Resilience and Social Value in the Built Environment: New Frontiers in Co-Production and Place-Based Adaptive Innovation

Dear Colleagues,

The built environment is undergoing profound transformation in response to intersecting global challenges such as climate change, urbanisation, technological innovation, net zero targets, and decarbonisation. Addressing these challenges requires reimagining the built environment not only as technical infrastructure but also as a socio-cultural system. In this context, resilience and social value are re-emerging as critical dimensions, influencing how we design, deliver, manage, and inhabit buildings, infrastructure, and urban spaces. Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is an urgent need to embed these principles across all stages of the built environment lifecycle, with a strong focus on circular economy practices, the adaptive reuse of materials, and sustainable processes.

This Special Issue invites theoretical, empirical, and practice-based contributions that interrogate how resilience, social value, and net zero ambitions can be operationalised through professional practice, policy frameworks, and built environment education. How can design, construction, and project management evolve to reflect socially grounded, context-sensitive definitions of value? What innovations in digital technologies, data governance, and decarbonisation strategies are enabling more inclusive and adaptive planning? Crucially, how can participatory and co-design approaches—especially in energy systems, climate adaptation, and net zero pathways—embed local knowledge and priorities into decision-making processes?

We particularly welcome papers that explore integrated, interdisciplinary models for retrofitting, urban regeneration, climate adaptation, infrastructure governance, decarbonisation, and achieving net zero emissions, grounded in social equity and environmental justice. We encourage contributions that critically engage with the integration of circular economy practices, particularly through the adaptive reuse of materials and processes, as vital strategies for reducing carbon footprints, conserving resources, and creating more resilient, sustainable communities. Contributions should critically examine how built environment professionals can co-produce outcomes with communities to support long-term resilience, spatial justice, and sustainable development.

This Special Issue invites papers that explore the intersection of architecture, planning, and construction through the following perspectives:

• Co-production and Community Engagement: Inclusive design approaches integrating local knowledge and participatory processes, supported by digital platforms, to enhance social value, resilience, and net zero goals, especially in energy-efficient design and climate adaptation.
• Place-Based Innovation: Context-sensitive solutions addressing local needs through sustainable, equitable, and resilient approaches, focusing on frameworks and metrics for evaluating decarbonisation and net zero outcomes in both urban and rural settings.
• Digital Tools, AI, and Ethics: The role of emerging technologies in planning and design, with an emphasis on AI in design, construction, and operation, net zero strategies, and decarbonisation. This includes the exploration of ethical guidelines and evaluation frameworks for these emerging technologies.
• Community Resilience and Social Value: Strategies that integrate community-driven processes to foster resilience and social value, with an emphasis on net zero and decarbonisation goals in urban and rural contexts, embedding circular economy principles and the adaptive reuse of materials and processes.
• Methodologies and frameworks for integrated transformation: Contributions offering analytical frameworks, toolkits, or metrics to guide net zero and decarbonisation in the built environment, with a focus on digital tools and participatory methodologies.

This Special Issue welcomes submissions from architecture, engineering, construction, planning, and related disciplines. Papers may be conceptual, data-driven, case-based, or practice-focused, provided they critically engage with the integration of technology, equity, resilience, social value, net zero, and decarbonisation in the built environment.

Dr. Maria Christina Georgiadou
Dr. Mariam Akinlolu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• architecture, construction, engineering
• built environment
• climate adaptation
• community engagement
• digitalisation
• equality, diversity and inclusion
• resilience
• social value
• stakeholder engagement