Sustainable Built Environment in Smart Cities
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 May 2026 | Viewed by 22
Special Issue Editors
2. Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Interests: built environment quality management; well-being and comfort in the built environment; architectural heritage enhancement; optimization of the retrofit process; adaptive reuse in smart cities
Interests: urban digital twins; public space optimization
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In recent years, the built environment has been officially recognised as a key element in bringing development and progress in disciplines dealing with sustainability, generating a heated scientific debate. The huge environmental impact caused by the construction sector is pushing research towards methods, applications, and solutions capable of guaranteeing the sustainability of both buildings and processes related to them (production, transport, end of life, etc.), also including the efficient management of the built environment as a whole during the use phase. Technological and design solutions that look at the harmony of the “man–building–environment” ecosystem deviate from the focus of energy efficiency, including it in the broader scientific approach of multidisciplinary optimisation. Today, designing cities and buildings has the objective of a more human-centric sustainability, which protects the environment and, above all, the well-being of people and citizens.
This Special Issue aims to highlight the latest and most interesting trends around the sustainability of the built environment. Original research articles and reviews are welcome.
Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Urban health and well-being;
- The regeneration of nature and ecosystem services;
- Better places for people;
- Sustainable anthropisation;
- Water, land, energy, and waste sustainable management;
- Networks for sustainable strategies;
- Resilience and adaptation to climate change;
- Connection between physical space and the well-being of people;
- Environmental assessment;
- Reuse/repair/remanufacturing;
- Technological innovation toward sustainability;
- “Design for” approaches (design for deconstruction, design for disassembly, DfMA, etc.);
- Environmental well-being in the built environment;
- Digital twins;
- Net zero carbon buildings;
- Fair and inclusive communities for all;
- Low-carbon materials;
- Enabling users to consume less energy.
Dr. Mariangela De Vita
Dr. Giordana Castelli
Dr. Stefania De Gregorio
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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
- adaptive design
- built environment management
- citizen well-being
- urban comfort
- building environmental quality
- built heritage enhancement
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