Built Environment and 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: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 16
Special Issue Editors
Interests: indoor environmental quality; air quality; acoustics; built environment; thermal comfort; environmental data processing and modelling; building information modelling; energy poverty
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Thermal comfort is a fundamental aspect in the design and management of the built environment as ensuring adequate indoor thermal comfort conditions not only enhances people’s quality of life, but also has significant impacts on health, productivity, energy efficiency, energy poverty, and the environmental sustainability of buildings and urban spaces. In outdoor environments, thermal comfort also plays a key role, particularly in the context of rapid urbanization and climate change since extreme climates and limited energy resources stress the need for new approaches to designing and managing built environments.
In this context, this Special Issue of Buildings aims to present knowledge that addresses the transition to sustainable indoor/outdoor thermal environments and how it may affect energy efficiency and people’s thermal experience. Both original research papers and review papers are welcomed and areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- New thermal comfort models;
- Adaptive thermal comfort models;
- PMV-based thermal comfort models;
- Field thermal comfort studies;
- Thermal comfort and physical and mental health;
- Thermal comfort and energy poverty;
- Thermal comfort and energy efficiency;
- Thermal comfort and active/passive design strategies;
- Thermal comfort and human behavior;
- Thermal comfort and urban heat islands;
- The role of vegetation and urban greenery in improving outdoor thermal comfort.
Dr. María Luisa de la Hoz Torres
Dr. Antonio Jesús Aguilar Aguilera
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
- indoor/outdoor thermal comfort
- adaptive thermal comfort
- natural ventilation
- mixed ventilation
- thermal comfort and sleeping
- energy efficiency
- personal comfort models
- climate change
- human behavior
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