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Green buildings have gained increasing momentum during the past decade, evidenced by an uptick in green building construction worldwide. To facilitate green building development, it is crucial to understand the current geographical distribution of green buildings, thereby identifying emerging markets and opportunities for future growth. However, very few studies investigated the spatial characteristics of the green building market and the factors influencing the distribution of green buildings. By examining the national green building market in the United States, we studied the spatial distribution patterns and significant influencing factors of the county-level US green building markets. Cluster mapping and hot spots of the green building markets were identified through spatial autocorrelation analysis. A spatial regression model with high performance (R2 of 0.83) was developed to identify the significant influencing factors. We found a statistically significant clustering phenomenon of county-level US green building markets. The spatial error model reveals that three factors, namely, the number of housing units, gross domestic product, and the local green building company index, significantly influence the number of green buildings at the county level. We also found that the county-level green building market is influenced by these factors of not only the host county, but also the neighboring counties. Our findings provide a useful reference for stakeholders' decision-making process concerning local green building market development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In following a pathway towards decarbonisation of energy systems, Australia has successfully accelerated the adoption of solar technologies, with approximately three million small-scale distributed solar panels installed on rooftops of Australian homes. This study, in seeking to explore the effects of socio-economic variables on solar energy uptake, firstly explored the historical diffusions of household solar panels across 2668 Australian postcode areas, and classified the postal areas into three groups through K-means clustering according to their solar penetration status, namely the regions with low, medium, and high solar-level. Subsequently, this study carried out a hierarchical regression analysis investigating the significant socio-economic factors impacting solar adoption in each of the three region types. The results indicate that the three solar groups have different significant impacting factors. In addition, factors, such as detached house and multi-person household, positively contribute to the solar panel uptake, while factors like population density and middle-aged people provide negative contributes. The findings suggest new directions that could be taken for future policies and viable business models, and that specific measures for the varied socio-economic factors to be considered at different stages of solar energy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract As a highly urbanised city-state with limited rooftop space but large façade areas of skyscrapers, Singapore is particularly suitable for the implementation of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). This study aims to identify relevant barriers that still hinder the greater adoption of BIPV perceived by stakeholders in Singapore, as well as the drivers for BIPV that would lead building sector to adopt BIPV technologies. The study involved five important groups of stakeholders i.e. governmental authorities, building developers, architects, engineers, and PV/BIPV manufacturers to participate in a questionnaire survey. The results identified that on-site generation of clean energy bundled with economic benefits, Green Mark certification, and avoidance of CO 2 emissions are the most influential drivers, while long-term payback period, high upfront cost, and low energy conversion efficiency are the three most substantial barriers to BIPV. Furthermore, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine whether the various stakeholder groups perceive the drivers and barriers differently. It was discovered that various stakeholder groups perceive the drivers similarly, but the significantly different opinions have been perceived on several barriers. This study provides suggestions to overcome barriers to BIPV not only in Singapore, but also other countries that aim to promote BIPV technologies. Highlights • Barriers to and drivers for BIPV development in Singapore were investigated. • Generating renewable energy and achieving green mark certification are influential drivers. • Long-term payback period and high upfront cost are significant barriers. • Stakeholder groups perceive the drivers similarly but the barriers differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Rapid urbanization and the issue of environmental degradation compel developing countries to find a cleaner approach to replace or complement the traditional on-site construction method. Off-site construction (OSC) with its various advantages has been regarded as a promising approach to address the problems confronted in developing countries. However, promoting the adoption of OSC is indeed a tough task that still faces multiple barriers. It is stakeholder collaboration by integrating diverse resources within the construction industry that can potentially address these barriers. Although multiple studies have been conducted from various perspectives, the issue of stakeholder collaboration, as the key to promoting OSC adoption, has been overlooked. This research aims to explore stakeholders’ influencing power over such barriers using two-mode social network analysis. Firstly, 13 barriers to the OSC adoption, as well as 15 stakeholders with the power to overcome these barriers, were identified based on literature and expert judgments. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was conducted comprising 39 responses from experts with rich experience in OSC in Chongqing, China. Centrality and core-periphery structure analyses were adopted to study the network. The results show that the government and developers have the highest degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality, and thus are the most influential stakeholders in the network. Similarly, the lack of knowledge and expertise, and the dominant conventional project process have the highest values of centrality among all barriers. With the density of interaction being 0.814, core stakeholders and barriers have intensive relationships, and the network shows an apparent core-periphery structure. Theoretically, this study demonstrates the use of the two-mode social network in construction research, and practically, this study sheds lights on how to effectively drive the adoption of OSC in developing countries through promoting stakeholder collaboration. Highlights • 13 barriers and 15 stakeholders relevant to the OSC adoption were identified. • Two-mode social network was adopted to link the stakeholders and barriers. • Centrality and core-periphery structure analyses were adopted to study the network. • Strategies were proposed to promote OSC adoption by stakeholder collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar Photovoltaics (PV) has become one of the major trends in the energy sector for the past decade. Due to the high upfront capital expenditure needed for solar installations, new investment models and financing options have emerged in recent years. While solar financing has received increasing attention, little research has been done to explore the use of crowdfunding for PV development. This study presents a review of the crowdfunding concepts in general and crowdfunding of renewable energy specifically, and provides a system dynamics model to simulate the development potential of Solar Crowdfunding (SCF) by taking Singapore as an example. The model simulated a three-stage SCF development including the determination of potential SCF adopters, factors affecting the adoption of SCF, and factors affecting the success of SCF. The results show that under different scenarios, SCF can potentially generate a cumulative amount of $177–278 million US Dollars by the end of 2050, accounting for 2.5–4% of the total cumulative funds needed for PV installations expected in the year 2050 in Singapore. This study enriches the existing studies on solar financing and provides references for policy makers, academics and industry practitioners interested in SCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Off-site construction (OSC) has been recognized as an approach to transform the construction sector from a labor–intensive to a modernized and green industry. Despite a number of advantages, the development of OSC still remains its infancy in China due to various interactive barriers. Some studies have been conducted to explore the barriers to the OSC adoption. However, very few studies attempted to investigate the complex interrelationships among these barriers. In order to fill this gap, this study adopts Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) technique to explore the interrelationships amongst barriers to the OSC adoption in China. Firstly, critical barriers were identified through literature review and semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders. Then, the overall structure amongst barriers was revealed through ISM technique. By using the Matriced’ Impacts Croise's Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (MICMAC) technique, the barriers were classified into four groups according to their driving-power and dependence power. The results indicate that specific attentions should be given to inadequate policy and regulations, lacking knowledge and expertise, dominated traditional project process as well as low standardization. The research findings provide valuable information for policy-makers on the overall structure amongst barriers. These results shed lights on effectively developing measures to facilitate the OSC adoption in the construction sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor shortage and low labor productivity are critical issues in the construction industry. Robotics, as a powerful technology to improve productivity in the digitization era, is being used to assist in addressing these problems. Particularly in recent years, interest in construction robotics research has risen remarkably. To gain a deeper understanding of this burgeoning research field, this study provides a bibliometric analysis of 498 related papers retrieved from WoS (Web of Science). Performance analysis and science mapping were used in the paper to identify the research trends, relationship among authors, top publication sources, regional activities, as well as knowledge base and dominant research sub-fields. The results indicated that the number of papers focusing on construction robotics has been continuously growing since 2013. "Automation," "system," and "design" have been the most addressed topics in construction robotics. The findings are indicative of identifying the deficiencies in existing research and provide directions for future research. Those include greater attention paid to the experimental results of on-site construction robots, while ignoring the impacts of practical construction situations, and the development of off-site construction robots needs more support. For theoretical research, there is a lack of studies on human–robot collaboration workflow and management models. Therefore, the study would be valuable in providing practitioners and researchers with a better perspective on the development of construction robotics and facilitating the building of the intellectual wealth of robotics in the construction industry. Our study analyzed 498 papers related to construction robotics from 1974 to 2022 through bibliometric approaches (mathematical and statistical methods). The study counted the numbers of construction robotics papers by year, identified most active scholars and top publication sources, and analyzed the relationship among regions. Most importantly, the paper identified the knowledge base of the research field of construction robotics and reviewed various relevant studies from theoretical and practical application perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spoil disposal areas (SDA) in high-speed railway engineering severely threat the surrounding environmental system. To comprehensively understand SDA's environmental impacts, this study developed an environmental impact assessment model for SDA by integrating the Pressure-State-Response model (PSR), the Analytic Hierarchy Process model (AHP), and the Grey Euclid model (GE). In the proposed model, 24 indicators are firstly selected in terms of pressures, states, and responses. Then, the AHP model is used to determine the indictor weights and the GE model is employed to determine the environmental impact level of the given SDA site. The developed model is validated through a case study in China and results show that the model can accurately and comprehensively reflect the actual environmental impacts of SDA. This is pertinent to designers, contractors, and governments who have been seeking solutions to achieve cleaner production in high-speed railway engineering. • An evaluation indicator system of SDA's environmental impacts. • A PSR-AHP-GE model for assessing SDA's environmental impacts. • A case study of an SDA in China. • Achieving cleaner production in high-speed railway engineering construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A comprehensive overview of NZEBs is conducted by using bibliometric techniques. • Hot research topics of NZEBs are identified through keyword co-occurrence analysis. • The research trend, key journals, publications, authors, and countries are analyzed by co-citation analysis. • The thematic evolutionary analysis of NZEBs was investigated using SciMAT tool. This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of three-decade research developments in the field of Net-Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) by using bibliometric analysis techniques. The specific objectives of this paper are to: (1) identify the most influential researchers, sources, and countries in this field; (2) identify the main thematic research focus areas and hot topics in the field; and (3) analyze the thematic evolution of NZEBs. VOSviewer software was used to realize the first two objectives while to meet the third objective, the SciMAT tool was employed to examine the thematic evolution of the field within three sub-periods (1995–2005; 2006–2015; 2016–2022). The results indicate that the main thematic areas of the field were initially limited to a few themes including 'environmental impact', 'green buildings', 'building materials', and 'fuel cells', and it expanded in the next periods by encompassing more themes. The results also showed that the field has now reached a certain level of consolidation by acknowledging the significance of three major themes: (1) buildings' energy conservation, (2) energy production and energy storage, and (3) methodological approach. Nevertheless, the evolutionary analysis points out that the field is still expanding with several themes newly emerged such as 'electric vehicles', 'zero-emission neighborhood' and 'smart buildings'. The findings offer a status-quo overview and critiques of research developments in NZEBs as well as emerging themes in the field that should be investigated by future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces assume a pivotal role in city-level nature-based solutions for sustainable development. Parks, street greening, and community greens play a significant role in regulating the urban microenvironment, enhancing subjective well-being, and increasing regional attractiveness. Additionally, urban greenbelts have the capacity to control urban sprawl, thereby influencing housing prices and population distribution. However, the exisiting urban models have typically addressed greenbelts and other green spaces in isolation, resulting in fragmented planning strategies. This study aims to establish a novel spatial equilibrium model that accurately assesses the socio-economic effects resulting from the combined impact of various urban green spaces. This model encompasses green infrastructure components and carefully balances their appeal against the consequent rise in housing costs. The proposed model can elucidate the latent synergistic interactions among multiple urban green policies, which enables urban policymakers to access the multifaceted impacts of greening policy combinations. and suggests that combining different urban greening policies can mitigate the negative effects of a single policy type, such as population redistribution. A case study based on empirical data from Shanghai, China, has been employed to identify the additional value associated with diverse urban green spaces. The scenario analysis suggests that combining different urban greening policies can alleviate the negative impacts of urban population relocation. These findings furnish urban planners and policymakers with novel insights to develop the distribution strategy of urban green spaces via judicious policy integration. Consequently, the proposed model furnishes a novel academic standpoint on the role of urban green spaces within the context of nature-based solution for sustainable development of metropolitan conglomerates and nascent urban agglomerations amidst the evolving post-COVID-19 environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the architecture, engineering, and construction industry has witnessed increasing growth in the green building market and continues to expect a promising future. Although companies in the industry have played a significant role in developing the green building market, scarce studies have analyzed changes in the market from the perspectives of these corporations. Also, few studies classify green building companies by characteristics. To fill these gaps of knowledge, we explored the characteristics of the US green building market from a corporate perspective, specifically investigating green contractors and design firms. We first collected data of 464 top US green building companies identified by the Engineering News-Record over the past decade and explored the development trend of the green building market, based on the green revenue generated by these companies. We found that the general growth trend in the US green building market in the past decade could be divided into three stages: a rapid-growth stage (2000–2008), a steady-growth stage (2009–2013), and a maturity and transformation stage (2014–2016). We then categorized the 464 organizations into three groups with distinct characteristics by k -means cluster analysis techniques, including mature green building companies, sector-oriented green building companies, and primary-stage green building companies. This study provides the academic and practitioner communities with a holistic understanding of the development of the US green building market from the view of burgeoning companies. Corporate-level management systems and sustainable practices of the three clusters of green building companies also provide guidance for construction companies in the various stages of transformation towards sustainability to adopt different strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relational behavior of project participants is crucial to the success of a megaproject. Although project governance has been widely studied with the aim of improving participants' relational behavior, limited research examines the distinct effectiveness of various governance mechanisms on influencing relational behavior, especially in megaprojects. Through examining three varieties of governance mechanisms—contract, trust, and institutional support—a hierarchical moderated regression analysis has been used to explore the impact of each of the governance mechanisms in facilitating the relational behavior of megaproject participants and further team performance. The analysis is based on data collected from 202 contractors and consultants working at megaprojects in China. Results unveiled that both contractual term specificity and its interaction with trust can facilitate relational behavior. Project uncertainty moderates the relationship between governance mechanisms and relational behavior, thus affecting project team performance. The findings offer both theoretical and managerial implications for megaproject participants to cultivate beneficial relational behavior to improve team performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rise buildings consume more energy and have greater environmental impacts, emphasising the need to adopt best practices during the design stage concerning BIM employment. However, despite strong support from the literature, little is known about the applications of BIM in high-rise buildings at the early design stage. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a holistic understanding of the current applications of BIM in high-rise buildings by analysing 60 studies. The findings identified seven research themes, including studies that used BIM for i) optimising building energy efficiency design; ii) collaborative design and planning; iii) life-cycle assessment; iv) designing net-zero energy buildings; v) integrating BIM with smart technologies for designing high-rise buildings; vi) cost analysis, and vii) structural design of high-rise buildings. Furthermore, this study highlights a number of challenges hindering the widespread application of BIM, alongside providing potential directions for the future development of BIM employment in high-rise buildings. [Display omitted] • A systematic review of BIM applications in high-rise buildings was conducted • Seven domains of BIM applications were identified • Challenges hindering widespread use of BIM in high-rise buildings were highlighted • Directions for future development of this research area were recommended [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Combined with road, illegal dumping high-risk areas were identified on road sections. • Factors for illegal dumping locations identified with high explanation (85%) with RF. • The priority of factors could be derived by comparing risk levels. • Using ML could predict changes of illegal dumping and provide references to manager. • Traffic-related factors have a significant impact on illegal dumping locations. Using historical data to assess illegal dumping risks has significant potential to enhance the effectiveness of waste management in low-population density counties where the ability to patrol and regulate illegal dumping is limited. Using big data and geographical analysis to identify high-risk areas plays an important role in improving the effectiveness of supervision related to illegal dumping. However, current methods for classifying risk areas have limited accuracy. Taking an area in South Australia as an example, this study aims to improve the accuracy of classifying risk areas by using geo-information technology and machine learning methods. The results show that combining illegal dumping locations with road characteristics allows the high-risk areas to be refined to road sections. Compared with identifying the whole road or area as a high-risk spot, this result could be beneficial for monitoring illegal dumping in real life. Moreover, this model allows the analysis of factors that affect illegal dumping locations. Results show that the influencing factors for different risk levels of illegal dumping vary significantly. The model developed in this research can effectively distinguish risk levels according to these factors, and the model classification accuracy can reach 85%. In addition, there are priorities amongst these factors. This finding could help environmental authorities to allocate equipment and personnel with consideration of varying level of importance of those factors. This study has both technical contributions to identify high risk areas of illegal dumping, and theoretical implications for its management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a renewable energy source, wind power has received growing attentions, but mostly been utilized in wind power farms or high-rise buildings where the wind with high speed is available. Few studies focus on the micro-wind utilization in low-rise buildings due to the bottleneck that the wind speed cannot meet the minimal speed requirement of small wind turbines. This paper aims to identify the optimal building design which could enable the harvesting of the maximal micro-wind power around low-rise residential buildings. Based on the comparison among different building shapes and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis via software Phoenics , this paper identified that the building shape of “composite prism” could enable the harvesting of the most micro-wind power. The identified building shape was then tested in a simulated environment of a residential community in Pingtan Island, China. The local wind conditions, long-term community planning, and the requirement of comfort level were all considered in the simulation model. The result shows that the potential of utilizing wind energy in low-rise residential buildings is huge by adopting the proposed building shape of “composite prism”. The finding has significant implications for renewable energy utilization in built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a large number of studies on Building Information Modeling (BIM) have been conducted in the past decade, a lack of consensus remains among researchers and practitioners regarding the applications of BIM for the development of green buildings, the activity of making buildings in a way that protects the natural environment. As the usefulness of BIM has been widely recognized in the building and construction industry, there is an urgent need to establish an up-to-date synthesis on the nexus between BIM and green buildings. After an in-depth review of hundreds of journal articles published from 1999 to 2016 and 12 widely used types of BIM software, this study provides a holistic understanding and critical reflection on the nexus between BIM and green buildings, which is systematically illustrated by a “Green BIM Triangle” taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy indicates that the nexus between BIM and green buildings needs to be understood based on three dimensions, namely project phases, green attributes and BIM attributes. Following the proposed taxonomy, this paper systematically illustrated 1) the applications of BIM in supporting the design, construction, operation, and retrofitting processes of green buildings; 2) the various functions of BIM for green building analyses such as energy, emissions, and ventilation analysis; 3) the applications of BIM in supporting green building assessments (GBA); and 4) research gaps and future research directions in this area. Through critical review and synthesis of BIM and green buildings based on evidence from both academic research and industrial practices, this paper provides important guidance for building researchers and practitioners to better align BIM development with green building development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public rental housing (PRH) provides its tenants the opportunity to access homeownership after the lease contracts expire. Therefore, PRH facilitates migrant workers to settle down in hosted cities as it provides the foreseeable future for them to be integrated into urban lives. Similarly, the perception of tenants on housing adequacy of their sitting PRH units plays a critical role in decision making of the housing tenure choice. This research aims to explore determinants of migrant workers’ housing tenure choice towards their sitting PRH units such as socio-economic characteristics of tenants as well as the housing adequacy. A large scale questionnaire survey was conducted in Chongqing, where the PRH program allows residents to rent and buy after five-year lease. Eight components of adequate housing were identified, i.e. public facilities, housing policies, housing amenities, housing internal design, housing indoor quality and safety, building external design and landscape, housing affordability, and facility management. The overall housing adequacy had a positive relationship with tenure choice, which was statistically affected by socio-economic characteristics such as age and housing type, education and income. Meanwhile, six critical components of housing adequacy significantly affect the housing tenure choice, i.e. public facilities, housing internal design, housing indoor quality and safety, building external design and landscape, housing affordability, and facility management. These findings shed some lights on sustainable development of PRH programs and provide valuable evidence for policy making related to the urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A thermal-textured BIM generation framework for UAV-enabled building energy audit is proposed. • A low-cost calibration target that exhibits high precision and ease of production. • A thermal image-to-BIM registration method by multi-source image fusion. • A histogram-based approach to correct thermally inconsistent phenomenon and enhance image contrast. • A high-contrast thermal-textured BIM of a pre-1920 masonry building is generated. Mapping Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based thermal images of building façades onto a Building Information Model (BIM) can greatly support building energy audit. However, accurately registering these images into BIM is challenging due to thermal image's unique characteristics of low texture and high distortion. To address these issues, this paper proposes a new multi-source image fusion framework for registering UAV thermal images to BIM. First, a low-cost target is designed and produced using 3D printing for calibrating UAV thermal camera. The rectified thermal images are then fused with RGB images through Homography transformation, enabling thermal images to be registered accurately with BIM. Additionally, a histogram-based approach is proposed to correct the thermally inconsistent phenomenon and enhance the contrast to produce high-contrast thermal-textured BIM. Field tests confirmed a mean image fusion error of around 5.713 pixels. A case study on a masonry building demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project schedule delay problem has received considerable attention for its significance in impeding project performance. Compared to conventional projects, prefabricated construction projects could suffer more from schedule delay problems. A possible solution to such problems is to provide countermeasures by referring to valuable experience of historical cases. This paper proposes a case-based reasoning (CBR) model to leverage past experience and knowledge to address the schedule delay problems in prefabricated construction projects. The study explains the development processes of the CBR model in detail, including the case base construction, case retrieval, case reuse and update. Subsequently, the study develops the CBR system and presents a case study to demonstrate the validity and practicality of the proposed approach. This study provides a potential tool to facilitate schedule management of prefabricated construction projects. It offers an effective reference for decision-makers, such as project managers, to tackle schedule delays through experience mining. • The schedule of prefabricated construction projects is vulnerable to the disruption of unexpected events. • With the valuable experience of historical cases, it can offer solutions to problems with a strong need for experience. • A schedule delay settlement model for prefabricated construction projects is based on the Case-Based Reasoning approach. • The developed CBR system is a potential tool for promoting the schedule management of prefabricated construction projects. • The proposed model provides significant guidance for decision-makers to tackle similar project schedule delay problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract China has been the largest contributor to global carbon emissions since 2008, with its building and construction industry considered as one of the most significant sources. However, few studies have been conducted on analyzing the influencing factors of the carbon emissions following a life cycle perspective. This study aims to evaluate the carbon emissions of this industry from a life cycle perspective, including the extraction, manufacturing, construction and construction-related transportation, and building operation, using Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index. The key findings are: 1) the extraction and manufacturing of raw materials, and building operation are the two biggest contributors to the life cycle carbon emissions of the building and construction industry, accounting for 58% and 40% respectively; 2) the most effective strategies to reduce carbon emissions in the construction stage from 2000 to 2015 are to improve energy efficiency and lower emission factor; and 3) the most effective strategies to reduce carbon emissions in the building operation stage from 2000 to 2015 are to increase development density, improve emission factor, energy structure and industry structure. This study provides useful scientific evidence for policy makers to establish appropriate emission targets and relevant reduction strategies that are relevant to China's building and construction industry. Highlights • The carbon emissions of China's building and construction industry is calculated. • Extraction and manufacturing of materials contributes 58% of the carbon emissions. • Building operation contributes 40% of the carbon emissions. • Better energy efficiency is effective in reducing construction emissions. • High development density is effective in reducing building operation emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization poses a significant challenge of accommodating the poor, particularly in developing countries such as China where affordable housing has only been initiated a few years ago and will continue to be developed in the coming years. Two major considerations in affordable housing programs are cost and time, as the ability to meet the needs of low-income households is the main target of these programs. However, it is not a common strategy to address affordable housing shortage by means of incorporating sustainability features. One of critical issues is the lack of sustainability framework to integrate sustainability in affordable housing. This paper aims to identify the key sustainability performance indicators (KSPIs) which are useful to guide the development of affordable housing. A preliminary list of 42 key sustainability performance indicators of affordable housing was identified through an extensive literature review. This was followed by a questionnaire survey to solicit the professional views from three stakeholder groups, namely government, developers and academics in the Chinese construction industry. Via the fuzzy set theory and variance analysis, 24 KSPIs were finally highlighted. These findings provide useful references for policy makers as well as industry practitioners to develop affordable housing programs in a sustainable manner. This helps to achieve the sustainable development at the regional scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the public rental housing (PRH), as the only form of public housing migrant workers have access to, plays a critical role in accommodating necessary workforce for urban development. Therefore, it is imperative to improve the residential satisfaction in order to retain these migrant workers. This study aims to explore migrant workers’ residential satisfaction with PRH and their moving intentions in Chongqing, where an ambitious PRH programs has been launched recently. 31 housing attributes were identified as a result of extensive literature review. This is followed by a questionnaire survey with migrant workers from 8 completed and occupied PRH residential districts. Results showed that the overall residential satisfaction of migrant workers was moderate. Similarly, housing quality, supporting facilities, and estate management and services are found strongly associated with residential (dis)satisfaction. There is a close relationship between residential satisfaction and moving intention. Similarly, this study revealed that various socio-economic characteristics (e.g. education, income, marriage and housing type) have significant effects on the moving intention. This research sheds some lights on sustainable development of PRH program in China and provides useful evidence for future studies on public housing issues in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal location for prefabricated building industrial park (PBIP) can significantly reduce the logistic cost, delivery time and environmental pollution of prefabricated and modular construction. PBIP site selection problems can be more complex than other location selection problems when considering the goals of the PBIP at a manager level and a costumer level. There is little to no research that has examined the bi-level model for PBIP site selection. Thus, this paper addresses this issue by constructing a quantitative bi-level programming model which considers the economic, traffic, and environmental constrains. Subsequently, combining the genetic algorithm and Partan Frank–Wolfe​ algorithm, a hybrid heuristic algorithm is constructed to calculate the model. An empirical analysis is then carried out in the case of Chongqing, China. The results clearly demonstrate the applicability of the model. Furthermore, the paper discusses the trade-off between transport costs and environmental benefits, and the impact of transport radius on transport schemes. The proposed model contributes to solving location–allocation problems. It considers road congestion and traffic distribution by combining the location–allocation model with the user equilibrium model. The model can aid planners in making more robust decisions for setting up new PBIPs, thus contributing to the sustainable development of prefabricated and modular construction. • A bi-level model for the location of prefabricated building industrial park is proposed. • Economic, traffic, and environmental constrains are incorporated into the model. • A hybrid heuristic algorithm is proposed to calculate the model. • Location–allocation and user equilibrium model are combined to plan logistic path. • Trade-off between transport costs and environmental benefits are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green buildings have been widely adopted to achieve sustainable development in the built environment. However, the high cost is the main obstacle to develop green buildings. Whether the operational savings of green buildings could recover the initial construction cost is still under debate. This paper aims to empirically examine the above question by conducting a life cycle cost analysis of non-residential green buildings in the tropic climate by comparing the Life Cycle Costs (LCC), Construction Costs (CC) and Operation Costs (OC) for various types of buildings that are certified by different levels of Green Mark in Singapore. Data were collected from 44 non-residential buildings that were constructed over the period for 1978–2013 on a national scale. The findings show that the annualized average values of LCC, CC and OC of green buildings are S$ 222.03/m2, S$ 91.85/m2 and S$ 130.18/m2 respectively (S$ as Singapore Dollar, $ as United States Dollar, and S$ 1 = $ 0.73). One level increase of the Green Mark certificate standard would increase the annualized LCC and CC by S$ 47.81/m2 and S$ 25.37/m2 respectively, with no significant influence on the OC. Key influencing factors and their effects on both the annualized LCC and OC have also been identified in the discussion. The findings contribute to the literature by providing a clear framework to analyze life cycle economic assessment of green buildings and by enriching the diversity of cost comparison for green buildings across different regions. • A framework to analyze life cycle cost of green buildings is proposed. • LCC of 44 non-residential green buildings were calculated and compared. • Annualized average LCC of green buildings in Singapore is SGD 222.03/m2. • Increase of Green Mark certified standard would increase LCC and CC, not for OC. • Annualized LCC is largely influenced by the Escalating Rate of Operation Costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]