Informating Sustainability in Buildings: Use of BIM, AI, Digital Technologies, and Analytics for Climate Resilience
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: 28 December 2025 | Viewed by 43
Special Issue Editors
Interests: digital twins for built environment; building information modelling; construction information technology; construction simulation and optimization; modelling complexity in built environment; energy efficiency construction; knowledge system and risk management
Interests: sustainability and decarbonisation in the built environment; construction economics and procurement; digital built environment; disaster resilience; built environment education
Interests: building information modelling; whole building life cycle assessment; intervention strategies for net-zero emissions; green building design, construction, and operation; building energy performance assessment and optimization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: building retrofits for climate resilience; building performance simulation including energy consumption, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality; building energy efficiency analysis across scales; surrogate modelling; whole building life cycle assessment; data analysis
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The construction industry remains one of the most resource-intensive sectors globally and a significant contributor to environmental degradation. As the twin challenges of climate change and resource scarcity become increasingly urgent, the sector finds itself at a critical crossroads. The accelerating pace of digital transformation presents an unprecedented opportunity to embed sustainability more holistically and effectively into built environment practices. This convergence calls for a fundamental rethinking and informing how we design, construct, operate, and regenerate our buildings in ways that are climate-resilient, resource-efficient, and future-ready.
This Special Issue invites contributions that move beyond conventional approaches to sustainability modelling and measurement, embracing more meaningful, data-informed strategies enabled by the growing availability and sophistication of digital tools. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary research that demonstrates how digital technologies can be harnessed to drive transformative change in the sustainability and resilience of buildings.
This Special Issue aims to showcase cutting-edge and current research on improving climate resilience as a multifaceted process that requires the integration of various digital tools for built environment such as (but not limited to) BIM, AI, digital technologies, and analytics to help us achieve the following:
- Assessment of Risks: Understanding how climate change will create new risks or alter existing ones is the first step. This involves analyzing data on weather patterns, sea-level rise, temperature changes, and other climate-related factors.
- Preparation and Planning: Once risks are identified, the next step is to develop strategies to mitigate these risks. This can include updating infrastructure, creating emergency response plans, and investing in resilient technologies.
- Implementation of Solutions: This involves putting the plans into action. For businesses, this might mean integrating climate risks into their risk management frameworks. For governments, it could involve updating building codes, investing in flood defences, or creating green spaces to absorb heat.
- Community Engagement: Ensuring that all community members, especially those in vulnerable populations, are informed and involved in resilience planning is crucial. This helps to ensure that the measures taken are equitable and effective.
- Monitoring and Adaptation: Climate resilience is an ongoing process. The regular monitoring of climate risks and the effectiveness of resilience measures is necessary. Adaptation strategies should be flexible and updated as new information becomes available.
Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Motawa
Dr. Niraj Thurairajah
Dr. Haibo Feng
Dr. Danli Hou
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
- AI for climate resilience
- BIM and digitalisation for climate resilience
- sustainability in building
- building risk assessment
- digital data capture and analytics for building
- life cycle assessment (LCA)
- circular economy in construction
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
