Architecture 3.0: Requirements, Materials and Systems for the Post-pandemic Construction

Dear Colleagues,

This call for papers is in support of the European Project “Smart Rehabilitation 3.0 Innovating Professional Skills for Existing Building Sector” Erasmus+ Program, Key Action 2: Strategic Partnership for Higher Education (smart-rehabilitation.eu; Instagram profile: @smart_rehabilitation).

Construction is one of the most active sectors, moving million dollars worldwide, but often suffers from an atavic lack of innovation, especially in the development of dedicated and advanced professional skills.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the population’s need for a new way of living in confined spaces and managing everyday life. The traditional contemporary architectural design has shown all its weakness in relation to the novel situation we are all experiencing. Needs for individual, flexible and polyvalent spaces, for safer and protective environments, for sustainable green constructions are, today more than ever, necessary. Moreover, as pointed out by the United Nations, providing adequate salubrious housing is a fundamental and unavoidable global issue. Additionaly, we have an extreme need for training new highly skilled professionals able to manage, in a conscious way, the novel architectural function, technological improvement, and material development relations between building, green spaces and the city. That is associated with the ideas of green architecture, smart construction, design-for-all, circular economy, building rehabilitation, and sustainability as the global post-pandemic paradigms. This exquisitely professional and academic study can result in a series of practical protocols useful for a new and conscious building design capable of facing the global problems afflicting our planet.

This Special Issue is aimed at collecting the most innovative studies and research into the concepts, methods, models, tools, and applications devoted to implement the built environment and the existing architectural stock with sustainable proposals for a more inclusive, safer and cleaner world.

Topical areas for consideration include, but are not limited to, innovative architectural and technological design, compatible building rehabilitation methods and cases of study, multifunctional and green composite materials, extended building durability, smart self-determining devices, and plant system implementation, modeling and simulation.

An innovative architectural and engineering design is strongly desired, along with novel building typologies able to adapt themselves, in a continous way, to people’s new requirements. Additionally, industrial design and novel smart and green furniture strategies can significantly contribute to the post-pandemic evolution we will soon experience. Novel innovative materials able to clean, sterilise, and adapt themselves to the environmental stimuli in order to automatically change their nature, profile and function; innovative systems, devices, and equipment able to enlarge the everyday life experience; smart rehabilitation vs. ordinary construction; futuristic smart architectures and cities vs. apartment buildings and overcrowded spaces.

Prof. Manfredi Saeli
Prof. Tiziana Campisi
Prof. Xavier Casanovas
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 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-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.