Emerging Technologies and Ecological Design for Urban Built Environment

Dear Colleagues,

In the current context, emerging technologies applied to the built environment are no longer merely sector-specific tools, but conceptual frameworks for interpreting the complexity of the contemporary city. The ecological and digital transition demands a paradigm shift: from the city as the sum of built structures to the city as a system of relationships between data, energy flows, materials and behaviours.

Digital design—from parametric performance simulations to the urban digital twin—enables us to envisage performance scenarios and simulate a building’s entire life cycle, from construction to decommissioning. The issue is not technical but cultural: how to translate the quantity of information into the quality of living. Environmental simulation tools, real-time monitoring of consumption, and artificial intelligence systems for managing urban services provide opportunities to restore the centrality of design as a critical act.

In terms of materials, emerging technologies are intertwined with local supply chains: bio-based materials, recycled aggregates, 3D-printed components, and offsite and reversible construction systems. Herein lies the potential reconciliation between innovation and local identity, between standardised production and climate adaptation. The regenerative approach is not limited to reducing impact, but aims to generate environmental and social value.

The challenge is to build an ecology of design in which efficiency, equity and beauty are not alternative objectives but dimensions of the same process. The future of the built environment hinges on our ability to critically engage with the transition, rather than simply endure it.

The central issue, however, remains transferability: how to make these technologies accessible and firmly rooted in local contexts, whilst ensuring they do not become mere rhetoric with no real impact on the way people live. The topic of this issue also invites us to distinguish between incremental innovation and paradigm-shifting innovation, prompting critical reflection on the pace of technological change in relation to the timescales of urban planning. The dialogue between these two perspectives opens up a fruitful area of research across different disciplines relating to urban design and the use of emerging technologies.

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

1. Urban digital twins and regeneration projects — Predictive digital modelling and the digital twin as a tool for forecasting performance and managing the life cycle of buildings and neighbourhoods: from energy simulations to predictive maintenance, right through to data governance.
2. Bio-based materials and local supply chains in construction — The role of recycled aggregates, bio-based materials and 3D-printed components in reshaping the relationship between manufacturing innovation and regional identity.
3. Artificial intelligence and urban service management — Algorithms for transport, energy, waste management and the comfort of public spaces: balancing operational efficiency with issues of fairness, transparency and oversight.
4. Offsite construction, reversible and dismantlable — Industrialised and reversible building systems as a response to decarbonisation and the circularity of the existing building stock.
5. Energy retrofitting of historic buildings — Emerging technologies applied to historic buildings and listed heritage: the balance between efficiency, conservation and material compatibility.
6. Cities as experimental laboratories — Neighbourhoods and districts as ‘living lab’ testing grounds for urban technologies: from pilot scale to scalability, bridging the gap between experimentation and the market.
7. Incremental innovation vs paradigm-shifting innovation — The distinction between optimising the existing system and systemic transformation, and the mismatch between the timescales of technology and those of urban planning.
8. Real-time monitoring and living behaviour — Sensors, usage data and post-occupancy evaluation: how information on users’ actual behaviour feeds into the design process.
9. Design ecology and adaptive design for urban regeneration: efficiency, equity, beauty — The overarching theme: overcoming the divide between technology and design culture to achieve an interdisciplinary approach to the transition of the built environment.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Consuelo Nava
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Melis
Dr. Antonella Trombadore
Guest Editors

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