Beyond Energy Efficiency in Architecture. New Challenges and Research Trajectories for Buildings and the Built Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few decades, energy efficiency and lower environmental impact of buildings (during their life cycle) have been at the forefront of building design, geared towards the goal of low carbon energy transition. Both fundamental and applied research has seen the expansion of innovative architectural concepts, new uses, as well as new building operation models, resulting in the development of cutting-edge and high-performance building energy and management systems, building technologies, materials, and components. Significant progress has also been made in the design approach with the introduction of BIM, positively influencing the management of the operational phase of the building with continuous monitoring and commissioning, for real time and post-occupancy energy efficiency evaluation. Combined, these approaches have reduced the performance gap between designed and real operational energy performance through mitigation of modeling uncertainty (due to the building use model, tools used for analysis, and boundary conditions in the climatic and environmental context).

Research and development of innovative solutions have received a further boost related to the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and occupant comfort and health. This context has contributed to:

• High-performance, energy-efficient, and dynamic/adaptive solutions for building envelope and plant integration;
• Architectural integration of highly efficient renewable energy production plant solutions;
• New multiscale design approaches for energy- and occupant-centered efficiency (smart living/smart building/smart district/smart communities);
• Tailor-made solutions related to parametric design and multiobjective optimization, with a particular focus on performance-based approaches; and,
• The construction of multiscale, and multivariable, analysis metrics and models.

The current digital and technological transformation is once again rapidly changing the reference/benchmark scenario (e.g., BIM digital twin) and the energy efficiency of buildings, districts, and cities; however, it is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition to respond to global challenges that go as far as the climate emergency spreads. We are experiencing the boom of a performance-based, BIM, and parametric-driven design era, where controlling certain processes such as design, production, construction, management, maintenance, transformation, and decommissioning is generating added value, particularly in respect of building energy efficiency and well-being.

This Special Issue aims to focus on frontier research in the construction sector and to trace the outlines of emerging trends. What are the new reference/benchmark scenarios? What are the new challenges and frontiers of research? What are their impacts on buildings, their occupants, and the built environment?

Some keywords can be used to characterize the ongoing low-energy, digital, and technological transformation of the built environment: clean construction and clean energy production; data-driven design and multiscale approach; cognitive and climate-responsive buildings, and occupant-centric building design and interaction. All these transformations boost innovation when combined with new approaches and advanced design/construction tools, new production technologies and tools for process and building management; and sensor integration, data availability, and new communication technologies.

In order to understand the ongoing changes and their impacts, we invite researchers to contribute in this Special Issue with distinguished original features concerning the application of data-driven sustainable and resilient architectural design and building engineering, performance-based multiobjective design to achieve energy efficiency, architectural integration, and occupant-centric comfortable, cognitive and climate-resilient buildings. We are interested in advanced building materials, lifecycle building design and environmental evaluation, as well as components that assist the formulation of digitalized, cognitive and clean construction processes.

Contributions can include but are not limited to the following topics:

• Experimental and modeling studies (energy efficiency, comfort, human health, etc.);
• Implementation and development of high-performance building technologies and components;
• Conservation/refurbishment/improvement/mitigation and adaptation strategies for various contexts (climate, environment, and use); and,
• Forecasting scenarios of energy/environmental consumption and/or impacts utilizing multiscale (component, building, neighborhood, and city), multicriteria and multiobjective analysis.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Tiziana Poli
Prof. Dr. Andrea Giovanni Mainini
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Lobaccaro
Prof. Dr. Mitja Košir
Dr. Juan Diego Blanco Cadena
Guest Editors

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