Smart Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, all new buildings should be zero-carbon ready by 2030, and 50% of the existing buildings should be retrofitted to a zero-carbon level by 2040 to reach the net-zero emission (NZE) strategy by 2050. Achieving high energy efficiency for new constructions, significantly reducing the energy usage of existing old buildings, and ensuring the increasing usage of on-site renewable energy became the primary goals for building sectors. This essentially leads to “smart, sustainable and inclusive” growth towards an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy. The strategic goal of achieving smart buildings relies on smart design, based on smart shapes, smart envelopes, smart systems, and smart materials, including smart management and smart user behaviors. The building quality objectives in terms of functionality, indoor well-being, efficiency and environmental impacts, and competitiveness could be achieved by smart buildings throughout their entire life cycle.

This Topical Collection solicits novel works in the domain of smart buildings. The following topics are proposed for this collection (but it is not limited to them):

• Energy-efficient retrofit solutions for buildings.
• Advanced building materials.
• Digitalization and smart controls in buildings.
• Building data analytics.
• Nearly zero-energy buildings and zero-emission buildings.
• District heating networks.
• Heat pumping technology.
• Green infrastructures.
• LCA and carbon assessments.
• Environmental assessment methods.
• Distributed solar PV.
• Indoor air quality management.
• Sustainable built environment.

Dr. Arnab Chaudhuri
Dr. Carlos Jimenez-Bescos
Dr. Habtamu Bayera Madessa
Collection Editors

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