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As most promoted solution of climate change, green buildings become more popular and widely promoted in China recently. This paper compared the carbon emissions of green buildings with non-green buildings; therefore, a life cycle carbon emission assessment approach (LCA) was attempted. In the present paper, we have integrated existing database Building Environmental Load Evaluation System (BELES) developed by Tsinghua University and twenty-six real existing buildings (nine residential and seventeen commercial buildings). Buildings located in two major climate zones were selected, namely, zone II and III. Five phases were defined for a whole life cycle of building: Phase 1 Raw Materials, Phase 2 Transportation, Phase 3 Construction, Phase 4 Operation & Maintenance and Phase 5 Demolishment. In each phase, the emissions were calculated separately. It is found that whole life cycle CO 2 (LCCO 2 ) of green buildings are lower than that of non-green buildings, i.e., 10% for residential and 32% for commercial buildings, respectively. For both residential and commercial buildings, Operational & Maintenance phase contributes the majority of emissions in the whole life cycle, about 69.2–89.3%. Moreover, green buildings have slightly higher embodied CO 2 emissions than non-green buildings, but with much lower operational emissions, and this phenomenon is significant in residential buildings. This indicates that the LCCO 2 of green buildings start to match with LCCO 2 of non-green buildings after operating for certain years, which is the turning point. Furthermore, China implemented Standard for Energy Consumption of Buildings in December 2016, which listed two values for energy efficiency in operational phase, which represents requested and optional. It can be expected that the emissions in Operational & Maintenance phase of green buildings will be further reduced in the future. Consequently, in the future, the dynamic flow of turning point of residential buildings will be shifted downwards from existing 14 years found in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether after 20years of development, the new discipline of environmental impact assessment and rating has lost its way. The paper shows examples of problems in building environmental rating systems, and corrupted science in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Ecolabelling and Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). Comparisons are drawn with carbon accounting and the problems this will cause for government policies aimed at mitigating climate change internationally. The author speculates on possible causes and provides contrasting examples of initiatives that are trying to produce truly credible, scientifically robust outcomes but struggling to find acceptance. The author concludes with suggestions that might tip environmental impact practice back to legitimacy and relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high performance building is designed and operated to minimise environmental impact whilst providing an indoor environment that maximises occupant health and comfort. The wealth of academic research into technical and non-technical solutions for high performance building continues to grow. However, industry utilisation of academic research is limited and inconsistent due to a number of factors. This situation is compounded by academics using a broad range of methodologies, which prevents a consistent and widely accepted body of knowledge being developed. These factors contribute to a widening research-practice gap. Evidence based (EB) practice is a potential avenue to close this gap. Applied in medicine, EB practice uses a rigorous, more systematic approach on which to base decisions and increase the likelihood of the desired outcome. This paper will outline an approach being used to introduce evidence based practice to the built environment by a research project of the CRC for Low Carbon Living, an Australian based, industry focussed research collaboration. This paper will detail results from the first stage of the research, which assesses the applicability and suitability of using a systematic review process for built environment research. The paper will discuss the difficulties with such an approach to the built environment field, and proposes a ‘realist synthesis’ adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Off-site construction is a rising topic in both academic research and industrial applications because of its potential to bring about high-level of industrialization, environmental benefits, and sustainability in the built environment. Precast supply chain, as a vital connection between construction sites and off-site plants, is the focus of many recent studies. While these studies have greatly advanced precast supply chain management (PSCM), a critical analysis to summarize the recent research, to identify research gaps, and to inform future research needs is largely missing in the field of precast supply chain management. The overarching goal of this paper is to create a taxonomy to properly classify existing studies in precast supply chain management so as to reveal research gaps and suggest future research opportunities. The specific tasks in this review project include: (1) conducting bibliographic categorizations with regard to journals, years and geographic distributions of publications; (2) identifying the citation correlations and formulating the keyword connection networks; (3) classifying the literature based on research topics and highlighting the state of the art pertaining to each subtopic. The in-depth analysis shows that the studies on precast production are dominant in the PSCM domain. The major research approaches used in existing studies include the genetic algorithm, simulation, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and BIM (Building Information Modeling). At last, the possible future research focuses are highlighted, such as dynamic disturbances management, smart precast supply chain, coordination among participants, simultaneously optimizing scheduling and resource allocation. • Conducting bibliographic categorizations with regard to journals, years and geographic distributions of publications. • Presenting the citation correlations of crucial publications and keyword connection networks. • The mainstream research is classified into four thrust areas and the state of the art pertaining to each subtopic is summarized. • The research gaps and possible future research focuses are highlighted [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A modern house with diverse spaces was investigated. • Spatial configuration, microclimate and thermal comfort were studied. • The spatial configuration provides a good building microclimate. • The spatial configuration provides the possibility for occupants' adaptive actions. • Considerable summer thermal comfort can be achieved in the microclimate. Abstract In this paper, the authors attempt to clarify the relationship between spatial configuration, building microclimate and thermal comfort through the investigation of a modern house in hot and humid climate with spatial diversity. Firstly, the spatial configuration of the house was analysed in detail. The spatial geometric features, spatial boundary conditions, and human activities in the building were categorised. Secondly, field measurements were conducted to investigate the microclimate of the house. The air temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity were monitored on typical summer days. Thirdly, a dynamic thermal simulation was performed to predict the thermal comfort performance of the building over the period of an entire summer. The simulated results were compared with the measurements, and the adaptive thermal comfort approach was used to evaluate the thermal comfort. The modern house studied was found to have a varied spatial configuration, similar to local vernacular buildings, which produces diverse thermal environments in the building. The microclimate of this specific building could provide considerable thermal comfort for the occupants in summer under the local climate conditions, although thermal comfort cannot be achieved through free-running model in the hottest days, mechanical cooling or mixed model are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The shortage of low cost and affordable housing in the UK has led to many investigations into new building masonry materials. Fired clay masonry bricks are conventionally used for mainstream masonry wall construction but suffer from the rising price of energy plus other related environmental problems such as high energy usage and carbon dioxide emission. The use of stabilised unfired clay bricks for masonry construction may solve these problems. This paper reports on the engineering properties of unfired clay bricks produced during the first industrial trial of unfired clay material development carried out at Hanson Brick Company, in Stewartby, Bedfordshire, under the Knowledge Exploitation Fund (KEF) Collaborative Industrial Research Project (CIRP) programme. The mixes were formulated using a locally available industrial by-product (Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag — GGBS) which is activated with an alkaline (lime or Portland cement) combined with clay soil. Portland cement was not used in the formulation of the unfired stabilised masonry bricks, except as a control, which is a significant scientific breakthrough for the building industry. Another breakthrough is the fact that only about 1.5% lime was used for GGBS activation. This level of lime is not sufficient for most road construction applications where less strength values are needed and where 3–8% lime is required for effective soil stabilisation. Hence, the final pricing of the unfired clay bricks is expected to be relatively low. The laboratory results demonstrate that the compressive strength, moisture content, rate of water absorption, percentage of void, density and durability assessment (repeated 24-hour freezing/thawing cycles) were all within the acceptable engineering standards for clay masonry units. The paper also discusses on the environmental performance of the unfired clay in comparison to the bricks, used in mainstream construction of today. The bricks produced using this technology can be used for low-medium cost housing and energy efficient masonry wall construction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Currently, the iron and steel industry (ISI) accounts for more than 16% of China's total energy consumption. Improving energy efficiency (EE) and promoting energy savings in this industry have vital significance for China's further sustainable development. Using provincial panel data from 2000 to 2014 and meta-frontier data envelopment analysis (DEA), this paper investigates EE and the energy-saving potential (EP) of China's ISI by considering regional technology heterogeneities. The results show that (1) from 2001 to 2014, EE in China's ISI achieved significant improvement. Technological progress is the most powerful driving factor, while the declines in scale efficiency and pure technical efficiency are two obstructive factors; (2) the sources of energy inefficiency (EI) show distinct spatial difference characteristics. EI in the eastern region mainly stems from scale inefficiency and pure technical inefficiency, while that in the central and western regions stems from three aspects of scale inefficiency, pure technical inefficiency, and technology gap; and (3) there is considerable EP in China's ISI, which represents nearly 80% of ISI's current total energy consumption. Because the sources of EP vary across regions, the focus of future work for China's regional ISI should also vary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the design and development of a low cost building environmental monitoring system, and it is based on Open Source Platforms and on the Internet of Things. To achieve this aim, a wireless microcontroller with attached sensors has been used to collect the environmental data. The information obtained from the sensors is collected and stored in a flash memory card, and simultaneously is sent via WiFi to the cloud. This data is stored in an online spreadsheet, which permits us to access the information in real time. On the other hand, a comparative analysis of the results obtained from sensors has been carried out, thanks to which several guidance guidelines have been developed for the selection of the most appropriate environmental sensor for each project. Finally, an additional evaluation of the device has been carried out through the analysis of its energy performance and providing information related to the data storage and its cost of development. The current research shows a clear ability to develop monitoring systems for the building sector, which can also be extended to multiple applications of Smart Environments. The development of projects through these platforms will allow future research to tackle the existing barriers in monitoring campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a common source of environmental noise in China and many developing countries worldwide, construction work provokes many complaints and deterioration in acoustic climate quality. This paper describes research to obtain an improved understanding of people's community response to, and evaluation of, construction noise in three central cities of Zhejiang province, China. This involved carrying out a social survey using standard questionnaires developed by the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN). A dose-response relationship model is established using a quadratic polynomial regression analysis based on construction noise exposure measurements from 40 construction sites in Hangzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou. The results of the study indicate that the majority of people have a negative attitude to construction noise; the noise ranges between 60 dB and 80 dB (compared with 50 dB–70 dB traffic noise in Tianjin), with the percentage of highly annoyed people affected increasing from 15%-20% to 30%–40% over the range. There also different levels of annoyance depending on the time of day, and the location and activities of those affected. Other cultural differences are also apparent both between Ningbo/Wenzhou and the more urbane citizens of Hangzhou, and the Chinese people and their more noise-tolerant EU and Vietnam counterparts. The findings of this study provide a new perspective for the study of construction noise that can help local governments have an improved understanding of how residents react to construction noise for the purpose of selecting construction noise-mitigation projects and introducing construction noise-control regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions made in the early design stages critically determine a building’s life cycle environmental impacts and costs. Dynamic building performance feedback has the potential to improve design decision-making, but the best means of providing such feedback is not well understood. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of three visualization tools in helping designers make sustainable building design decisions. A charrette was conducted in which participants were tasked with minimizing carbon emissions and cost of an office building based on feedback from a scatterplot, histogram, and tornado diagram. Results demonstrate that designers achieved significant improvements in solution quality when feedback was present, with the scatterplot achieving a 20% improvement over conventional methods. The research quantifies the effectiveness of various visualization methods in helping designers create low-carbon, high-performing buildings and suggests that quantity and type of feedback should be carefully considered during the early stages of the sustainable design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional life cycle assessment (LCA) methods are used to conduct building environmental impact assessment (EIA) with little consideration of influential factors that vary in time and of variation in occupancy behaviors. Because the life cycle of a building is quite long, such details have significant influence on the accuracy of evaluation results. To fill in this gap and extend the LCA system, this paper developed a dynamic assessment framework based on LCA principles after reviewing the research progress of DLCA (dynamic LCA). The new framework identified four dynamic building properties (i.e., technological progress, variation in occupancy behavior, dynamic characteristic factors, and dynamic weighting factors) and considered them in corresponding assessment steps to realize real-time EIA. In addition, residential occupancy profiles were described at personal level, family level, and social level; and three potential quantification methods were introduced to explore the relationship between occupancy profiles and household energy consumption. The DLCA framework expands the connotation of the LCA system from a dynamic perspective, making it possible to present time-varying EIs of buildings over their long life cycle and guide occupancy behavior in time. This framework has the potential to be base for developing a useful tool for conducting forecast evaluation and promoting sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an investigation regarding the effect of indoor thermal to building's occupant satisfaction which is equipped by mechanically ventilated. The investigation is consisted of two parts, in which the first part is to visualise the indoor environmental quality of the office room in-term of air velocity distribution and indoor temperature distribution. Whereas, the second part is to obtain the perception of building's occupants regarding their satisfaction to the indoor air and thermal inside the building. An approach of modelling and simulation was carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics software to visualise indoor environmental quality and an approach of questionnaire was adopted to obtain the perception of building's occupants. The results show that the geometry model also affects to the air circulation and maintain indoor temperature distribution. This evidence occurred when the distribution of indoor air of office room didn’t distributed homogeneously to the hallway as impact of the streamline, but the distribution of indoor temperature is still uniform. Additionally, the condition of temperature inside office room is not a single factor that contribute to the dissatisfaction of building's occupants. Since most of office workers are unauthorized to adjust temperature and air velocity of the air-conditioning system, this contributes to 40% of respondents that are dissatisfaction with temperature and air velocity. Finally, this study found that the relationship amongst indoor environmental quality to produce occupant satisfaction is a complex system that need to be assessed comprehensively. Besides, it is invaluable to advance our understanding of the relationship amongst ventilation system, occupant behaviour, and building energy in tropical climate in assessment of occupant satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion and research on the role of 3D virtual learning environments in teaching and learning. It specifically focuses on the use of video games as an enabling technology in construction higher education. As such, it investigates whether task complexity has any influence on an individual's preferred learning style while learning through virtual reality (VR) technology. To answer this question and address relevant issues, an educational experiment has been designed and conducted. An experimental virtual learning environment, the Situation Engine , was set up as a virtual construction site for undergraduate construction students to experience construction work in progress. The design and development of the Situation Engine has drawn on powerful pedagogical theories such as situated and experiential learning. 253 undergraduate students participated in the educational experiment. Three tasks of different complexity levels were designed as the experimental environments; with level of complexity being the independent variable. The hypothesis that students would adopt different learning styles when engaged in learning tasks of different complexities was rejected. No significant difference in the preferred learning styles was identified among the three experimental groups. It was concluded, therefore, that when using virtual reality technology for construction education there is no evidence to suggest the level of task complexity has significant influence on how people learn. The study presented in this paper is the first empirical study in the construction higher education field that reveals the relationship between the task complexity and students learning styles when Virtual Learning Environments are engaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building construction industry in Saudi Arabia is plagued by poor performance that drastically reduced future sustainable practices. This long-term risk should be rectified using inclusive construction methods, without posing a threat to the environment, society, and economy. Value management (VM) is a valuable tool for resolving difficulties, such as restricted assets, tight schedules, cost, and sustainable alternatives in the building construction industry. VM adoption in the building construction sector had proved to be beneficial in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, this paper aimed to examine and provide insight into critical success factors (CSFs) that enable VM adaptation in Saudi Arabia. A mixed method approach of both quantitative and qualitative was applied using interviews from ten (10) experts with considerable experience in the construction field. Five hundred and fifty (5 5 0) questionnaires were designed for construction professionals. Construction experts suggested ways to enhance VM adoption by defining 25 CSFs that affect VM implementation in the construction industry. The findings further showed that building professionals have significant expertise in VM activities. However, the level of application remained unchanged and hoovers on the average spectrum. This study has contributed to a better understanding of VM implementation in the construction industry. It also facilitates SCFs monitoring, improve the efficiency of VM practice and development of future VM policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In hot arid desert environments, the solar radiation passing through windows increases the cooling loads and the energy consumption of buildings. Shading of windows can reduce these loads. Unlike the woven solar screens, wooden solar screens have a thickness that provides selective shading properties. Perforated wooden solar screens were traditionally used for windows shading. Developing modern types of these shading systems can lead to significant energy savings. The paper addresses the influence of changing the perforation percentage and depth of these screens on the annual energy loads, hence defining the optimum depth/perforation configurations for various window orientations. Series of experiments were performed using the EnergyPlus simulation software for a typical residential building in the Kharga Oasis, located in the Egyptian desert. A range of perforation percentages and depths were tested. Conclusions prove that external fixed deep perforated solar screens could effectively achieve energy savings up to 30% of the total energy consumption in the West and South orientations. Optimum range of depths and perforation percentages were recommended. These are: 80–90% perforation rate and 1:1 depth/opening width ratio. These lighter and deeper solar screen configurations were found to be more efficient in energy consumption in comparison with the traditional ones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Energy certification is a tool that is increasingly relevant today, not only because it allows quantifying and monitoring energy consumption in the building sector but also because it is a booster mechanism of the implementation of international guidelines on energy consumption. The thermal characteristics are the base of the energy efficiency calculation. In this paper, some reference values related to St. António, the most populated parish of Funchal (Madeira), were quantified and analyzed demonstrating its moderate environmental conditions when compared with the rest of Portugal. The variation on the energy certification in last three years was studied for Portugal, Madeira, Funchal and St. António. In general the number of certificates has been decreasing, due to the crisis in the construction sector. All the Regulatory Declarations of Conformity (DCR) and the Energy and Indoor Air Quality Certificates (CE) emitted so far in the St. Antonio parish were considered to study the influence of some factors in the building final energy classification. The findings show that the year of emission, the orientation of the building, the type of building and the type of certificate affect the final energy label of the building. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The construction of urban rail transit (URT) infrastructures requires extensive input of resources and energy, thus generating considerable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Despite efforts to quantify and mitigate the carbon footprint (CFP) during the URT's construction stage, the magnitude of this CFP is largely dependent on design parameters, such as route selection and buried depth, that require confirmation during the planning stage. Therefore, the best means by which to control the CFP of URT construction is for government and design consultancies to have mitigation awareness in the determination of early proposal parameters. To achieve this goal, it is important to identify a link between the construction CFP and these parameters. In this paper, an artificial neuro network (ANN) model is established to predict the GHG emissions from the construction of the planning URT lines of the Fuzhou subway using training data from the in-service lines. GHG emissions from the construction of the planning lines amount to 6.46 Mt CO2.eq., averaging 53024.13 t CO2.eq. per unit line length. Buried depth is identified as the primary factor that determines the GHG intensity of URT stations and tunnel sections, and two simplified equations are derived to facilitate the estimation. In addition, the payback periods of the stations are evaluated. For lines 2, 4, 5, 6, it is estimated to require 16.52, 11.69, 21.60 and 12.67 years, respectively, before the initial construction CFPs are balanced by those mitigated by URT operation. Carbon-inefficient stations are attributed to either low service levels or overconstruction. • A prediction model based on ANN is constructed with characterized input variables of the planning Subway lines. • Buried depth is identified as the major factor influencing the GHG emissions from subway construction. • Payback periods of the planning stations are evaluated considering their serviceability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their independence from environment instrumentation, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based localization and navigation have received increasing attention and been widely applied for applications in the built environment and on construction sites. Compared with Lidar-based SLAM, the main concern with visual SLAM (vSLAM) is its effectiveness and robustness in challenging environments. As a major type of vSLAM algorithm, feature-based methods, including the state-of-the-art ORB-SLAM, rely on rich image features and a robust descriptor for matching feature correspondences across different image frames, which suffers from performance loss in environments with low-texture, low-structure areas (e.g., building corridors) or motion blur that are pretty common in practical applications. Regardless of being traditionally handcrafted or learned from recent data-driven methods such as convolutional neural networks (CNN), previous methods try to obtain an optimal fixed feature transform that works for any scenes. With the aim of improving tracking robustness in challenging environments, as opposed to such fixed feature presentation, this research proposes and explores a learning-based dynamic feature transform that is self-adaptive towards recently observed scenes, which we termed as Deep SAFT. This paper also presents the design details of an implementation of Deep SAFT working with ORB-SLAM and evaluates the modified algorithm on fifteen popular public dataset sequences. The valuation results prove the feasibility and effectiveness of SAFT for improving the matching performance of learning-based descriptors. The proposed SAFT can be integrated with existing feature-based vSLAM algorithms to provide more robust locating service for applications either in the built environment (such as facility management) or on construction sites (such as construction site safety, construction progress monitoring, and infrastructure inspection). • A scene adaptive feature transform (SAFT) is proposed to improve feature matching. • SAFT is trained online and self-adaptive to optimized description of observed scenes. • A SAFT learning network is designed, trained and tested offline on a public dataset. • An integration strategy is proposed to integrate Deep SAFT into a visual SLAM. • A Deep SAFT embedded visual SLAM is evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wooden foundation piles have been used since Roman times to solidify infirm soils prior to construction of heavy monuments like churches, buildings and bridges. These are known to have a long service life in waterlogged anaerobic environments where most biological wood decay processes, except for slow bacterial degradation, are repressed. However, large scale urban ground work may change the biogeochemical stability of the soil, increasing the microbial decay of the piles and resulting in settling damages to historic buildings. This paper evaluates and synthesizes present knowledge within this cross-disciplinary field in order to understand the complex processes during ground work that have detrimental consequences for foundation pile durability. We conclude that soil types, ground water levels and water flow, as well as the hydrogeological matrix are important parameters for understanding the stability of a site. These factors will affect the oxygen content available for development of more intense decay by erosion bacteria or additional attacks by aggressive wood rotting fungi. These interactions and thresholds should be studied further. Knowledge of local environments can determine the vulnerability of burial sites prior to disturbance, and enables taking preventative measures to counter effects thereof. • Urban infrastructure work may endanger service life of wooden foundation piles. • Groundwater changes affect the microbial susceptibility of waterlogged wooden piles. • Oxygenating waterlogged soils increases bacterial decay and introduces fungal decay. • Urban soil structures and processes affect wood degrading microbes in complex ways. • Oxygen availability, thresholds, and in-soil processes need to be studied further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]