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Buildings
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New Technologies on Building Energy Saving and Housing Thermal Comfort
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New Technologies on Building Energy Saving and Housing Thermal Comfort

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: closed (30 December 2025) | Viewed by 3622

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Wenpei Sung

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Landscape Architecture, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taiping, Taichung 41170, Taiwan
Interests: AI- and machine-learning-assisted design and planning; integrated green living technologies; digital image correlation in structural monitoring; structural control and seismic mitigation; sustainable design for green buildings and factories
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the growing demand for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings, innovative technologies play a crucial role in enhancing energy savings and improving indoor thermal comfort. This Special Issue aims to gather original research articles, review papers, and case studies exploring recent advances, challenges, and future perspectives in building energy-saving technologies, smart climate control systems, and innovative materials that contribute to a more sustainable built environment.

Prof. Dr. Wenpei Sung
Guest Editor

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.

Keywords

  • smart HVAC and climate control systems
  • high-performance insulation materials
  • energy-efficient building design and retrofitting
  • renewable energy integration in buildings
  • IoT and AI applications for thermal comfort optimization
  • passive and active cooling strategies
  • building energy modeling and simulation
  • human-centric thermal comfort assessment
  • smart windows and adaptive façade systems
  • policy and regulatory frameworks for sustainable buildings

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 1328 KB  
Article
Thermal Adaptive Behavior-Recognition Model with Cross-Modal Knowledge Distillation
by Wenjun Duan, Weihua Yuan, Dongdong Shen, Xuya Liu and Yu Wang
Buildings 2025, 15(22), 4071; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15224071 - 12 Nov 2025
Viewed by 766
Abstract
The traditional inference of thermal comfort relies mainly on either questionnaire surveys or invasive physiological signal monitoring. However, the use of these methods in real time is limited and they have a low accuracy; furthermore, they can cause an inconvenience to the daily [...] Read more.
The traditional inference of thermal comfort relies mainly on either questionnaire surveys or invasive physiological signal monitoring. However, the use of these methods in real time is limited and they have a low accuracy; furthermore, they can cause an inconvenience to the daily work and life of indoor personnel. With the development of intelligent building technology, non-intrusive technology based on video analyses has gradually become a research hotspot. Not only does this type of technology avoid the limitations of traditional methods, but it can also be used to dynamically monitor thermal comfort. At present, the established and relatively complete non-intrusive recognition methods usually rely on additional equipment or cameras with specific angles, which limits their deployment and application in a wider range of scenarios. Therefore, in order to improve the non-intrusive prediction accuracy of the thermal comfort level of indoor personnel, it is necessary to establish a non-intrusive indoor personnel thermal comfort inference model. This study designed a cross-modal knowledge-distillation-based thermal adaptive behavior-recognition model. In order to avoid the difficulties of terminal deployment caused by the large model and the time-consuming nature of optical flow estimation, a multi-teacher network model was used to transfer the knowledge of different modes to a single student model. This reduced the number of model parameters and the computational complexity while improving the recognition accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed vision-based thermal adaptation behavior-recognition model can non-invasively and accurately identify the thermal adaptation behavior of indoor personnel, which can not only improve the comfort of indoor environments, but also enable the intelligent adjustment of HVAC systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies on Building Energy Saving and Housing Thermal Comfort)
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25 pages, 7746 KB  
Article
Integrating AI Generation and CFD Simulation in Coastal Hospital Landscape Design: A Case Study of Penghu, Taiwan
by Wen-Pei Sung, Chien-Shiun Huang, Po-Teng Wang and Ming-Yu Yang
Buildings 2025, 15(18), 3283; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15183283 - 11 Sep 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1179
Abstract
This study aims to develop a climate-resilient landscape design framework for coastal healthcare facilities by integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated design prompts with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and on-site validation. Focusing on a coastal hospital in Penghu, Taiwan—a region vulnerable to strong winds, [...] Read more.
This study aims to develop a climate-resilient landscape design framework for coastal healthcare facilities by integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated design prompts with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and on-site validation. Focusing on a coastal hospital in Penghu, Taiwan—a region vulnerable to strong winds, salt spray, and extreme weather—the research proposes a climate-adaptive, microclimate-responsive, and resilient design framework. Key findings demonstrate that the optimized design reduced average winter wind speed from 12 m/s to 4.5 m/s (a 62.5% reduction) and increased the three-year survival rate of salt-tolerant plant species (e.g., Pittosporum tobira, Casuarina) to 92%, significantly outperforming conventional planting strategies. The combination of water features and evapotranspiration planting reduced summer temperatures by 2.3 °C and increased humidity to 75%, with the PMV comfort index improving from +1.5 to +0.5. The program also resulted in a 15% increase in biodiversity, a 20% reduction in soil erosion, and a 40% improvement in users’ perceived aesthetic value of outdoor spaces. Furthermore, AI-based analyses to determine foundational depth led to a reduction in structural failure rates—from 40% to 5%—substantially elevating the safety and long-term durability of outdoor infrastructures. This study demonstrates that integrating AI with CFD is both feasible and highly effective for addressing complex coastal climate challenges in landscape architecture. The developed framework is parametric, evidence-based, and tailored to site-specific requirements, enabling the formulation of intelligent, climate-responsive landscape solutions for future healthcare environments in vulnerable coastal areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies on Building Energy Saving and Housing Thermal Comfort)
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36 pages, 15003 KB  
Article
Underground Space and Climate Synergy Wind–Heat Environmental Response in Cold Zones
by Lufeng Nie, Heng Liu, Jiuxin Wang, Shuai Tong and Xiang Ji
Buildings 2025, 15(13), 2151; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15132151 - 20 Jun 2025
Viewed by 1265
Abstract
Underground spaces offer significant potential for sustainable urban development, particularly in cold climate regions where surface thermal fluctuations are extreme. However, optimizing the wind–heat environmental performance of such spaces remains insufficiently explored, especially in relation to spatial morphology. This study addresses this gap [...] Read more.
Underground spaces offer significant potential for sustainable urban development, particularly in cold climate regions where surface thermal fluctuations are extreme. However, optimizing the wind–heat environmental performance of such spaces remains insufficiently explored, especially in relation to spatial morphology. This study addresses this gap by investigating how underground spatial configurations influence thermal comfort and ventilation efficiency. Six representative spatial prototypes—fully enclosed, single-side open, double-side open, central atrium, wind tower, and earth kiln—were constructed based on common underground design typologies. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted to evaluate airflow patterns and thermal responses under winter and summer conditions, incorporating relevant geotechnical properties into the boundary setup. The results indicate that deeper burial depths enhance thermal stability, while central atrium and wind tower prototypes offer the most balanced performance in both ventilation and heat regulation. These findings provide valuable design guidance for climate-responsive underground developments and contribute to the interdisciplinary integration of building physics, spatial design, and geotechnical engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies on Building Energy Saving and Housing Thermal Comfort)
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