Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
4.3
2.1
Journals
Urban Science
Special Issues
Building Resilience in Urban Areas: Exploring the Impact of Material...
share announcement

Building Resilience in Urban Areas: Exploring the Impact of Material Properties and Building Design

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 1785

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chiara Chiatti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Interests: radiative cooling; passive cooling; urban overheating; urban heat island mitigation; adaptive materials; energy efficiency; human comfort
Dr. Roberta Jacoby Cureau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Interests: urban microclimate; urban overheating; urban heat island; environmental monitoring; wearable sensing; environmental quality; human comfort; multi-domain comfort

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid urbanization of the 21st century, coupled with the growing impacts of climate change, has resulted in an urgent need to enhance the resilience of urban areas. This Special Issue addresses this critical challenge by focusing on the interplay between material science, building design, and urban planning.

It aims to explore how advanced material properties and innovative building designs can be leveraged to create more resilient urban environments that are not only energy-efficient but also capable of withstanding environmental stressors such as extreme weather and urban heat islands. It also delves into the role of the geometry, orientation, and integration of buildings with urban canyons in improving energy performance and outdoor comfort. Therefore, this Special Issue welcomes the submission of studies on cutting-edge materials such as thermochromic, photoluminescent, and bio-inspired surfaces, alongside assessments of traditional materials in novel contexts. Furthermore, this Special Issue highlights the synergy between passive design strategies and material selection in optimizing energy efficiency, mitigating urban overheating, and fostering sustainable urban growth.

The Special Issue also aligns with the goal of reducing urban energy demands, promoting climate adaptation, and enhancing the livability of cities. By addressing both theoretical frameworks and practical applications, this Special Issue will offer urban planners, architects, and policymakers actionable insights for designing resilient urban spaces. Ultimately, this collection will serve as a critical resource for advancing urban sustainability and resilience, ensuring that cities are better prepared to meet the challenges of the future.

Dr. Chiara Chiatti
Dr. Roberta Jacoby Cureau
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. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 1600 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

  • urban resilience
  • material properties
  • building design
  • urban heat island
  • climate adaptation
  • radiative cooling
  • passive cooling
  • energy efficiency
  • environmental quality

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

25 pages, 3579 KiB  
Article
Energy Consumption in Mexican Homes: Using a Reference Building as a Launchpad for Achieving Nearly Zero Energy
by Carlos A. Espino-Reyes, Naghelli Ortega-Avila, Jorge Lucero-Álvarez and Norma A. Rodríguez-Muñoz
Urban Sci. 2025, 9(4), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9040113 - 4 Apr 2025
Viewed by 248
Abstract
The residential sector accounts for over a third of the world’s energy use. Even though this ratio is lower in Mexico, there is a pressing housing deficit, especially regarding low-cost homes. This research aimed to create a reference building (RB) to understand the [...] Read more.
The residential sector accounts for over a third of the world’s energy use. Even though this ratio is lower in Mexico, there is a pressing housing deficit, especially regarding low-cost homes. This research aimed to create a reference building (RB) to understand the current energy consumption of multi-family buildings across different climatic zones. The aim was to assess their energy performance and promote reduced energy requirements as a guideline for designing and constructing affordable, low-energy, or zero-energy buildings. The present work conducts a diagnosis of the current energy consumption of multi-family buildings in eight cities in Mexico. First, a reference building was developed to represent typical Mexican building geometry and construction practices, and then the building’s fixed and variable energy requirements were simulated. Finally, a comparison was made between the energy requirement and the data reported by the national energy survey. Therefore, it was possible to generate a reference building from national data sources complying with national regulations, where materials, occupant behavior, and equipment were chosen to help represent the building’s thermal behavior. Domestic water heating was identified as a driver of variable energy requirements in all cities. In contrast, the simulated heating and cooling requirements were directly linked to the city’s climate. Electricity bills tended to mostly correspond with the results that excluded the use of heating systems. Lastly, while comparing LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) consumption was challenging due to the unavailability of national data, LPG requirements were closely estimated for temperate cities. The definition of a reference building is an important step towards developing nZEB in Mexico, as these buildings are valuable tools that can contribute to the energy evaluation of specific types of buildings. This characteristic makes them convenient for revising a building code or setting new national energy policy goals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Resilience in Urban Areas: Exploring the Impact of Material Properties and Building Design)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 15617 KiB  
Article
Impact of Green Wall and Roof Applications on Energy Consumption and Thermal Comfort for Climate Resilient Buildings
by Cihan Turhan, Cristina Carpino, Miguel Chen Austin, Mehmet Furkan Özbey and Gulden Gokcen Akkurt
Urban Sci. 2025, 9(4), 105; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9040105 - 1 Apr 2025
Viewed by 493
Abstract
Nowadays, reducing energy consumption and obtaining thermal comfort are significant for making educational buildings more climate resilient, more sustainable, and more comfortable. To achieve these goals, a sustainable passive method is that of applying green walls and roofs that provide extra thermal insulation, [...] Read more.
Nowadays, reducing energy consumption and obtaining thermal comfort are significant for making educational buildings more climate resilient, more sustainable, and more comfortable. To achieve these goals, a sustainable passive method is that of applying green walls and roofs that provide extra thermal insulation, evaporative cooling, a shadowing effect, and the blockage of wind on buildings. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of green wall and roof applications on energy consumption and thermal comfort in an educational building. For this purpose, a university building in the Csb climate zone is selected and monitored during one year, as a case study. Then, the case building is modelled in a well-calibrated dynamic building energy simulation tool and twenty-one different plant species, which are mostly used for green walls and roofs, are applied to the envelope of the building in order to determine a reduction in energy consumption and an increase in thermal comfort. The Hedera canariensis gomera (an ivy species) plant is used for green walls due to its aesthetic appeal, versatility, and functional benefits while twenty-one different plants including Ophiopogon japonicus (Mando-Grass), Phyllanthus bourgeoisii (Waterfall Plant), and Phoenix roebelenii (Phoenix Palm) are simulated for the green roof applications. The results show that deploying Hedera canariensis gomera to the walls and Phyllanthus bourgeoisii to the roof could simultaneously reduce the energy consumption by 9.31% and increase thermal comfort by 23.55% in the case building. The authors acknowledge that this study is solely based on simulations due to the high cost of all scenarios, and there are inherent differences between simulated and real-world conditions. Therefore, the future work will be analysing scenarios in real life. Considering the limited studies on the effect of different plant species on energy performance and comfort, this study also contributes to sustainable building design strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Resilience in Urban Areas: Exploring the Impact of Material Properties and Building Design)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

26 pages, 24249 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Spectral Indices and Global Thresholding Methods for the Automatic Extraction of Built-Up Areas: An Application to a Semi-Arid Climate Using Landsat 8 Imagery
by Yassine Harrak, Ahmed Rachid and Rahim Aguejdad
Urban Sci. 2025, 9(3), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9030078 - 11 Mar 2025
Viewed by 764
Abstract
The rapid expansion of built-up areas (BUAs) requires effective spatial and temporal monitoring, being a crucial practice for urban land use planning, resource allocation, and environmental studies, and spectral indices (SIs) can provide efficiency and reliability in automating the process of BUAs extraction. [...] Read more.
The rapid expansion of built-up areas (BUAs) requires effective spatial and temporal monitoring, being a crucial practice for urban land use planning, resource allocation, and environmental studies, and spectral indices (SIs) can provide efficiency and reliability in automating the process of BUAs extraction. This paper explores the use of nine spectral indices and sixteen thresholding methods for the automatic mapping of BUAs using Landsat 8 imagery from a semi-arid climate in Morocco during spring and summer. These indices are the Normalized Difference Built-Up Index (NDBI), the Vis-red-NIR Built-Up Index (VrNIR-BI), the Perpendicular Impervious Surface Index (PISI), the Combinational Biophysical Composition Index (CBCI), the Normalized Built-up Area Index (NBAI), the Built-Up Index (BUI), the Enhanced Normalized Difference Impervious Surfaces Index (ENDISI) and the Built-up Land Features Extraction Index (BLFEI). Results show that BLFEI, SWIRED, and BUI maintain high separability between built-up and each of the other land cover types across both seasons, as evaluated via the Spectral Discrimination Index (SDI). The lowest SDI values for all three indices were observed for bare soil against BUAs, with BLFEI recording 1.21 in the wet season and 1.05 in the dry season, SWIRED yielding 1.22 and 1.08, and BUI showing 1.21 and 1.08, demonstrating their robustness in distinguishing BUAs from other land covers under varying phenological and soil moisture conditions. These indices reached overall accuracies of 93.97%, 93.39% and 92.81%, respectively, in wet conditions, and 91.57%, 89.17% and 89.67%, respectively, in dry conditions. The assessment of thresholding methods reveals that the Minimum method resulted in the highest accuracies for these indices in wet conditions, where bimodal medium peaked histograms were observed, whereas the use of Li, Huang, Shanbhag, Otsu, K-means, or IsoData was found to be the most effective under dry conditions, where more peaked histograms were observed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Resilience in Urban Areas: Exploring the Impact of Material Properties and Building Design)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop