Co-Designing Sustainable Built Environments with Human-Centric Generative AI
A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 57
Special Issue Editors
Interests: generative AI in BIM; machine-learning for building performance evaluation; BIM for green building assessments; parametric performance-driven building design and optimisation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In contexts of increasing demand for sustainability, inclusivity, and adaptability, generative AI offers powerful new digital tools for transformative design. To fully realise this potential, we must move beyond automation toward human-centric, co-design frameworks where AI augments—rather than replaces—human creativity, ethics, and experience.
This Special Issue explores how generative AI and new digital tools can support co-designing sustainable built environments, emphasising human values, occupant needs, and user-centric design processes. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions spanning architectural computation, sustainable building and urban design, environmental performance evaluation and optimisation, and building certification systems for sustainable, healthy buildings. Topics may include the AI-driven simulation of energy and comfort, generative workflows for climate-responsive form-finding, human-in-the-loop systems, sustainability assessments, building performance evaluation for healthy built environments, and digital co-design processes between humans and machines.
Through these perspectives, this Special Issue aims to surface both theoretical innovations and applied research that demonstrate how AI and digital tools can support human-centric, equitable, and climate-conscious sustainable built futures.
Dr. Tsung-Hsien Wang
Dr. Jihyun Park
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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.
Keywords
- generative AI in design
- AI for climate-responsive sustainable environments
- human-in-the-loop systems
- machine learning for building performance evaluation
- adaptive design workflows
- indoor environmental quality
- healthy builiding building certification systems
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