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Renewable, decentralised, and citizen-centred energy paradigms have emerged as feasible and reliable alternatives to the traditional centralised fossil-based infrastructure. In this scenario, energy storage systems (ESSs) are enabling technologies to boost the stability and flexibility of the power grid in the short-to-medium term, allowing local communities to envision energy autonomy in the medium term. Traditionally, ESSs have been installed in individual households for their own benefit. However, new storage paradigms focusing on building clusters and district scale have illustrated the need to revise the role of ESSs and to pay close attention to the social factors, while devising implementation strategies for scaling up these new energy infrastructural models. This study reviews recent research trends (2021–2023), proposing three integrated social pillars for the implementation of ESSs: (i) multi-dimensional geographical and institutional scales of ESSs; (ii) social components of spatial and temporal flexibility of ESSs; and (iii) co-creation approaches to devising ESS implementation strategies. These pillars point out the necessary social factors for the implementation of ESSs at scale, highlighting future research perspectives to operationalise such factors, with a particular focus on the importance of citizens’ perception, participation, and collaboration, which are critical for maximising the benefit of sharing and exchanging renewable energy locally. Development of flexible and agile digital platforms that facilitate the co-creation of adaptable socio-technical solutions to adopting ESSs is proposed. The need to tailor these solutions to suit the stakeholders’ capabilities is emphasized.

The transition from nearly zero-emission building (NZEB) to positive energy building (PEB) models is a new trend, justified by the need to increase the efforts to address the climate change targets and the ambition for a clean energy transition in the construction sector. In line with this scenario, this study assumes that PEB may be applied to meet climate change targets and promote new approaches to urban regeneration plans. It focuses on the functional and energy regeneration of abandoned buildings, considering that many abandoned European buildings are often located in a strategic part of the city. Therefore, the research question is as follows: to what extent can abandoned buildings be converted into a PEB? What would be the meaning of this new association? In order to answer this question, this study developed a procedure to transform an abandoned building into a PEB, implemented through a case study of a former Italian industrial site. Findings pointed out the variables impacting PEB configuration and were used to support a discussion, stressing how rethinking abandoned buildings as PEB may drive new trends to synchronise the socio-technical evolution of energy infrastructure and urban regeneration plans.

Case study: The School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University has developed and tested a pedagogical approach to put interdisciplinary education into practice for the low-carbon transition.

This paper analyses stakeholders' perspectives about Building-as-Energy-Service as a pillar concept concerning a new energy transition paradigm. In detail, it focuses on developing a Toolkit, which was designed to help energy-transition-oriented intermediaries understand the socio-technical implications of such a concept. In this study, a qualitative approach was adopted. Eight academic and eight non-academic stakeholders tested the Toolkit Alpha version. As a result, a framework of key concepts and relationships was carried out and used to deliver the Beta version. Findings stressed the usability of such a Toolkit to develop skills and competencies to drive the co-design of technological and social processes connected with the energy transition. Specifically, this study pointed out the extent to which the concept of Building-as-Energy Service is perceived by the stakeholders involved, discussing and interpreting key points to put this concept into practice at the local level.

Positive Energy Blocks (PEBs) is a paradigm useful in the transition to a low carbon economy. This novel approach makes use the collective ownership of renewable energy generation and storage system to optimise their use. In addition to the networking of devices, PEBs also require a suite of managerial systems that can be used to integrate data with the network. One possible solution to this integration is by using Blockchain technology, which has the potential to resolve several issues in data management, security, and community integration. However, the use of Blockchains within PEBs has not been fully engineered or tested, and this paper presents the results of an exploration into possible solutions. The methods adopted in this research are descriptive and exploratory approaches in modelling a network of PEBs. This research points out how Blockchain technology would be used in the organisation process within a network of PEBs and would be useful for academics and professionals interested in delivering a new generation of buildings and services and in promoting collaborations.

Positive Energy Buildings (PEBs) represent an emerging paradigm for high performance in the building sector. This paradigm focuses on the possibility of exploiting the interaction between individual NZEBs and smart Smart Grids, using energy surplus exchange. Acknowledging this technical potential, building sector should re-think the role of individual buildings as nodes of intelligent energy infrastructures with large penetration of distributed renewable energy resources. This requires a better understanding of the emerging properties related to PEBs and an organisation of new alliances across sectors in order to put PEBs nets into practice. However, there is no evidence of a comprehensive socio-technical framework concerning PEBs nets working at scale. This paper aims to fill this gap. Through a literature review, based on Constructive Grounded Theory Method, it proposes a new conceptual framework focused on Buildings-as-Energy-Service as a key enabler for creating PEBs nets. Research findings are organized according to four integrated lines of research, which describe: the trajectory towards PEBs nets; the management of new alliances across sectors; the definition of an ecosystem of applications for PEBs; and, the socio-technical implications in putting PBEs into practice. These research lines may contribute to re-inventing the role of the building sector in delivering tailor-made products and services for a low carbon society. Thus, academic and non-academic stakeholders in the fields of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Planning might find this conceptual framework useful, as it summarises significant potential interactions among these sectors, emerging from recent studies. The limitations of the proposed framework are stressed as an incentive for further research in these areas.

The integration of transformative pedagogies into curricula is recognised as a strategy to deal with the new demands of complexity in learning, which include equipping future professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills to transition to a low carbon built environment. It requires a dedicated interdisciplinary learning environment. Creating this environment remains a challenge due to the lack of a learning tool to facilitate an interdisciplinary approach. Perhaps due to this challenge, interdisciplinarity within the context of Low Carbon Transition in the built environment has not been sufficiently explored. This study deals with this gap in the literature by developing a pedagogical approach founded on the combined use of Grounded Theory Method, Cognitive Mapping Technique and Meaningful Learning Activities. This paper focuses on the testing phase of this approach, which engaged researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students. The findings promote a transformative pedagogy to explore the socio-technical dimension of the Low Carbon Transition. They point out the type of interdisciplinarity, which we need to integrate into traditional curricula, moving from vocabulary construction at the undergraduate level to exploration of different perspectives at the postgraduate level. Recommendations on the ways in which this approach could become common practice are also made.

Urban reforestation is recognised as a valid strategy to counter the loss of functionalities of the ecosystem services in an urban context, where vegetation has the dual role of environmental and landscape qualitative indicator. Ecological studies have explored methods to assess these qualities, and the Index of Landscape Conservation (ILC) represents one of the most advanced approaches developed in this field. Nevertheless, this method has been mainly applied in large scale planning models (e.g. regional and provincial). Consequently, the potential of this method at the urban scale has not been explored yet. This study deals with this lacuna, analysing the environmental and landscape qualities of the rural matrix of the Latina municipality, whose naturalness and identity of this Mediterranean landscape are compromised by the urban sprawl. Specifically, urbanisation is progressively altering both the riparian vegetation of the hydrographic network (i.e. natural component) and the windbreak vegetation barriers (i.e. identity component) of the Latina landscape. Therefore, in order to contrast this phenomenon, an innovative approach has been implemented, which is based on the combined use of the re-calibration of ILC and the analysis of the level of isolation of residual natural fragments in the rural matrix. Findings are useful to formulate environmental design proposals aimed at promoting direct actions of urban reforestation by inhabitants for the conscious recovery of ecosystem services.

Distributed, Renewable and Interactive energy Systems (DRIs) are revolutionising the concept of infrastructure by introducing a set of new properties. The implications of the new system properties in the realm of urban design are often neglected. This paper proposes a simplified procedure to reconcile DRIs and urban patterns. This procedure is tested on 23 school buildings in four urban regions of the Ostiense district in Rome. Findings suggest that the identification of existing buildings as active, neutral and passive nodes in DRIs can make a significant contribution to urban design decisions in order to exploit the renewable energy production capacity inherent in urban patterns.

This study explores the role of Energy Retrofit (ER) in Low Carbon Transition (LCT). The literature recognises the need to move towards a transdisciplinary approach in ER, which encompasses multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. However, the fragmentation between different disciplines remains a significant problem, mainly due to challenges associated with knowledge exchange across the allied disciplines that play a role in ER. The authors posit that ER projects has been conceptualised and implemented using a Systems perspective so that an integrated approach that is akin to transdisciplinarity could become commonplace. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to establish to what extent ER has been conceptualised as a System in the literature so that complexities can effectively be managed through a transdisciplinary approach. This work is based on a literature review of 136 peer-reviewed journal papers. The content analysis demonstrates that current research on transdisciplinarity in ER can be conceptualised in five categories and 15 lines of research. They are presented as a Conceptual Framework, which is this paper’s main contribution to existing knowledge. It reveals the direction of innovation in ER for LCT, and is illustrated as a cognitive map. This map exposes the current fragmentation implicit in the literature, and proposes critical connections that need to be established for a transdisciplinary approach. It also shows that the discourse on LCT changed by moving beyond the building scale; and recognising the need to embrace disruptive and local technologies, and integrating the social and technical aspects of ER. Innovative technical solutions and robust information modelling approaches emerge as key vehicles towards making decisions that pay regard to the economic, social and technical factors and that empower the prosumers to play an active role in LCT.

The Energy Retrofit concept plays an important role in the transition to low carbon cities, because buildings make a transdisciplinary perspective. Thus, an integrated approach to research, learning and teaching in the built environment disciplines is required. The Authors present the final stage of the first work package of an H2020-Marie-Sklodowska Curie project, which focuses on the development of an Innovative Learning Platform for Knowledge Integration in Energy Retrofit. This paper, which first summarizes the conceptual framework that was elaborated in an earlier phase, focusses on the methodological approach that was used to define the relevant information networks concerning Energy Retrofit using a cognitive mapping technique. The methodology is applied to 10 case studies in order to explore the relationships between Energy Retrofit and built environment transformation processes. The methodological approach is structured as follows: 1) Collecting case studies; 2) Identifying main topics; 3) Coding list of concepts; 4) Defining relationships; and 5) Updating the conceptual framework. The findings show that the adopted methodological approach is useful for integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives and for improving users’ cognitive skills that are involved in mutual and joint learning processes. In conclusion, this study presents an innovative approach to research, learning and teaching in built environment disciplines.

Ecological issues are becoming increasingly important in urban planning and management. An integrated approach is needed in order to enhance the natural elements of the landscape within the built environment. The present research project shows a methodological approach aimed at supporting a landscape regeneration process. The methodology is applied to the case study of Agro Pontino, more specifically in the Latina municipality where the urban sprawl is progressively dissolving both the ecological quality of the territory and its original agricultural matrix. The methodological approach of this research project is structured following the purposes enumerated below. 1)Identification of the structural elements of the landscape identity. 2)Assessment of the level of conservation of the landscape in the Latina municipality. 3)Stratification of the Latina municipality into homogeneous Environmental Territorial Units (UTA). 4)Assessment of the level of isolation of residual natural fragments in the agricultural matrix. The results show how the methodological approach adopted is useful to set targets and priorities to regenerate the landscape structural and identity features. In conclusion, this interdisciplinary study is a significant contribution to the integrated approach because it faces the neighborhood requalification in ecological key and supports the urban reforestation project.