Dear Colleagues,

The ever-increasing evidence of climate change impact on the built environment and the recent IPCC projections call for effective and innovative design approaches to concretely tackle the most urgent challenges and particularly those dealing with the use of water and resources while supporting the energy transition in time of unprecedented uncertainty. The launch of the EU Recovery Plan represents an urgent claim for a global reaction and for more comprehensive solutions able to consider the complexity of strongly interrelated phenomena.

Climate Responsive Design represents the combination of several approaches and strategies to make buildings and cities able to respond to contemporary challenges optimizing their systems, configuration and operation according to variable and sometimes extreme context conditions.

This Special Issue of Sustainability is aimed at collecting scientific contributions on climate responsive solutions focusing on adaptive capacity, energy efficiency and environmental quality carefully considering technical, social, economic implications.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Climate Adaptive Building solutions
• Mitigation and adaptation actions at urban scale
• New technologies and approaches serving the resilience and adaptation capacity of cities
• Positive Energy Buildings and Districts
• Evaluation and simulation tools for climate-responsive buildings
• Predictive and/or operative frameworks for climate resilient cities
• User centered design approaches to improve built environment livability

Case study discussions, as well as simulation or theoretical research, are encouraged.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jacopo Gaspari
Dr. Rosa Schiano-Phan
Dr. Laura Aelenei
Guest Editors

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• climate responsive design
• Energy Efficiency
• climate change
• adaptation
• mitigation
• optimized design
• sustainability
• sustainable buildings
• resilient cities

Title: Transitioning to Climate-Neutral Cities through integrated planning – a prospective framework
Authors: Istrate, Aura-Luciana; Auerbach, Jeremy; Gaspari, Jacopo; Popartan, Lucia-Alexandra; Tavangar, Mohammad Reza
Affiliation: School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin
Abstract: To achieve climate-neutrality, cities need ongoing support and enhanced capacity for solution assessment and implementation. Given the complex urban activities and the vast range of stakeholders involved, interdisciplinary and comprehensive climate-neutral approaches are required, although still underdeveloped in current research and practice. This paper proposes a framework for climate-neutral city research and practice underpinned by five key themes (Urban Nature; Urban Mobility; Built Form; Energy; and Circularity). It emphasizes cross-scale research dimensions of Citizen Engagement/Participation and City Governance Decision-Making, supported by Digital Technology (but not dominated/obscured by it), to correct/challenge the current assumptions and silo-thinking in city building and inform an integrated planning process