Properly designed and installed interior stairs provide safe and convenient access to all residents of the house, including children and elderly people. While safety considerations are paramount for stair design and placement decisions in a two-storey single-family house, sustainability becomes another important factor in these deliberations. Nevertheless, safety and sustainability of the interior stairs can be seen as conflicting objectives in decision-making processes (i.e., while a larger staircase area positively affect residents’ climbing ability, it also causes higher energy consumption and material usage). Therefore, increased awareness of stair-project selection processes is required when multi-objective tasks are involved. Seven criteria affecting stair safety and sustainability in a single-family house are identified in this paper. The integrated AHP-MEREC criteria-weighting approach is proposed, to determine their weights in decision-making processes. Four different multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches, ARAS, SAW, TOPSIS and PROMETHEE, were used to determine alternative evaluations. Since the selection of the most suitable MCDM method is full of uncertainties, the novel combined-decision-making approach formally called CORST (COmbining MCDM appRoaches using method STability coefficient) is proposed in this paper. The new method stability coefficient is used to determine the stability and reliability of the specific MCDM approach. Nine U-shaped inside-staircase projects dedicated to a single-family house were evaluated, to test the effectiveness of the CORST approach.

The article is based on an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates research on education and a study subject. An interdisciplinary approach is extremely important in modern higher education when the same object is studied in the context of two or more subjects. It is also the field of engineering education that is currently highly relevant for universities with a technical profile. Lecturers of the subject should consider not only the content of the study subject but also the didactics of higher education and general competences, including creativity competence, which is perceived as a necessity in the workplace of the 21st century. Therefore, the aim of the article is to analyse the possibilities of creativity through the study subject of Geometric Modelling from the point of view of students. This study subject was chosen deliberately since students are learning to work with AutoCad and Blender software. Their goals are to create 3D models, model them, and visualise them. The article discusses the case of the study subject of Geometric Modelling delivered at VILNIUS TECH. Quantitative research was used, involving a survey of first-year students, which included 93 participants from the Multimedia and Computer Design study programme. To explore the competence of creativity, the areas of exploration, generation, creation, and evaluation were identified. Although most students believe that the study subject fosters creative thinking, they do not always perceive the analysed topics or assigned tasks as contributing to their creativity. They treat it more as the ability to learn how to work with the program and master its functions. It appears that this is influenced not only by the specifics of the study programme and the study subject, but also by the nature of first-year studies. The findings further highlight the importance of expanding the interdisciplinary approach in higher education institutions.

Modern multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches must handle ambiguous and imprecise initial information about decision-making phenomena in an efficient way. Application of the Dempster-Shafer theory (DST) provides a strong mathematical basis for processing uncertain information. Due to the close relationship between fuzzy sets and DST, various fuzzy set environments are applied to model the DST system to solve multi-criteria decision-making problems. To work on this challenge, a picture fuzzy set (PFS) can be applied to model the vague information. This paper presents a novel MCDM approach, namely the hybrid SWARA DS and CoCoSo DS method, developed within Dempster-Shafer’s framework. The benefits of the new proposed approach in handling MCDM problems involving uncertain criteria and expert weightings are demonstrated through its application in selecting the optimal roof shape for a renovated single-family house. Sensitivity and comparative analyses validate the method’s reliability and effectiveness.