Low-Carbon Built Environment

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027 | Viewed by 892

Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Spatial Planning and Design, Hangzhou City University, Hangzhou 310015, China
Interests: sustainable urbanization; low-carbon built environment; green built environment; nature-based solutions for sustainable development
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Guest Editor
School of Built Enviorenment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Interests: embodied carbon; sustainable construction; green buildings; life cycle analysis
Department of Urban Planning and Design & Spatial Analysis and Policy Lab, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Interests: urban sustainability; smart cities; digital transformation; sustainable built environment; platform urbanism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Buildings invites research papers on the above theme for inclusion in a Special Issue to be published in 2026.

The aim of this Special Issue is to globally present readers latest research findings and ideas on the theme of the low-carbon built environment.

Low-carbon practice is a long-term strategy globally for addressing climate change and for pursuing humankind sustainable development. As built environment is the primary place where carbon emissions are generated, the development of novel solutions for reducing carbon emissions in built environment is therefore essential. Nevertheless, the advancement of new technologies in the AI era presents opportunities to find out novel solutions that are more able to help reduce carbon emissions in the built environment.

These novel solutions for emission reduction in the context of built environment span across multiple perspectives, such as technology, governance, economic measures, nature-based solutions, management paradigms and other fields.

The inclusion of these research works on this specific theme in the journal of Buildings will contribute to the advancement of the research in the discipline and provide valuable theories for designating effective methods to implement low-carbon practice in the context of the built environment.

This Special Issue is edited by Liyin Shen, Chethana Illankoon and Yitian Ren. 

Submission deadline 30 July 2026 

This Special Issue belongs to the Section Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate. 

Prof. Dr. Liyin Shen
Dr. Chethana Illankoon
Dr. Yitian Ren
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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

  • built environment
  • climate change
  • low-carbon practice
  • low-carbon transition at different spatial scopes
  • sustainable development goals
  • policy and governance for low-carbon built environment
  • nature-based solution for low carbon practice
  • AI for low-carbon building
  • embodied carbon
  • low-carbon building materials

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

36 pages, 11997 KB  
Review
An Integrated Conceptual Framework for Low-Carbon and Cost-Effective Building Design Optimisation
by Dinithi Piyumra Raigama Acharige, Niluka Domingo, Diocel Harold Aquino, Chinthaka Atapattu and An Le
Buildings 2026, 16(12), 2380; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16122380 - 15 Jun 2026
Viewed by 430
Abstract
Higher construction costs (CCs) linked to carbon reduction methods have hindered the adoption of low-carbon approaches in the built environment. The simultaneous minimisation of upfront embodied carbon (EC) and CCs has not received much attention in building design optimisation (BDO) research; most studies [...] Read more.
Higher construction costs (CCs) linked to carbon reduction methods have hindered the adoption of low-carbon approaches in the built environment. The simultaneous minimisation of upfront embodied carbon (EC) and CCs has not received much attention in building design optimisation (BDO) research; most studies prioritise operational energy, operational carbon, and operational cost reduction. This paper develops an integrated conceptual framework for low-carbon, cost-effective BDO, particularly targeting upfront EC and CCs, to fill this research gap and meet industry demands. A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines, synthesising 41 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2026. Thematic and content analyses were employed to extract and categorise key methodological components, including optimisation problem characterisation, objective-driven design variable selection, constraint modelling, algorithm selection, and evaluation and validation approaches. Subsequently, the developed conceptual framework was validated through semi-structured expert interviews with participants comprising BDO researchers and building designers in the construction field. A cross-mapping of optimisation objectives, optimised parameters, and design variables was developed to clarify their interrelationships, alongside structured criteria for optimisation algorithm selection. Based on these insights, a conceptual framework named “ICCO-BD (Integrated Upfront Carbon and Construction Cost Optimisation for Building Design) framework” is proposed and validated, integrating problem formulation, parametric modelling, multi-objective optimisation, and systematic Pareto-based evaluation into a coherent end-to-end workflow, enabling improved time efficiency through reduced redesign iterations, enhanced solution quality via better pareto front exploration, and more robust decision-making through clearer trade-off interpretation. While expert feedback indicated strong conceptual relevance and practical applicability, the framework remains conceptual in nature and requires further empirical verification through real-world case studies and optimisation applications before broader industry implementation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Low-Carbon Built Environment)
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