Enhancing Community Wellbeing: Innovations in Sustainable Urban Planning and Built Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Current buildings in use (comprising the largest segment of the built environment) are shown to be responsible for more than 40% of energy consumption and one-third of the global harmful emissions. Therefore, we must pay increasing attention to sustainable construction and renovation in the building sector. However, providing appropriate retrofit strategies is a vital issue as it not only saves energy and reduces CO₂ emissions from this sector but also considers occupants’ health and wellbeing.

However, broad thinking is required to address the energy wastage from buildings that require renovation. The focus is often placed on the technical aspects of the built environment, and the non-technical dimensions (social, economic, etc.), which are also important aspects in terms of sustainable development, tend to be disruptive. Hence, it is usually recommended to deal with retrofit at the neighbourhood scale (instead of single buildings) to make it more efficient in terms of environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Given the recent attention to the development of smart cities and following sustainable development goals as the agenda of smart cities, this Special Issue aims to collect the recent research and studies on innovative retrofit technologies in smart cities, on the building and neighborhood scales.

Submissions are encouraged on, but not limited to, the following general areas:

• Construction technologies supporting energy efficient and healthy buildings/neighbourhoods;
• Sustainable and healthy retrofit strategies;
• Building and neighbourhood performance and occupant wellbeing;
• Neighbourhood revitalisation plan and resident social and physical wellbeing;
• Resident engagements in retrofit plans in neighbourhoods;
• Smart buildings and neighbourhoods;
• Waste minimisation strategies during renovation.

Dr. Mina Jowkar
Dr. Nirodha Fernando
Guest Editors

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