Buildings of Tomorrow: Goals and Challenges for Design and Operation of High-Performance Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

In the last few decades, there has been a considerable shift in building design towards more energy-efficient and better performing buildings. Although the main focus is usually on the reduction of energy use for the operation and construction of buildings, the awareness regarding benefits of higher occupant comfort and health has shifted the focus toward a more holistic treatment of building design. Therefore, contemporary high-performance buildings are not only energy efficient but represent a synergetic interconnectedness between indoor environment, user health and comfort while at the same time addressing the sustainability and resilience issues. Concurrently, the anthropogenically induced climate change necessitates that such buildings need to adapt to current as well as the future projected climate in order to provide adequate performance throughout the anticipated lifecycle. Due to the complexity and interconnectedness of parameters influencing the design of high-performance buildings, a crucial research question emerges – “how to accomplish appropriate optimization among opposing and contrasting demands of different fields governing the design of high-performance buildings?”   

The focus of this Special Issue will, therefore, be on the strategies, tools, methodologies and materials that ensure the formulation of high-performance buildings geared towards the inclusive treatment of building performance. In this respect, the purpose of this Special Issue is to present and evaluate how a coupled treatment of varied building design issues (e.g. energy performance, daylighting, indoor comfort, environmental impacts, etc.) can be utilized in order to achieve the goals of higher overall performance of buildings and what are the limitations of such approach. In relation to the above-described context the scope will be on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Coupled thermal and visual performance of buildings;
• Climate adaptive building design and adaptive building envelopes;
• Indoor environment quality and concurrent energy efficiency;
• Strategies and methods for the design and development of high-performance buildings;
• Sustainability and resilience of high-performance buildings;
• Application of artificial intelligence, data management and data collection technologies for the design and operation of high-performance buildings;
• User-centered building design as a tool for achieving higher building performance;
• Case studies of high-performance buildings and their energy efficiency, daylighting and overall indoor environment quality as well as environmental impacts.

Above-mentioned broad topics can be classified into two phases of the building's lifecycle – the planning/construction phase and the operation phase. This Special Issue will try its best to maintain a balance including articles with innovative solutions from the researchers, scientists and engineers that address issues of both phases of buildings life in the context of global warming, climate change and human well-being. The overall purpose of the Special Issue is to broaden the field of knowledge in regards to the potentials of achieving higher sustainability and resilience of the built environment through the multi-objective approach to building performance. Therefore, trying to address a much broader question of “whether we should design buildings for survivability, sustainability or both?” because at many instances it was found that, measuring buildings on the parameters of sustainability alone is not solving the issues in context of uncertainty being added by the increased frequency of extreme climatic events across the globe.

Thank you for your contribution.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Mitja Košir
Dr. Manoj Kumar Singh
Guest Editors

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