We never know the true value of water until the well is dry

Aurecon's Dr. Verno Jonker and Dr. James Cullis discuss the increasing awareness of the real value of water across the globe.

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The living digital jigsaw

Aurecon’s Will Hackney says that the process of developing and harnessing ‘Information Models’ is the key to unlocking substantial value.

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Smart transport modelling essential to Dubai’s future liveability

As a key part of its awe-inspiring vision to be a world leading smart and sustainable city, Dubai is developing a seamless and efficient transport network.

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Integrated Systems Testing of Healthcare Facilities

The role and complexity of technology in health is increasing. Healthcare, technology and buildings are becoming more and more integrated.

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Aurecon uses evidence-based practice for people centric design

People centric design – designing a building considering how occupants will be impacted – is a concept which many engineering organisations are committed.

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Joined-up engineering – designing for people

The requirements of people must shape our buildings’ designs, and joined-up engineering is the tool that offers the solution.

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Should we earthquake-proof buildings in Africa?

Aurecon discusses the importance of considering seismic effects in the design of South African and other African projects.

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Outsmarting tremors with earthquake resilient building design

Stephen Hogg discusses some of the new leading-edge and innovative earthquake-resilient building technologies developing from the Christchurch disasters.

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Value engineering: The key to achieving return on investment

Aurecon’s Ashley Underwood explains the importance of value engineering, especially as an project consultancy prerequisite.

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Building sustainable, mixed-use developments in the UAE

Louise Adams discusses the Middle East’s unique set of challenges and opportunities when creating large, mixed-use developments.

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Protecting vulnerable communities: building bushfire resilience

Gerry Quinn, an expert in programme delivery at Aurecon, presents a case study on a project to identify mitigation measures that could be implemented to reduce risk from bushfires at schools in bushfire prone areas.

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Grappling with risk complexity: an insight into multi-scalar and multi-dimensional risk scenarios

In this article, Simon van Wyk and Carin Joyce discuss the multi-scalar and multi-dimensional nature (complexity) of risks, with a special focus on the interconnectedness of operational and disaster risk, with Civil Engineering magazine.

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The way forward on waste management

Nick Mannie – Technical Director, Waste – relates how the Merafong City Local Municipality took bold steps towards ensuring sustainable waste management solutions, and shares lessons that can be learnt from their actions.

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The vital community element in sustainable projects

Increasingly, the emphasis on the sustainability of major projects has moved to engaging communities in order to catalyse self-sustaining growth and break the cycle of poverty. We asked Amelia Visagie, Training Projects Coordinator at Aurecon, to give her views on this trend and explain what it entails.

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A critical analysis of the coastal management act

With the promulgation and enactment of the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act, a paradigm shift in coastal management has occurred in South Africa.

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The role that EIAs are presently playing and can potentially play in promoting sustainability in South Africa

This paper delves into several sustainability theories with the aim of ensuring a sound understanding of the concept of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ which then poses the question as to what role EIAs have in promoting sustainability in South Africa.

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Mobility in urban environments

Finding an optimal balance between community needs and economic benefits of the urban expressway.

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Sustainable solutions to South Africa's waste challenges

Nick Mannie – Technical Director, Waste – was recently interviewed about finding sustainable solutions to South Africa’s waste challenges.

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Creating more compact bus terminals and interchanges

Buses perform an essential role to supporting the economic, social and environmental objectives of developed and developing cities.

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Moving beyond green buildings – a focus on greening our precincts

Martin Smith and Marni Punt attempt to define this latest wave of thinking about sustainable precincts; explore how to achieve greener precincts; and discuss the rating tools that are being developed to add value to the precinct concept.

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Impact of freight transportation on our cities

Aurecon's transport leader discusses the potential impact of poor population growth planning on Australian capital cities and suggests major rail freight tunnels could be the answer to freight logistics problems.

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A new era of crucial focus on achieving increased sustainability

In this article, Jeff Robinson highlights a few of the emerging trends he believes have the potential to driver greener ways of going about our everyday lives.

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Creating efficient, liveable cities

In this interview, Deon Pretorius, Aurecon’s Land Development Services Leader in Cape Town, describes some of the barriers to creating efficient cities as well as current trends and the solutions and innovations Aurecon is leveraging to help our clients ‘get it right’.

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Designing retractable roofs for multi-purpose stadiums

Professor Kourosh Kayvani explores the successful design of retractable stadium roofs in order to maximise both fan experience and all-important return on investment.

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Aurecon’s World-leading sports stadia

The concept behind a sports stadium has come full circle, from a place to see your favourite athletes pitting their skills against competitors, to a modern Roman Colosseum where the public gather, clutching smart phones, for a multimedia and multi-sensorial experience! This is a field which Aurecon both works in and is passionate about. Our experts have built up extensive knowledge in this field through years of experience on some of the most iconic sports stadia ever created. This new series will share our people’s latest insights on designing world-leading sports stadia, including the technical and commercial techniques that ensure game-changing sporting facilities.

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Thinking by expertise - Environment & planning