Buildings for the 21st Century

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, we are consuming more than 1.7 times the Earth's total capacity to provide renewable and non-renewable resources to humanity (GFN, 2023). If no technological and policy changes are introduced, we will need almost three planets by 2050 to meet the demand of 9.6 billion people (GFN, 2023). Building construction industries are resource-intensive as they consume 25% of virgin wood and 40% of non-renewable resources, including raw stone, gravel, and sand, globally each year for cement, aggregates, and pavement production (Kedir, 2020). These non-renewable resources will become scarce with the rapid growth of population and the economy. Buildings alone are responsible for 39% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, of which, 28% is operational energy produced from the combustion of fossil fuels, and the remaining 11% is produced by the manufacturing of materials and construction activities (WGBC, 2023). Without implementing further environmental policy, the energy used in buildings could increase by 46–73% compared to its 2019 level by 2050; this will be driven by population growth, greater diffusion, and the utilization of energy-intensive devices, and enhanced living standards in developing countries (Camarasa et al. 2022). The United Nations estimates that 68% of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050 (Peña et al. 2021). This will extend the impact of urban heat islands as structures such as buildings, roads, and other infrastructure will absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than forests and water bodies (USEPA, 2022).  

This Special Issue (SI) aims to publish a wide range of articles that address topics including innovative building design, energy efficiency/efficient end-use appliances, resource conservation, alternative construction materials, innovative or smart building management, sustainability assessment tools, green energy, and the urban micro-climate; these contributions will address the sustainability challenges of building industries in the 21st century.  

The top five papers of the International Conference on Innovation, Sustainability and Applied Sciences (ICISAS 2025) at Curtin University, Dubai, that are relevant to at least one of the following topics will obtain a full fee waiver for publishing in this Special Issue. The next five papers will be offered a 50% discount. MDPI, the publisher of this Special Issue, will review the papers before assigning the discounts.

This Special Issue aims to address the following topics:

• Environmental impacts of building materials
• Building energy and environments
• Life cycle assessment and green buildings
• Environmentally friendly construction practices
• Prefabricated/modular buildings
• Passive design
• Building-integrated photovoltaics
• Net-zero energy buildings (NZEBS)
• A new generation of stronger, lighter and more sustainable building materials
• Application of LCA/EPD in sustainable construction
• Intelligent Building Management System for reducing UHI
• Modification of building envelopes for reducing UHI
• Demand-side management and UHI
• Life-cycle sustainability assessment

References

Camarasa, C., Mata, É., Navarro, J.P.J. et al. (2022). A global comparison of building decarbonization scenarios by 2050 towards 1.5–2 °C targets. Nat Commun 13, 3077.

GFN (Global Footprint Network) (2023). Ecological Footprints. https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/.

Kedir, F., Hall, D. (2020). Resource efficiency in industrialized housing construction – A systematic review of current performance and future opportunities. Journal of Cleaner Production. 125443.

Peña, M., Vahdatikhaki, F., Santos, J., Hammad, A., Dorée, A. (2021). How to bring UHI to the urban planning table? A data-driven modeling approach. Sustainable Cities and Society. 71, 102948.

USEPA (2022). Learn About Heat Islands. https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/learn-about-heat-islands.

WGBC (World Green Building Council) (2023). Achieving Net Zero.  https://worldgbc.org/advancing-net-zero/embodied-carbon/#:~:text=Buildings%20are%20currently%20responsible%20for,11%25%20from%20materials% 20and%20construction.

Prof. Dr. Wahidul K. Biswas
Prof. Dr. Chithirai Pon Selvan
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. 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 collection 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.