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Buildings use more than one-third of the total energy consumed in counties within the Mediterranean climate zones like in Turkey. During the summer months, the absorption of solar energy by the buildings increases the required cooling load significantly. One unconventional solution to this problem is the radiative cooling of the building surfaces and façades. If a surface benefits from daytime radiative cooling, its equilibrium temperature will be lower. This can be achieved only if 88% of solar radiation within the visible and near-infrared spectrum is reflected. For this purpose, paints and coatings may have an obvious advantage because of their low cost, simplicity and ease of application;however, strong solar reflectors may significantly mutate the color. On the other hand, the use of spectrally selective surfaces isof great value in practical applications such as collection of solar energy and spacecraft temperature control. In addition, the development of novel nano-patterning techniques and new designer materials for various applications are likely to surface. These developments may help to develop a wider data base for spectral and directional radiative properties of different materials. This review is to provide an overview of mainstream and such as cermets, paints and coatings, and metal oxides that can be used for radiative cooling of buildings. Also, a summary is provided for the theories, fabrication methods, usual design and possible future research opportunities to optimize these materials for spectral selectivity for specific applications.

Urban sprawl and the increase of the built-up area have a major impact on land use. Buildings are responsible for two types of land use interventions: primary land use, i.e. the building footprint and secondary land use, associated with the resource extraction, production, transport and end-of-life treatment of construction products. However the environmental impact related to the primary land use is mostly not considered in current Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies of the built environment. The purpose of this paper is to assess the environmental impact of primary land use in neighbourhoods, considering not only the footprint of buildings but also the footprint of infrastructure and open spaces. Impacts related to land occupation and transformation are evaluated based on the impact assessment methods soil organic matter (SOM) (i.e. impact on soil quality) and Eco-indicator 99 (i.e. impact on biodiversity). An LCA study of neighbourhood models with diverse built densities, i.e. consisting of detached houses, semi-detached houses, terraced houses to compact apartment blocks, is performed. Moreover, buildings are simulated using combinations of building elements, from solid to timber frame structure. The results reveal the high contribution of primary land use to the neighbourhood life cycle environmental impacts, especially in low built density neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the environmental impact of primary land use is in most cases higher than secondary land use. Based on this analysis, it is recommended to include the assessment of primary land use in neighbourhood LCA, especially in studies comparing different built densities. ispartof: pages:595-602 ispartof: Procedia Environmental Sciences vol:38 pages:595-602 ispartof: International Conference on Sustainable Synergies from Building to the Urban Scale, SBE16 location:Thessaloniki, Greece date:17 Oct - 19 Oct 2016 status: published

Cities are complex entities which are constantly evolving, they are responsible for the largest share of most environmental impacts, but provide also major opportunities for improvement. Nevertheless, holistic methodologies to evaluate the environmental footprint of cities are still lacking at the urban scale level. Currently, carbon footprint and water footprint are the most used methods to evaluate the environmental performance of cities, despite their limited scope. The Urban Metabolism (UM) concept allows making an inventory of the flows into and out of the city, but it does not allow to interpret these flows in terms of environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) provides this capability, but it is not yet feasible at urban scale. A first attempt to fuse the two approaches was made, but this proposal considers only four environmental indicators. It is clear that none of these methods can represent the whole environmental picture. Providing a new methodology adapt to urban context and extending the list of environmental impact categories is of paramount relevance to move towards a comprehensive and reliable environmental assessment able to guide cities on a sustainable transition path. For this reason, the main aims of this contribution are to give a comprehensive and critical insight in the most valuable and current available methods and tools able to assess the environmental burdens of cities, and at the same time trace the steps forward to propose a new methodology that could be capable to overcome the current gaps. This paper presents the first part of a broader research project which aims at developing a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach to identify the contribution of the main flows at the macro-scale level, but also the main hotspots on the micro-scale level and the potential improvements. ispartof: pages:635-642 ispartof: Procedia Environmental Sciences vol:38 pages:635-642 ispartof: International Conference on Sustainable Synergies from Buildings to the Urban Scale location:Thessaloniki date:17 Oct - 19 Oct 2016 status: published

With the rising worldwide sustainability trends, the healthcare industry is encouraged for philosophical, societal and economic reasons to implement the “greening movement” in its practice. Consequently, this move has resulted in the development of several sustainability certification tools focusing on healthcare settings. Among the best known ones are BREEAM, LEED and Green Guide for Healthcare. Their ease of use, holistic approach and possibility of implementation from the early-design phase, have made them very attractive among different building practitioners. Yet, their subjectivity in the assessment approach, leaves a doubt whether the use of these schemes leads to truly sustainable buildings. This has led to an increased awareness among building practitioners that the qualitative tools to assess the sustainability of their projects are not sufficient. The same questions on the sustainability of hospitals arose in the Flemish healthcare sector as well. On-going development of the Duurzaamheidsmeter zorg, a qualitative tool adapted for the Flemish context, aims at helping building practitioners in assessing the sustainability of their hospital projects. However, urban planners and architects who had the opportunity of using it, reported some disadvantages and shortcomings. A need is identified to develop a more reliable sustainability assessment method based on a quantitative approach. This paper elaborates the first step in the research, analyzing the building professionals’ experiences in using sustainability assessment tools on hospital facilities in Flanders. Their feedback is translated into a SWOT analysis which identifies the professionals’ expectations of an assessment method. The results are seen as valuable directions to consider when developing an evaluation method from a life cycle thinking perspective. ispartof: pages:445-451 ispartof: Procedia Environmental Sciences vol:38 pages:445-451 ispartof: SBE16 - Thessaloniki International conference. Sustainable Synergies from Buildings to the Urban Scale location:Thessaloniki, Greece date:17 Oct - 19 Oct 2016 status: published