Research on Building Performance Simulation for Optimized Indoor Environmental Quality, Comfort, and Energy Efficiency

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 813

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture and Arts, Iuav University of Venice, 30135 Venice, Italy
Interests: indoor environmental quality; thermal comfort; energy efficiency; building performance simulation; building monitoring; fuel poverty

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Guest Editor
Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: building energy performance modelling; building physics; indoor environmental quality; urban energy modelling; building climate resilience
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Indoor environmental quality in buildings has gained in the last years greater attention of researchers because of its impact, not only on people comfort but also on people productivity and performance. Many studies have applied multi-objective optimization to include comfort objectives besides energy saving constraints to find out the best retrofit or new design solutions. However, discrepancies between indoor environmental quality prediction and people perception in the real environment, at an operational stage is yet an open research question.

This Special Issue focuses on exploring innovative approaches in Building Energy and Comfort Simulation to increase the spatial granularity of the model giving a quite reasonable accuracy in the perception prediction and allowing to inspect the influence of contextual factors on local indoor parameters that influence occupants’ comfort. Contributions are invited on a wide range of topics, including HVAC control systems, thermal comfort modelling, daylight modelling, application of innovative tools and algorithms. Additionally, studies on building energy, thermal comfort, acoustic, daylighting modelling calibration, validation and optimization are welcome.

Researchers are encouraged to submit papers, short communications, and reviews demonstrating the capabilities of simulation tools and innovative solutions in building energy and comfort simulation.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Francesca Cappelletti
Dr. Ilaria Ballarini
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 2600 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.

Keywords

  • building performance simulation
  • indoor environmental quality
  • building energy modelling
  • thermal comfort
  • model calibration
  • daylight modelling

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 3788 KB  
Article
Species- and Coverage-Sensitive Framework for Courtyard Vegetation in University Buildings: Linking Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Cooling Energy Demand in Hot–Arid Climates
by Mohamed Hssan Hassan Abdelhafez, Mohammad Abdullah Alshenaifi, Emad Noaime, Mohammed Mashary Alnaim, Ghazy Albaqawy, Mohammed Abuhussain and Ayman Ragab
Buildings 2026, 16(6), 1138; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16061138 - 13 Mar 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 509
Abstract
Urban vegetation is widely promoted as a nature-based solution for mitigating outdoor thermal stress in hot-arid cities, but aggregated or static indicators obscure species-specific behavior, diurnal variability, and the linkage between outdoor comfort and building energy demand in courtyard environments. This study addresses [...] Read more.
Urban vegetation is widely promoted as a nature-based solution for mitigating outdoor thermal stress in hot-arid cities, but aggregated or static indicators obscure species-specific behavior, diurnal variability, and the linkage between outdoor comfort and building energy demand in courtyard environments. This study addresses these constraints by integrating outdoor thermal comfort mitigation and cooling energy performance using a reference-based, species-sensitive analytical methodology. The Vegetation Cooling Efficiency Index (VCEI) quantifies vegetation-induced reductions in Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) relative to a non-vegetated reference scenario and is normalized by vegetation coverage. The PET–Energy Sensitivity Index (PESI) characterizes building cooling energy demand’s responsiveness to outdoor thermal comfort. A hybrid approach integrating calibrated field measurements, hourly microclimatic simulations, and dynamic building energy modeling is applied to a university courtyard in Aswan City, Egypt, reflecting extreme hot-arid conditions. The canopy features of Cassia leptophylla (CL), Cassia nodosa (CN), and Ficus nitida (FN) are assessed across varied vegetation coverage ratios. The results show that vegetation covering alone cannot predict thermal mitigation outcomes. PET reduction is influenced by species-specific canopy structure, with peak-hour reductions surpassing 40 °C in dense-canopy species and significantly lower ΔPET values across vegetation coverage levels. The nonlinear relationship between outdoor thermal mitigation and indoor cooling energy demand underscores the necessity for a comprehensive comfort-energy assessment. The proposed indices allow for comprehensive, reference-based vegetation strategy comparison and transferable performance measurements for climate-responsive courtyard and campus design in hot-arid environments. Full article
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