A Critical Review of Energy Consumption in Libyan Residential Buildings: Addressing Knowledge Gaps in Design, Materials, Construction Practices, and Occupant Behaviour

Residential buildings have been responsible for the increasing percentage of final energy consumption in Libya, which is mainly due to the cooling of buildings in hot arid climatic conditions, but there is still a constant discrepancy between the projected and actual energy performance. This review critically synthesises the available literature to find out the knowledge gaps underlying residential energy overconsumption, and it concentrates on the systemic loss of contact between the architectural design intent, material and envelope performance, construction execution, and occupant behaviour throughout the building lifecycle. The literature employed to complete the study is peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, and technical reports concerning Libya and similar hot-arid and Mediterranean settings, which are arranged into four overlapping areas, namely, design practices, materials and construction quality, regulatory enforcement, and occupant energy use patterns. The results show that the cumulative and reinforcing inefficiencies are caused by the lack of adoption of climate-sensitive designs, inattentive view of thermal material properties, ineffective control over the quality of construction, ineffective regulation enforcement, and neglect of the occupant behaviour in performance analysis, which contribute to the increase in cooling loads and expansion of the performance gap. Building a coherent conceptual structure using disjointed evidence, the review offers recommendations that can be applied in practice by architects, engineers, policymakers and housing stakeholders, highlighting the importance of lifecycle-based design methodologies, improved governance and performance energy strategies with behavioural elements in Libyan residential buildings.