Purpose. The aim of this work is to determine the patterns of urban planning in Siberian settlements in the coastal area of the Ob-Yenisei waterway. The paper considers the fragment of the route from Lake Baikal to Mongolia border, along the Selenga River. The differences are identified for the settlement type, number and location along the Selenga River in the 17–19^th centuries.

Design/methodology/approach. Research is based on the collection of maps and archival documents as well as electronic resources from the largest libraries of Russia. All settlement types are tied to a modern satellite map using the free and open-source cross-platform desktop geographic information system QGIS with regard to the main settlement stages in Transbaikal.

Research findings. Three main chronological settlements are identified, which are studied allowing for the internal territorial ties, hierarchy and territorial distribution of compact groups of settlements. Spatial interconnections directly depend on the settlement formation and transport routes. The settlement development is progressive and oriented towards an increase in the number of small and medium-sized settlements, compact residential groups, cross-cultural interaction with Buryat settlements and colonies of Russian settlers.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find common ground between the theory of crime prevention by means of architecture and environment design and between the theory of sustainable development. The importance of creating a visually and environmentally friendly urban environment is shown as a means of involving people in the urban infrastructure, and, consequently, increasing the safety level.

Methodology/approach: The interdisciplinary approach based on knowledge of urban studies, architecture, town planning, criminology and sociology. The analysis of safety of the urban environment and foreign experience. Exploration of approaches and techniques for creating a safe urban environment based on foreign experience. Modern methods include architectural means, planning and environmental design: lighting, gardening, anti-vandal measures, safe building construction.

Research findings: The urban development indicates criminogenic and a relatively safe areas. The use of eco-friendly materials and architectural means is aimed at energy conservation and their positive impact on the urban environment as a whole. The identified aspects of the public safety, sustainable development, ecology and architecture include use of local natural materials or composites that can accumulate energy or respond to environmental changes; vandal-resistant materials; landscaping not only as a decoration, but also as a defense against criminal encroachments and en- vironmental improvement; more intensive planting in the urban structure to improve the environment.

Practical implications: Multi-storey apartments are more typical for large Russian cities like in South Korea. Due to their high density, such areas do not experience problems with accessibility and developed infrastructure, but control and security are more important. The reconstruction of existing or creation of new objects (building, park or area) consists of the following algorithm: collection of information about the site, analysis of analogs, the implementation of the selected principles, selection of appropriate tools and materials, and postproject research for quality assessment. The discussed examples can help in the building design and reconstruction. The proposed algorithm for assessing the safety of the urban environment can be introduced into the design process.

Originality/value: The value of research lies in the comparison of different concepts of safe built environment. A study of the foreign experience in the urban places and living environment. The paper makes an attempt to draw analogies between different types of multi-storey urban development and identifies the greatest criminality of this or that type of development. The paper provides an overview of the latest studies of the urban environment. For the first time, an attempt is made to adapt the principles of decriminalization to the specific features of the Russian cities. The paper suggests the reconstruction algorithm for the urban areas, taking into account the requirements of criminogenic safety, and proposes the principles of decriminalization.

This paper develops the principles of the architectural and urban development environment of rural tourism in the e Novosheshminsky region of the Republic of Tatarstan. The concept of rural tourism, a comprehensive analysis of the tourist potential of the Novosheshminsky region and Tatarstan and foreign experience allow developing principles of creating a comfortable tourist environment. The paper identifies significant aspects of organizing the touristic infrastructure in the rural areas and their correct use in the given conditions, the Novosheshminsky region, in particular. The concept of the sustainable development of this region will be further developed.

The paper considers the possibility of revival and further development of the historical square system in the Novosibirsk-city with regard to its modern changes in the context of the post-industrial paradigm of the open humanitarian society. The conditions are determined for the emergence of the traditional square system in the city taking into account the basic factors. The dynamics of changes in the square system is observed allowing for the different types of the city planning and development for comfortable living.

The role of sustainable architecture with the introduction of innovative technologies become more and more important. Today, the search for new architectural solutions is closely connected with the information age, structural processes in culture, nature and climatic conditions. This reduces to studying the current problems of design engineering of preschool educational establishments. The purpose of this paper is to identify the current trends in sustainable architecture of preschool educational establishments abroad. The paper discusses the implemented projects of preschool educational establishments in Colombia, Italy, Germany, Norway, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Japan. The analysis of the data obtained shows three main principles of sustainable architecture, namely eco-sustainability, integrity and adaptability. The paper proposes new approaches to design engineering of modern preschool educational establishments, which can become the basis for the construction development in Russia and the qualitative approach to the future project implementation of preschool educational establishments.

The paper studies the use of digital technologies and 3D models of cities in solving urban planning problems. The experience in creating the information system for ensuring urban planning and internet sites in Tomsk is demonstrated and the possibilities are shown for their use in graphic-analytic research. The 3D model of the Tomsk-city is proposed to design and explore the flood processes, land use non-observances, architectural design and modeling of the urban environment, and requirements for the architectural heritage preservation.

One of the main normalized heat engineering indicators of enclosing structures is the resistance to heat transfer. On the territory of the CIS countries there are a huge number of real estate objects designed and built in accordance with outdated standards for the consumption of heat energy for heating and ventilation, requirements for the heat-protective shell of buildings, which leads to energy overspending. All real estate objects put into operation before the tightening of the above-mentioned standards require determining the actual thermal characteristics of the enclosing structures and bringing them into compliance with the current legislation. The article analyzes existing methods for determining the heat transfer resistance of enclosing structures in full-scale conditions, and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Based on the fundamental research of construction Thermophysics, a mathematical model for determining the resistance to heat transfer in full-scale conditions is proposed, taking into account the shortcomings of existing methods.

The performance and structural reliability of concrete-to-concrete joints play an important role in precast-cast-in-place constructions, since they are responsible for deformation of concretes of different age, type and strength. The paper studies the effect of the joint type on its bearing capacity under shear loads. A horizontal test bench and a standard vertical press are used in the experiment to provide the shear load along the concrete-to-concrete joint (light cast-situ and heavy precast concretes). The following joint installing is considered: a smooth surface, which provides the concrete joint due to the adhesive and friction forces, and the joint provided by transverse reinforcement. Design features are identified for the joint bearing capacity exhaustion in concretes of different age, type and strength in precast-cast-in-place constructions under shear, depending on the joint type. A comparative analysis is given to the results obtained. It is shown that the transverse reinforcement has a positive effect on the bearing capacity of the concrete-to-concrete joints.

The paper focuses on changes in the acoustic parameters of multi-purpose audience space for symphonic music without bot architectural and complete reconstruction. Old analog and modern systems with digital signal processing are analyzed using active field control (AFC). The AFC3 system from Yamaha, Moscow, Russia, installed in the Great Hall of the Tyumen Philharmonic is considered. The diagrams of early reflections are obtained by computer acoustical simulation of the Great Hall. The control measurement results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. The intrinsic reverberation time is 1.1 s. The AFC3 system provides the increase in the reverberation time up to 2.65 s. For the first time in Russia, the electronic shell is constructed for the fly-loft stage in the Tyumen Philharmonic, that allows improving the acoustical conditions for musicians.

Purpose. The aim of this work is to develop an effective solar hot water system, which eliminates the heat loss of the accumulated thermal energy in the storage tank due to the natural convection of the coolant in the hydraulic circuit of collectors.

Design technique. A fullscale experimental study concerns the negative effect of natural convection at night in the experimental industrial hybrid solar hot water system in the developed hard and software with remote access.

Results. The pilot industrial hybrid solar system with the improved hydraulic circuit and a soft and hardware system for dispatching and managing energy consumption with remote access was developed, built and tested for Northern territories.

Practical implications. The hydraulic circuit of collectors equipped with a controller for switching off the coolant provides the northern conditions to increase the thermal energy in storage tanks and the solar fraction of hot water systems, reduce the fuel consumption in additional system sources and the emission of harmful substances produced by the fuel combustion.

Originality/value. It is shown that the use of a solenoid valve to eliminate the natural convection increases the thermal energy storage in tanks by at least 50 % and the solar fraction of systems by at least 20 %.

The main purpose of the work is to estimate the influence of the intermittent heat supply from internal sources on inside air temperature in academic institutions. The functioning of academic institutions during the heating period is periodic. This is the reason for the unstable heat consumption. The periodic presence of people in classrooms leads to the intermittent heat supply. Heat consumption is averaged either over the area or the time. This makes it difficult to estimate the consumption on the thermal conditions in academic institutions. The paper gives a comparative analysis of calculating methods of the heat consumption. The temperature rise is determined theoretically allowing for the intermittent heat supply. Field studies are carried out of the temperature conditions in the classroom. The temperature increase and the heat consumption are determined herein.

The paper proposes the optimum distribution of the differential pressure between gas supply system sections and gas consumption, depending on the settlement planning and development. This provides a 10–15 % reduction in metal and material consumption of gas supply systems and a 4–5 % cost reduction. The hydraulic analysis of differential pressure distribution does not allow to purposefully distribute the calculated pressure drop. The pipeline diameter is usually selected according to the estimated gas flow rate and specific pressure loss per unit length of gas supply system sections. Then, in accordance with the State standard, the condition of compliance and non-exceedance of the obtained differential pressure is checked with the standard value. If this condition is not met, the pipeline diameter is adjusted for design reasons.

This work conducts additional research into the differential pressure distribution between gas supply system sections. Materials and methods include the assessment methodology for the effectiveness of differential pressure distribution between gas supply system sections.

Although many publications are devoted to the optimization of gas pressure distribution systems, the proposed solutions and the recommendations developed in this paper are fragmentary, often contradictory, since they do not consider the completeness and diversity of strategic factors.

The paper shows that the pressure loss values obtained for domestic gas-based units with a reduced nominal pressure, are much less than those given in regulatory documents. According to the analysis, the settlement development, population density in gas-supplied territories, and technical conditions of gas-supplied buildings, have a decisive influence on the unit costs of gas supply systems.

Innovative heavy wagons with a 25–27 tf axle load and the freight train movement organization having a higher weight and length are being put into operation in Russia. New operating conditions of railway bridges require an assessment of bearing capacity, durability, accumulation rate of fatigue damage and reliability. The important parameters are the dynamic properties of railway bridges (frequencies and modes of natural vibrations, decay rate, dynamic stiffness).

The aim of this work is to determine the dynamic interaction of trains having different structure, weight and length with a railway bridge using numerical modeling in the midas Civil bridge software. The proposed model is verified by the dynamic parameters of spans (natural vibration frequencies), which are determined during the bridge inspection using a Tensor-MS system.

The modal analysis is given to the finite element model. The lowest natural modes of the bridge are determined. Based on numerical simulation of the interaction between the train and the bridge unfavorable speed of trains is calculated leading to an increase in the oscillation amplitude of the bridge span as well as in the bridge dynamic coefficient with regard to the design features of the train structure and composition.

The paper shows that the linear segments of the main pipelines laid on water-logged grounds are characterized by the floating parts 150–300 m long, with arch blowouts with a deflection of 1.0–1.5 m. This occurs due to the vertical axial loads and the temperature difference. The buckling stability of the floating part is calculated for the pipeline laid in a bog. It is shown that the loss of the buckling stability in the form of the floating parts and arch blowout can be explained by the fact that the project on the water-logged ground construction has no the analysis of the buckling stability under axial loads with regard to the topography of the trench bottom that describes the stress-strain state of the pipeline. At a design stage, it is necessary to conduct more detailed surveys on the pipeline laying with regard to the trench profile in calculating the pipeline buckling stability on water-logged grounds.

The paper indicates the need to develop a standard of organization with regard to the regional studies carried out by specialists from the Automobile Roads Department of Tomsk State University of Architecture and Building. The boundaries of the road-building climatic zones are clarified together with the road geocomplexes in the Tomsk region. A set of design values is recommended for clay soils to provide the qualitative design of nonrigid road pavements.