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Buildings consume 30% of the total energy consumption around the globe and 29% of the energy consumption in Egypt, which in 2022 had a total population of 102 million, out of which 43% live in urban areas. The operation of buildings contributes to around 30% of global CO2 emissions due to their high energy consumption. Among the efforts made towards improving the energy efficiency of buildings are Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs), building rating systems, codes, and standards. Furthermore, numerous research studies that are either literature review studies, experimental studies, or computational studies addressed the topic of energy efficiency in buildings. In this paper, 124 articles are systematically reviewed with the purpose of identifying the research gap in available research with a focus on Egypt. The identified gap is the development of a prescriptive path for the Egyptian Green Pyramid Rating System (GPRS) energy efficiency category based on whole building energy simulations. Furthermore, recommendations for future research are given based on gaps in the existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency, sustainability, and renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly relevant topics in today's world. Buildings are one of the largest consumers of energy in society, and as such, improving their energy efficiency by reducing unnecessary energy loss and utilizing solar power is crucial. This paper comprehensively analyzes a neighborhood with buildings characteristic of the researched area by applying empirical and theoretical methods and calculations that have been proven in numerous individual cases. The main contribution of this paper is its demonstration that implementing methods to increase the energy efficiency of buildings and utilizing the potential of solar power can result in significant savings in energy consumption, increase the energy sustainability of the analyzed buildings, and substantially reduce the negative environmental impact. The novelty of this study lies in the location and multiple software applications for data analysis. The data and conclusions obtained in this paper serve as a foundation and path towards sustainable development in the field of energy efficiency for buildings in this and similar areas. Heat loss was calculated by analyzing households in the urban neighborhood of Nova Kolonija. All analyzed houses exceeded the maximum allowed annual required energy for household heating (75 kWh/m2). After the reconstruction and implementation of the proposed measures to increase energy efficiency, all houses met the requirements and entered a higher energy class, C. Energy for heating was reduced from 9294.68 kWh/a to 4641.84 kWh/a, representing a reduction of 50.03%. Simulations were conducted regarding solar rooftop power plant installation of 5655 Wp capacity. Software that was used included: a Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS), Photovoltaic System software (PVsyst 7.3.), and Photovoltaic Design and Simulation software (PV*SOL). The results of the analysis indicated that the average amount of electricity produced is 6186.98 kWh, which meets 98.12% of households' annual electricity consumption of 6278.41 kWh. The paper contributes to the existing body of literature and provides significant insight for both practical implications and future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming, climate change and the energy crisis are trending topics around the world, especially within the energy sector. The rising cost of energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global temperatures stem from the over-reliance on fossil fuel as the major energy resource. These challenges have highlighted the need for alternative energy resources and urgent intervention strategies like energy consumption reduction and improving energy efficiency. The heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system in a building accounts for about 70% of energy consumption, and a decision to reduce energy consumption may impact the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of the building. It is important to adequately balance the tradeoff between IEQ and energy management. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions are being explored for improving building energy performance without compromising IEQ. This paper systematically reviews recent studies on AI and machine learning (ML) for building energy management and IEQ by exploring common use areas, the methods or algorithms applied and the results obtained. The overall purpose of this research is to add to the existing body of work and to highlight energy-related AI applications in buildings and the related gaps. The result shows five common application areas: thermal comfort and indoor air quality (IAQ) control; energy management and energy consumption prediction; indoor temperature prediction; anomaly detection; and HVAC controls. Gaps involving policy, real-life scenario applications, and insufficient study of the visual and acoustic comfort areas are also identified. Very few studies take into consideration the need to follow IEQ standards in the selection process and positioning of sensors in AI applications for IEQ in buildings. This study reveals a need for more systematically summarized research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainwater harvesting is a promising technique for more rational water use. However, its sustainability merits remain a subject of ongoing debate among researchers. Life cycle assessment (LCA), a method employed to measure the environmental impact of varying solutions, is helpful in this regard. Accordingly, this paper delivers an integrative review based on the PRISMA protocol, outlining challenges and potential avenues for the LCA application to rainwater harvesting. The central findings indicate that while residential buildings are most commonly examined, more consensus is needed on a uniform analytical framework. Furthermore, several benefits of rainwater are often not considered in LCA and need further exploration to understand possible synergies for its broader implementation. Finally, LCA integration with a life cycle cost assessment (LCCA) shows exciting results as it may be a more straightforward showcase of the benefits of an integrated assessment. It is concluded that specific details of the LCA of rainwater harvesting may still be simplistic. There is much work to be done in holistic assessments to prove the system's sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable building practices are a response to environmental issues. Businesses and industries are assessing how their activities affect the environment. The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries have significant impacts on the environment and economy, while the industry is considered one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and has, therefore, been highlighted by researchers as a key area of intervention with a great potential to reduce environmental impacts. This paper critically reviews and evaluates the current state of sustainable building certification systems with the purpose of having a good understanding of the status quo and possibilities for future directions in Saudi Arabia. It reviews the academic literature on Saudi Arabia's green/sustainable building codes, standards, certification systems, methods and tools. It starts by addressing sustainability in the broadest sense. Then, it investigates sustainability strategies and evaluates the building certification systems in Saudi Arabia, followed by an introduction to the new practice of sustainable healthcare building assessment. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and building information modelling (BIM) techniques have also been investigated. The paper introduces the updated Saudi Building Code (SBC) with further evaluation of the Saudi Green Building Code (SBC 1001-CR). Finally, the paper clearly highlights the key role of sustainable building practices and the need to develop a certification system that considers the new trends and the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building energy consumption is the main urban energy consumption component, which mainly serves people-centered work and living energy demands. Based on the physical requirements of humans in urban buildings and to determine the comfortable body temperature in each season, this paper establishes a sizing optimization model of building-type integrated energy systems (IES) for sustainable development, where the cooling and heating loads required to maintain indoor somatosensory body comfort temperature are calculated. Depending on the external energy price, internal power balance, and other constraints, the model develops an optimal sizing and capacity-planning method of energy conversion and storage unit in a building-type IES with PV generation. The operating principle is described as follows: the PV generation is fully consumed, a gas engine satisfies the electric and thermal base load requirements, and the power system and a heat pump supply the remaining loads. The gas price, peak-valley electricity price gap, and heat-to-power ratio of gas engines are considered important factors for the overall techno-economic analysis. The developed method is applied to optimize the economic performance of building-type IES and verified by practical examples. The results show that using the complementary characteristics of different energy conversion units is important to the overall IES cost. A 300 kW building photovoltaic system can reduce the gas engine capacity from 936.7 kW to 854.7 kW, and the annual cost can be approximately reduced from 7.82 million to 7.50 million RMB yuan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy (CE) has become a trend because concern has arisen regarding the end of life of several products and the reduction of CO2 emissions in many processes. Since the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is one of the biggest generators of environmental impacts, there is a need to apply the CE concept to the industry in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the role of different tools that are used to integrate CE strategies to reduce GHG emissions by the AEC industry is still unknown in the scientific literature. The purpose of this paper is to carry out a systematic literature review on the theme and analyze the following seven tools: (1) life cycle assessment—LCA; (2) building information modeling—BIM; (3) building environmental certifications—BEC; (4) building materials passports—BMP; (5) waste management plan—WMP; (6) augmented reality—AR; and (7) virtual reality—VR. A total of 30 papers were reviewed, and it was observed that, in terms of CE strategies and climate change mitigation, the vast majority can be classified as closing loops and are mainly related to recycling and reuse at the end of life and the use of recycled materials. Considering the building's stakeholders, constructors, researchers, and designers can be the main users and, consequently, those that most benefit from the use of the evaluated tools. The integration between LCA, BIM, and BMP was also observed. Finally, as one of the main contributions of this research, other types of integration among the analyzed tools are proposed. These proposals seek to improve and update the tools and also address the need to reduce GHG emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last ten years, due to the increase in frequency and severity of climate change effects, resilience in buildings has become a growing topic in the current global discussion on climate change adaptation. Designing both sustainable and resilient constructions would help to face such effects; however, sustainability and resilience in design have been mostly treated separately so far. Since sustainability has been considered more than resilience, paying deeper attention to the latter is indispensable to reducing building vulnerability. The purpose of this article is to examine the commonalities between the sustainability and resilience of buildings using two different approaches: (i) a systematic literature review, taking into consideration a 10-year period for selecting records, and (ii) an analysis of five green building rating systems and five resilience rating systems and guidelines selected according to their popularity and number of certified buildings. There is an overlap in some indicators between the two domains at the building level, as shown by the results from both paths. These aspects could assist in considering sustainability and resilience from the very beginning of the design process. This will ensure that buildings may be designed more effectively by considering and enhancing the synergies between the two domains. This paper targets potential stakeholders who may be interested in including such an integrated implementation in their designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a reflection upon a social innovation lab process used to establish and build an ongoing culture of sustainability (COS) within a new multi-tenant commercial office building. It seeks to answer two key questions: (1) what are the design tensions that emerge when constructing co-design processes meant to encourage social innovation in a complex system while working from inside that complex system; (2) in building commons governance structures in a complex system, what are realistic expectations for the voluntary participation when multiple organizations with different core mandates are involved? This paper's primary results come from reflecting upon the COS development coming from the social innovation lab process and adaptations process needed for it to work within a place-based context. The COS intervention itself is still in process and was disrupted by COVID-19, so these findings are still preliminary. Participatory co-design research often involves a great deal of complexity and tacit knowledge, so the key finding here is the surfacing of four core sources of tension that arise when developing a co-design process for the management of a commons: the allocation of costs for co-ordinating collective action, balancing a homogeneous platform for action with heterogeneous participants, physical building infrastructure and social co-design approaches, and between-tenant organization leadership and co-design approaches. This paper's key contribution is in clarifying core challenges that participatory process designers face when developing and implementing co-design processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operation of buildings is significant among the human activities that withdraw water from nature, and evaluating the water efficiency of buildings is essential for sustainable development. Hence, this paper aims to assess the water efficiency in school buildings to identify benchmarks that could be used as targets in water-saving initiatives alongside highlighting which type of variable is more influential for each building. A cluster benchmarking system was developed and applied to 82 public school buildings in Florianópolis, Brazil. Data were obtained from the state water supply company and both state and municipal education departments. Water consumption drivers were defined through a literature review and the language R was used for clustering the sample. Water efficiency was then evaluated using suitable indicators for occupation conditions, building rooms and spaces and water appliances. High and low-efficiency buildings were identified in the five clusters generated through the k-means algorithm. Schools with excessively low or high consumption that could be related either to the under-measurement or leaks were identified, which is useful for water network management. In conclusion, water-efficient school buildings were highlighted as benchmarks and the type of variables that should be addressed for enhancing the accuracy of water-saving initiatives were highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimization and decision-making tools are often utilized to enhance the performance of community buildings under extreme events, but this may compromise the ability of future generations to enhance performance. Hence, a sustainability-oriented approach is required to enhance the performance of community buildings under extreme events. In this context, this paper proposes an optimization and decision-making framework considering multiple performance indicators, including socioeconomic and environmental consequences as well as retrofit costs. These performance indicators are assessed by utilizing performance-based assessment methodologies in terms of sustainability dimensions. The performance indicators are then exploited as multiple performance objectives in a genetic optimization to determine the Pareto optimal solutions. Finally, the Pareto optimal solutions are utilized for decision making to extract ideal solutions for the given retrofit costs. The ideal solutions provide trade-offs between the consequences of extreme events and the retrofit costs required to reduce the consequences of extreme events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent surge in interest in microbial prevention, this review paper looks at the different antimicrobial technologies for surfaces in the built environment. Every year, more than 4 million people are at risk of dying due to acquiring a microbial infection. As per the recent COVID-19 pandemic, such infections alone increase the cost and burden to the healthcare system. Therefore, mitigating the risk of microbial infection in the built environment is one of the essential considerations in our preparedness for future pandemic situations. This is especially important for a dense population within urban cities and for indoor environments with higher concentrations of indoor contaminants due to poorer ventilation. The review assesses antimicrobial technologies developed in the last two years and their potential and suitability for implementation on surfaces within a building, and it also suggests key considerations when developing these technologies for a built environment. The keywords in the main search include "antimicrobial", "coating", and "surfaces". The work found various studies describing the potential use of antimicrobial technologies for different material surfaces. Still, a more thorough investigation and upscaling of work are required to assess their suitability for built environment applications. The widely diverse types of built environments in public areas with their varying purpose, design, and surfaces also mean that there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution for every space. In order to improve the adoption and consideration of antimicrobial surfaces, the built environment industry and stakeholders could benefit from more in-depth and long-term evaluation of these antimicrobial technologies, which demonstrate their real-time impact on various built environment spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of environmental challenges facing populations are pushing researchers to go beyond traditional study designs alone to investigate health within the urban environment using integrated coupled human-environment systems thinking. As high-density apartment living is increasing in Australia, it is important to understand the conceptual frameworks guiding research at this scale in Australia; therefore, this article provides a systematic search and review of residents-based studies exploring whether they conceptualised their approach to health using ecological systems thinking at the building scale. Residents-based research published in English between January 2011 and June 2021 was searched across six databases, with 1265 articles identified and six articles included for review. Findings demonstrate a lack of study designs that use systemic and integrated thinking. More specifically, complex systems thinking of health and the urban environment with coupled human-environment views are not fully grasped or reflected in current study designs. This gap is further complicated by a lack of explicit definition and conceptualisation of health and wellbeing and a diverse approach to their use. Future research should consider adopting relational and integrated thinking of health drivers along with an ecological perspective to address residents' multiple challenges and implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy use and relative CO2 emissions drive climate change that affects both the environment and human health. Extreme events caused by climate change, such as heat waves, flooding, and droughts are increasingly frequent and dangerous and the quality of life in cities is progressively decreasing. The building sector is among the most energy intensive sectors and mitigation and adaptation strategies are needed to reduce the emissions and impacts of climate change. This article presents a literature review created using the SCOPUS database on 515 articles setup to investigate the role of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in architectural and urban design processes and to understand how KPIs can be used to improve sustainability in the design of buildings and cities. Findings from the literature review highlights the potentiality of KPIs as a tool for managing complexity and for measure performances starting from the early design stages up to the lifetime of buildings and, in general, design. In parallel, the analysis of results showed that KPIs are commonly used to evaluate performance at a very different scale, but the building scale is the most considered. The use of KPIs in architecture, focusing on sustainability, should be implemented more in the future to allow for a better control of architectural performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of real threats to the continuity of the human civilization resulting from environmental degradation, depletion of natural resources, overpopulation, and other adverse factors, the issue of sustainable development is the subject of interest of many scientific disciplines. As a leading objective of this paper, the authors take up the topic of sustainable development seen through the lenses of the library and information science, which is considered with special attention paid to its economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions. In addition to reviewing the most important literature, the authors also explore the subject matter from a quantitative perspective. As a result of the research, the authors identify the key areas that affect libraries as cultural and scientific institutions, in which work related to the sustainability concept is actively carried out. Quantitative research allowed to determine the proportions of efforts made by scientists within the previously selected areas, and to outline trends observed within those areas—that is, to identify which areas have recently been gaining importance, and which may have ceased to be exploited. The authors hope that the research results not only shed light on the landscape of world science in the subject matter, but above all, that they support contemporary researches of these fields by identifying potentially the most important works influencing the shape of particular research areas, and the identification of current trends, which are present within the mentioned areas as well. Further research directions, which are potentially worth undertaking, are also emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had widespread global effects. The advent of novel variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, along with the spread of diverse airborne viruses across different geographical locations, has caused reflective apprehension on a global scale. This resurgence emphasises the critical importance of carefully constructed structures installed with efficient ventilation systems, including both natural and mechanical ventilation techniques, as well as mixed-mode ventilation approaches in buildings. Building engineering and architectural designs must go beyond traditional considerations of economics and structural durability in order to protect public health and well-being. To attain a high quality of life, it is necessary to prioritise sustainability, energy efficiency, and the provision of safe, high-quality indoor environments. Empirical scientific investigations underscore the pivotal role played by conducive indoor environments in averting the transmission of viral diseases such as COVID-19 and mitigating challenges associated with sick building syndrome, primarily stemming from suboptimal indoor air quality. This work provides a summary and a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat) analysis of strategies designed for engineers, architects, and other experts in the field to implement. These strategies are intended for integration into new constructions and the retrofitting of extant structures. Their overarching objective is the minimisation of viral transmission within indoor spaces, accomplished in an energy-efficient manner consonant with sustainable development objectives. The significance of these strategies lies in their ability to impact changes to national and international building codes and regulations, strengthening infrastructures against probable airborne viral threats. Encompassing both object-centric and subject-centric approaches, these strategies collectively furnish a holistic framework for mitigating the dissemination of pathogens, exemplified by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and similar airborne viruses, across diverse typologies of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilized industrial waste in the form of wood pellet shavings as a sustainable alternative for indoor insulation, aiming at improving materials' performance, reducing energy consumption, and promoting efficient waste management. Samples were made with various percentages of wood pellets mixed with clay, sand, and lime at 2%, 5%, and 10%. The physical and mechanical tests revealed that water exposure decreases samples' mechanical and thermal properties. Despite the literature suggesting that a mixture with higher amounts of natural fibers often exhibits lower thermal conductivity, this study found that samples with higher proportions of wood pellets performed worse than expected. The reduction in performance is believed to be due to the increased water input into the mixture during the flow table test. Further, results show that samples with 2% exhibit high thermal conductivity compared to 5% and 10% due to having fewer voids within them than the other mixtures, showing a clear correlation between the wood pellet amount and sample density. This reveals an apparent lack of correlation between the density samples and thermal conductivity. However, given their impressive hygroscopic qualities, the materials show promising solutions as an indoor air regulatory aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially CO2, represent a global concern. Among those responsible for CO2 emissions, buildings stand out due to the consumption of energy from fossil fuels. In this sense, initiatives for the decarbonization of buildings and construction tends to contribute to the achievement of the target defined in the Paris Agreement of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as well as in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). This article aimed to identify renewable energy generation technologies that can be applied in urban vertical constructions, contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. To this end, the following methodology was adopted: a survey of the Conferences of the Parties on climate change; identification of European Union Legislative Directives for the decarbonization of buildings; and a literature review to identify research that deals with renewable energy generation technologies that can be adopted in buildings. The results indicated that there seems to be a correlation between the growth in the number of articles that deal with the topic of decarbonizing buildings and the increase in world concerns about global warming. A hybrid microgrid proposal, combining different sources of renewable energy such as solar photovoltaic, wind, biomass, micro-hydroelectric, and others for vertical buildings with more than five floors, is presented as viable to achieve zero emissions in these buildings, contributing to future research, that can carry out quantitative analyses and feasibility studies, as well as for experiments and applications in existing buildings and the projects of new vertical constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is becoming increasingly clear that linear modes of production and consumption are unsustainable. A circular economy would help to minimize both environmental and social problems. As a result, the concept is gaining momentum in the political discourse. However, current policies do not seem sufficient to transform linear value chains to circular ones. This paper compares the potentials of and prerequisites for a circular economy along two important value chains. As a best practice example, the legal framework along the battery value chain is analyzed. This analysis is used to derive recommendations for how to improve the legal framework along the building value chain. We find that the battery value chain is already addressed by targeted instruments and the instruments addressing the building value chain have to be aligned and their credibility improved through mandatory requirements. A value chain-specific approach to develop the legal framework is promising for key sectors, while both general frameworks and value chain-specific instruments are required to fully exploit the CE for every product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensitivity analysis is crucial in building energy assessments. It is used to determine the major variables influencing building thermal performance, using both observational research and energy simulation models. This study investigates the most influential envelope design parameters on the thermal performance of a typical residential building in Budapest, Hungary. Sensitivity analysis is used in conjunction with the IDA-Indoor and Climate Energy (IDA-ICE 4.8) simulation tool to assess the effects of 33 envelope design parameters for energy consumption and carbon dioxide concentrations. The input parameters include thickness, materials, density, specific heat and thermal conductivity of the basement, exterior floor, interior floor, exterior wall, interior wall, roof, ground slab, glazing type, and infiltration rate. The results show that exterior floor materials have the biggest impact on annual delivered energy for heating and cooling, whereas the density of all structural elements and thickness of the basement, exterior floors, interior floors, and walls have minimal effects on energy consumption. It is also shown that the impact of all investigated parameters is not sensitive to the carbon dioxide concentration in the building. The authors consider that the findings of the paper assist designers to assess the performance of existing buildings and more efficiently generating alternative solutions in the energetic retrofitting of existing and energy design of new residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings are great contributors to global GHG emissions, because they are responsible for direct and indirect emissions. In light of increased renewable energy share in the electricity mix, it is crucial to boost residential electrification for building decarbonization. Consequently, building regulation ought to send the proper signals to the market to encourage electrification and avoid establishing new fossil fuel-based infrastructure, which may lock in future interventions and seriously compromise climate change mitigation. This paper studies short-term residential electrification with electric water tanks in Spain using a parametric analysis considering several water heater configurations with various sizes and management strategies, using different draw-off profiles, actual time-dependent electricity prices, and CO2 factors. The results demonstrate significant GHG savings when substituting fossil fuel boilers for any water heater configuration. However, current electricity prices are such that technology change is only cost effective for low hot water demands (1–2 people) and the provided fossil fuel supply is completely removed from dwellings. The exploitation of implicit demand response increases cost-effectiveness. The analysis of Spanish regulation shows that some elements of current policies on energy efficiency in buildings hamper residential electrification, consequently policy changes are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than half of the world's population lives in cities. A large part of the emissions and energy consumption corresponds to buildings, both in the residential sector and in the service sector. This means that a large part of the measures taken by governments to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are focused on this sector. With this background, this paper studies energy consumption in city buildings and the CO2 emissions they produce. It only makes use of publicly available data. The analysis is made from the point of view of income per inhabitant, and the results are obtained per inhabitant and household. To facilitate the analysis of the results, an index has been defined. The main contributions of this work are to analyze energy consumption and emissions due to buildings, study them from the point of view of the income of their inhabitants, and consider cities individually. The proposed methodology has been applied to the case of Spain. A total of 145 Spanish cities that have more than 50,000 inhabitants have been studied. The results show that the higher the income, the higher the consumption and emissions. Electricity consumptions are almost inelastic, while those of thermal origin are greatly influenced by the level of income. Regarding CO2 emissions, the percentage of emissions of electrical origin with respect to total emissions is higher than that of thermal origin. In addition, the lower the income, the higher the percentage of emissions of electrical origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting asbestos-containing roofs has been of great interest in the past few years as the substance negatively affects human health and the environment. Different remote sensing data have been successfully used for this purpose. However, RGB and thermal data have yet to be investigated. This study aims to investigate the classification of asbestos-containing roofs using RGB and airborne thermal data and state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) classification techniques. With the rapid development of ML reflected in this study, we evaluate three classifiers: Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). We have used several image enhancement techniques to produce additional bands to improve the classification results. For feature selection, we used the Boruta technique; based on the results, we have constructed four different variations of the dataset. The results showed that the most important features for asbestos-containing roof detection were the investigated spectral indices in this study. From a ML point of view, SVM outperformed RF and XGBoost in the dataset using only the spectral indices, with a balanced accuracy of 0.93. Our results showed that RGB bands could produce as accurate results as the multispectral and hyperspectral data with the addition of spectral indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupant comfort in buildings is one of the most crucial considerations in designing a building. Accordingly, there is a growing interest in this area. Aspects of comfort include thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, and indoor air quality (IAQ) satisfaction. The objective of this state-of-the-art review was to provide a comprehensive, explicit, and up-to-date literature review on occupant comfort in buildings, since this issue has a great impact on the lifestyle, health, and productivity of occupants. A meta-synthesis method was also used for an analytical-interpretive review of previous studies. In this research, scientific research studies related to the subject of indoor occupant comfort in the period 2002–2022 were reviewed. Previous reviews have often covered the fundamental concepts and principles related to indoor occupant comfort. Although innumerable studies have focused on thermal comfort, other aspects of occupant comfort have not been considered. The review is analyzed and discussed in reference to type of study, case study geographical locations and climate zones, case study building types, decision-making models, assessment criteria, data-collection tools, and data analysis strategies. Finally, future research recommendations are presented. Through the review, we find that the comfort models used in research are mostly based on comfort perception votes collected from experimental studies, which may not reflect the preferences of users well. In addition, only the influence of environmental factors on the models has been investigated, and other personal factors have been ignored. This study presents a useful guide for researchers to determine their outlines for future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry adds a high share to global CO2 emissions and, thus, to the global climate crisis. Future buildings need to be planned, constructed, operated, and deconstructed in a lifecycle-oriented manner so that the building stock represents a capital asset for future generations. The greatest leverages for reducing a building's CO2 emissions lie in the early project phase and subsequently in the tendering and awarding process, which makes early Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indispensable. In this study, we set a sociological research framework consisting of (i) choosing a research topic, (ii) conducting a literature review, (iii) measuring variables and gathering data, (iv) analyzing data, and (v) drawing a conclusion. Since there are countless studies that apply LCA in the construction sector for environmental assessment, emission reduction, or decision support, we posed the question of whether LCA was also applied in the public building tendering and awarding process. Furthermore, we focused on identifying obstacles to LCA implementation in this early project phase. Therefore, we applied the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The results show that numerous articles focused on sustainable tendering or green public procurement in the construction industry; however, the LCA method is scarcely used in the procurement processes (19 articles in the final sample). Based on our findings, the main obstacles to LCA implementation in the procurement process are highlighted in the study. In the future, the mandatory integration of LCA into the procurement process will be crucial to reduce the CO2 emissions generated by the construction industry and thus contribute to the EU climate target plan to ensure carbon neutrality by 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid population growth and urbanization contribute to an ever-increasing global energy demand, of which the building sector accounts for one-third. The increasing average height and density of buildings escalate the need for vertical transportation, expanding elevator usage and energy needs. This phenomenon accounts for a significant amount of the total building energy use, necessitating a study of elevator system energy consumption. This study aimed to analyze the energy consumption and carbon emissions of elevator systems in low- and high-rise buildings towards energy-efficient estimations. A comprehensive analysis was performed based on a hybrid approach of measurement and calculation using a formula and reference values derived from previous studies. Four buildings were selected and thoroughly studied, representing the low- and high-rise categories. Data were collected based on on-site sampling and observation, as well as information from the building management offices. The mechanical parameters of the elevator system in each building and operational factors in terms of speed, number of trips, load, travel distance, and time were studied. In this analysis, the energy consumption calculation was performed according to International Standard ISO 25745. Annual carbon emissions were calculated in accordance with the USA EPA and IPCC guidelines. The elevator energy efficiency class was determined based on daily energy consumption. It was found from this study that the annual energy consumption of an elevator system is positively correlated to an elevator's daily energy consumption. The annual carbon emissions of the elevator systems are dependent on increasing annual energy consumption, which is also connected to building height indirectly. The low-rise buildings showed better energy efficiency compared to the high-rise buildings due to lower travel distance, less trips, and fewer floors. The annual number of trips, travel distances, and energy consumption had an effect on the energy efficiency of the elevator systems in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The severity and incidence of extreme weather events are increasing with climate change. In particular, wildfires are becoming more frequent, more intense, and longer lasting than before. Fuelled by long periods of dryness and high temperatures, the Australian wildfires of 2019/2020 were record breaking in terms of destruction and chaos. Rural communities were severely affected by power cuts disabling access to essential services. Following the wildfires, a concept for energy resilient public buildings ("Emergency Distributed Energy System") emerged as a grassroots community idea from the wildfire-affected area of Gippsland, southeast Australia. A combination of desktop and empirical research explored international examples of energy resilience and climate mitigation, the local services and technologies that are needed in Gippsland, and the legal and regulatory challenges and enablers in Australia. The findings were informed by case studies of responses to natural disasters that included California and Greece (wildfires), New Zealand (earthquake), and India (cyclone). The results determined that community resilience can be increased by offering a more reliable electricity supply that would support greater social, political, and economic structures. The deployment of resilient energy systems should be driven by political will, economic incentives and working with communities to support a concerted shift towards low-emissions and distributed energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy (CE) concept applied to construction and demolition waste (CDW) is a developing field of research that entails a large amount of complex and disjointed information; thus, a comprehensive review of scientific contributions could provide a completed perspective. This article aims to analyse the existing knowledge of CE research applied to CDW, using a double integrated analysis, a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis. For this purpose, Science Mapping Analysis Tool (SciMAT), a software for the analysis of performance indicators and visualisations of scientific maps, has been used, which offers a complete approach to the field and evaluates the most cited and productive authors and subject areas related to this discipline. The results obtained from the 1440 bibliographic records from 1993 to 2020 show a still-developing scientific field, evolving from concerns about economic aspects to the most recent progresses in the evaluation of sustainable deconstruction. This work will contribute to the existing body of knowledge by establishing connections, mapping networks of researchers and recommending new trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing of building materials and construction of buildings make up 11% of the global greenhouse gas emission by sector. Mass timber construction has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by moving wood into buildings with designs that have traditionally been dominated by steel and concrete. The environmental impacts of mass timber buildings were compared against those of functionally equivalent conventional buildings. Three pairs of buildings were designed for the Pacific Northwest, Northeast and Southeast regions in the United States to conform to mass timber building types with 8, 12, or 18 stories. Conventional buildings constructed with concrete and steel were designed for comparisons with the mass timber buildings. Over all regions and building heights, the mass timber buildings exhibited a reduction in the embodied carbon varying between 22% and 50% compared to the concrete buildings. Embodied carbon per unit of area increased with building height as the quantity of concrete, metals, and other nonrenewable materials increased. Total embodied energy to produce, transport, and construct A1–A5 materials was higher in all mass timber buildings compared to equivalent concrete. Further research is needed to predict the long-term carbon emissions and carbon mitigation potential of mass timber buildings to conventional building materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cases of building decay and structural damage caused by the impact of snow loads are registered every year throughout the world. Such destruction not only results in property loss, but also leads to human losses. A database on 266 cases of roof collapse caused by snow loads in Russia for the period from 2001 to 2021 was collated for this study. The data were analyzed by date and place of collapse, building data, and number of victims. The analysis showed that civilian buildings are the most vulnerable, comprising 78% of the total number of collapses, followed by industrial buildings with 15% and agricultural buildings with only 7%. The relationships between roof shape, roofing material, number of floors, and type of collapsed building were determined. The data processing results showed that low-rise residential buildings (one to two floors) with a gable roof covered with fiber cement should be considered the most vulnerable. A linear relationship was revealed between a collapse area of more than 150 m2 and the cumulative number of collapse cases. The obtained results have practical application for rating building vulnerability to natural hazards and assessing the risk of emergencies associated with snow loads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of exergy to the life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings has been studied regarding its potential to solve certain challenges in LCA, such as the characterization and valuation, accuracy of resource use, and interpretation and comparison of results. However, this potential has not been properly investigated using case studies. This study develops an exergy-based LCA method and applies it to three case-study buildings to explore its benefits. The results provide evidence that the theoretical benefits of exergy-based LCA as against a conventional LCA can be achieved. These include characterization and valuation benefits, accuracy, and enabling the comparison of environmental impacts. With the results of the exergy-based LCA method in standard metrics, there is now a mechanism for the competitive benchmarking of building sustainability assessments. It is concluded that the exergy-based life cycle assessment method has the potential to solve the characterization and valuation problems in the conventional life-cycle assessment of buildings, with local and global significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]