Low-Carbon Comfort and Climate-Resilient Design in Buildings and Complex Infrastructure

Dear Colleagues,

Buildings and large-scale infrastructure, such as airports, campuses, hospitals, and transport hubs, are among the highest energy-consuming assets in the built environment, which is why this Special Issue seeks to spotlight research and reviews that jointly advance low-carbon performance and indoor thermal comfort, especially in complex and high-demand infrastructure. We aim to push beyond incremental efficiency solutions by highlighting novel synergies, trade-offs, and holistic strategies that reconcile carbon reduction, occupant well-being, and climate resilience.

We particularly welcome contributions that explore emerging or underexplored frontiers, including on the following topics:

• Integration of mitigation and adaptation strategies in buildings under climate stress;
• Advanced hybrid systems, energy storage, and microgrid solutions tailored to large-scale infrastructure;
• AI/digital twin approaches for the real-time optimization and balancing comfort and carbon emissions;
• Co-design, behavior, and participatory methods shaping low-carbon building transitions;
• New metrics, standards, or frameworks that embed health, resilience, and embodied carbon in performance

This Special Issue seeks to emphasize complex building typologies, the dual goals of comfort and decarbonization, and novel integrative strategies. It seeks to explore innovative pathways that balance energy performance, carbon reduction, and occupant well-being across diverse building typologies. Unlike previous collections that focused solely on efficiency or technology, this Special Issue will emphasize synergies between mitigation and adaptation, addressing how buildings can be designed and operated in order to achieve the following:

• Reduce emissions and resource consumption;
• Ensure resilience under climate stressors;
• Provide healthy, comfortable, and productive environments for

Contributions that integrate technical, architectural, environmental, and policy perspectives, with particular interest in research addressing complex infrastructures where energy use, operational demands, and human comfort are highly interdependent, are particularly welcome.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Energy-efficient retrofitting and renovation of existing buildings and large-scale infrastructure (airports, hospitals, and university campuses);
• Net-zero and nearly zero-energy buildings, including strategies for high-demand, high-occupancy facilities;
• Low-carbon architectural and structural design, advanced materials, and circular construction methods;
• Passive design strategies and adaptive comfort models under extreme climate condition;
• Renewable and hybrid energy systems for large, complex infrastructure;
• Smart building management, digital twins, and AI-driven performance optimization;
• Indoor thermal comfort assessment, new standards, and cross-cultural perspectives on adaptive comfort;
• Integration of resilience and adaptation measures (heatwaves, air quality, and extreme weather) alongside energy performance;
• Social participation, user behavior, and co-design processes in sustainable building transformation;
• Policy frameworks and governance approaches enabling the transition to low-carbon, resilient buildings.

Dr. Anastasia Fotopoulou
Dr. Eva Maleviti
Dr. Alice Monacelli
Dr. Eun-ji Choi
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-blind 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.

• complex infrastructures (airports, hospitals, transport hubs) low-carbon comfort climate-resilient buildings smart
• adaptive environments ai-driven building optimization hybrid energy systems
• microgrids embodied carbon
• circular design occupant-centered sustainability digital twins for comfort
• carbon holistic performance frameworks socio-technical transitions in buildings