Search Results (1,540)

Understanding how housing attributes are capitalized into prices is central to addressing urban affordability challenges. Using 2799 second-hand housing transactions from Wenzhou, China, this study examines residential price formation under pronounced spatial and structural heterogeneity. Multiple predictive models are evaluated within a unified 10-fold cross-validation framework. Results indicate that Random Forest delivers the strongest predictive performance, achieving a normalized mean squared error below 0.10 and explaining over 90% of out-of-sample price variation, substantially outperforming hedonic regression, regression trees, bagging, boosting, and support vector models. Permutation-based importance analysis identifies district location, building scale, and floor area as the dominant price determinants, while the influence of renovation quality, transportation access, and educational amenities varies across districts and dwelling types. These findings reveal strong nonlinearities and heterogeneous valuation mechanisms in rapidly urbanizing housing markets. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how interpretable machine learning complements traditional hedonic analysis, while providing policy-relevant insights into housing affordability dynamics in medium-sized Chinese cities. Full article

Community public sport facilities are core carriers of the national fitness public service system, with their supply–demand alignment directly linked to megacity governance efficiency and residents’ well-being. To address structural issues, such as “human–land imbalance” in facility layout, this study uses the 2010–2024 panel data from Shanghai’s 16 districts, applies supply–demand equilibrium theory, and integrates quantitative methods to analyze spatio-temporal supply–demand coupling and identify key influencing factors. The study yields four key findings: (1) The spatial distribution of facilities and population demonstrates a differentiated evolutionary trajectory marked by “central dispersion and suburban stability”. (2) Supply–demand alignment has continuously improved, as evidenced by the increase in coordinated administrative districts from six to thirteen. Nonetheless, the distance between sports facilities and population centers widened, suggesting that spatial adaptation remains incomplete. (3) Urban population growth exerts a significant positive impact on facility supply. Elasticity coefficients are generally high in suburban areas, while negative elasticity is detected in some central urban areas due to population outflow. (4) Facility construction intensity and residential activity intensity are core driving factors, with economic conditions, transportation infrastructure, and housing prices acting as key supporting factors. This study overcomes traditional aggregate-quantity research limitations, reveals megacity facility supply–demand “spatial mismatch” dynamics, and provides a scientific basis for targeted public sports facility layout and refined governance. Full article

Residential buildings in Mediterranean regions remain major contributors to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Existing studies often assess renewable energy technologies or innovative building solutions in isolation, with limited attention to their combined performance across different residential typologies. This study evaluates the integrated impact of solar renewable energy systems and smart building technologies on the energy performance of residential buildings in Cyprus. A typology-based methodology is applied to three representative residential building types—detached, semi-detached, and apartment buildings—using dynamic energy simulation and scenario analysis. Results show that solar photovoltaic systems achieve higher standalone reductions than solar thermal systems, while smart building technologies significantly enhance operational efficiency and photovoltaic self-consumption. Integrated solar–smart scenarios achieve up to 58% reductions in primary energy demand and 55% reductions in CO₂ emissions, and 25–30 percentage-point increases in PV self-consumption, enabling detached and semi-detached houses to approach national nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) performance thresholds. The study provides climate-specific, quantitative evidence supporting integrated solar–smart strategies for Mediterranean residential buildings and offers actionable insights for policy-making, design, and sustainable residential development. Full article

Sustainable development is crucial worldwide. Under the Paris Agreement, countries commit to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) assessed every five years. China, a major contributor to global warming, has made significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality, a key strategy for sustainable development. However, there is a lack of adequate attention to embodied emission reduction in rural residential construction, despite a surge in building to improve living standards. This paper evaluated the feasibility of applying a multi-ribbed composite wall structure (MRCWS) in rural China through a village service project. A full-scale shaking table test was conducted to study its seismic performance. Carbon emissions were analyzed using process-based life cycle assessment (P-LCA) and the emission-factor approach (EFA), while costs were estimated using life cycle costing (LCC) and the direct cost method (DCM). These analyses focused on sub-projects and specific structural members to validate the superiority of this prefabricated structure over common brick masonry. MRCWS blocks were prefabricated by mixing wheat straw with aerocrete, utilizing agricultural by-products from local farmlands, thus reducing both construction-related carbon emissions and agricultural waste treatment costs. Results show that this novel precast masonry structure exhibits strong seismic resistance, complying with fortification limitations. Its application can reduce embodied carbon emissions and costs by approximately 6% and 10%, respectively, during materialization phases compared to common brick masonry. This new prefabricated building product has significant potential for reducing carbon emissions and costs in rural housing construction while meeting seismic requirements. The recycling of agricultural waste highlights its adaptability, especially in rural areas. Full article

Artificial intelligence is reshaping approaches to architectural heritage conservation by enabling a deeper understanding of how people perceive and experience historic built environments. This study employs deep learning and large language models (LLMs) to explore public perceptions of the Qinghefang Historical and Cultural District in Hangzhou, illustrating how AI-driven analytics can inform intelligent heritage management and architectural revitalization. Large-scale public online reviews were processed through BERTopic-based clustering to extract thematic structures of experience, while interpretive synthesis was refined using an LLM to identify core perceptual dimensions including Hangzhou Housing & Residential Choice, Hangzhou Urban Tourism & Culture, Hangzhou Food & Dining, and Qinghefang Culture & Creative. Sentiment polarity and emotional intensity were quantified using a fine-tuned BERT model, revealing distinct affective and perceptual patterns across the district’s architectural and cultural spaces. The results demonstrate that AI-based textual analytics can effectively decode human–heritage interactions, offering actionable insights for data-informed conservation, visitors’ experience optimization, and sustainable management of historic districts. This research contributes to the emerging field of AI-driven innovation in architectural heritage by bridging computational intelligence and heritage conservation practice. Full article

This paper focuses on whether smart-related built environments are associated with improved housing affordability for economically disadvantaged groups. Smart growth is a planning theme that aims to address the unintended negative consequences of urban sprawl through combining diverse dimensions across land-use diversity, housing diversity, accessibility, and compact development. Focusing on Clackamas County, Multnomah County, and Washington County within the Portland metropolitan area, the analysis uses census-tract-level data to assess both contemporaneous associations in 2013 and changes in affordability between 2013 and 2019. Overall, the findings suggest that smart-growth tools exhibit both potential and limitations with respect to housing affordability. Greater housing-type diversity and lower reliance on single-family residential land use are consistently associated with higher shares and subsequent increases in affordable housing units for low-income groups. In contrast, other smart-growth features—such as land-use mix and accessibility—show weaker or uneven relationships. These findings suggest that smart growth can contribute to expanding affordable housing supply primarily through housing-related components, while other dimensions of smart growth appear to play a limited role. The results underscore that housing-focused strategies play an important role in shaping affordability outcomes under smart growth. Full article

This study explores the intersection of sociocultural factors, particularly privacy, with energy consumption patterns in residential buildings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While cultural values around privacy have long been recognised as influential in residential design, the impact of these values on energy consumption is underexplored. This research aims to fill this gap by examining how privacy needs, residents’ preferences, and open layouts affect energy efficiency, particularly in terms of natural light and ventilation. A mixed-methods approach was employed, including semi-structured interviews with engineers, data collected from 108 respondents via an online survey, a case study of a residential building in Riyadh, and building performance simulations using IES software. The study also assessed actual energy consumption data and indoor lighting as potential implications of privacy concerns, causing changes in behavioural control of systems (e.g., windows, blinds, lighting, etc.). It focuses on the relationship between privacy needs, energy use, and natural daylight distribution. The IES simulation results for the studied residential building show an annual energy consumption of 24,000 kWh, primarily due to cooling loads and artificial lighting caused by privacy measures applied by the residents. The findings reveal that privacy-driven design choices and occupant behaviours, such as the use of full window shutters, frosted glazing and limited window operation, significantly reduce daylight availability and natural ventilation, leading to increased reliance on artificial lighting and air conditioning. This study highlights the need for human-centric design approaches that address the interplay between sociocultural factors, particularly reinforcing cultural sensitivity, and building performance, offering insights for future sustainable housing developments in Riyadh and similar contexts. Full article

This article analyzes the case of a typical modern residential area, which was built following current legal regulations in Poland. For the purposes of the calculations, a housing estate consisting of 32 houses was assumed, with a connection power of 36 kW each. The three variants evaluate power consumption and photovoltaic system operation: Variant I assumes no PV installations and fluctuating consumer power demands; Variant II involves PV installations in all estate buildings with a total capacity matching the building’s 36 kW connection power and minimal consumption; and Variant III increases installed PV capacity per building to 50 kW, aligning with apartment connection powers, also with minimal consumption. The simulations performed indicated that there may be problems with voltage levels and current overloads of network elements. Although in case I the transformer worked properly, after connecting the PV installation in an extreme case, it was overloaded by about 117% (Variant II) or even about 180% (Variant III). The described case illustrates the impact of changes in regulations on the stability of the electricity distribution network. A potential solution to this problem is to oversize the distribution network elements, introduce power restrictions for PV installations or to oblige prosumers to install energy storage facilities. Full article

With growing community awareness of greenhouse gas emissions and their environmental consequences, distributed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems have emerged as a sustainable energy alternative in residential settings. However, the high penetration of these systems without effective operational strategies poses significant challenges for local distribution grids. Specifically, the estimation of surplus energy production from these systems, closely linked to complex outdoor weather conditions and seasonal fluctuations, often lacks an accurate forecasting approach to effectively capture the temporal dynamics of system output during peak periods. In response, this study proposes a recurrent neural network (RNN)- based forecasting framework to predict rooftop PV surplus in the context of micro-residential communities over time horizons not exceeding 48 h. The framework includes standard RNN, long short-term memory (LSTM), bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), and gated recurrent unit (GRU) networks. In this context, the study employed estimated surplus energy datasets from six single-family detached houses, along with weather-related variables and seasonal patterns, to evaluate the framework’s effectiveness. Results demonstrated the significant effectiveness of all framework models in forecasting surplus energy across seasonal scenarios, with low MAPE values of up to 3.02% and 3.59% over 24-h and 48-h horizons, respectively. Simultaneously, BiLSTM models consistently demonstrated a higher capacity to capture surplus energy fluctuations during peak periods than their counterparts. Overall, the developed data-driven framework demonstrates potential to enable short-term smart energy scheduling in micro-residential communities, supporting electric vehicle charging from single-family detached houses through efficient rooftop PV systems. It also provides decision-making insights for evaluating renewable energy contributions in the residential sector. Full article

This study presents a systematic literature review exploring the challenges and solutions for scaling 3D printing in affordable residential construction in Kuwait. This review explores the urgent need to alleviate housing shortages through faster, cost-effective, and sustainable building approaches, highlighting the potential of additive manufacturing. Guided by the PRISMA framework, this review synthesizes findings from 20 key sources selected from an initial pool of 141 studies. The analysis identifies major scalability challenges—high material costs, limited supply chain readiness, complex regulatory frameworks, environmental constraints, and technical limitations—and evaluates proposed solutions such as geopolymer concrete, advanced printing technologies, and policy reforms. While this study does not include empirical data, it offers a comprehensive synthesis of the existing literature to inform policymakers and industry leaders about the potential of 3D printing to address Kuwait’s housing crisis. Full article

Residential space heating in Northern Europe requires long-duration thermal storage to align summer solar gains with winter heating demand. This study investigates a compact sand-based seasonal thermal energy storage integrated with flat-plate solar collectors for an A+ class single-family house in Kaunas, Lithuania. An iterative co-design couples collector sizing with the seasonal charging target and a 3D COMSOL Multiphysics model of a 300 m³ sand-filled, phenolic foam-insulated system, with a 1D conjugate model of a copper pipe heat-exchanger network. The system was charged from March to September and discharged from October to February under measured-weather boundary conditions across three consecutive annual cycles. During the first year, the storage supplied the entire winter heating demand, though 35.2% of the input energy was lost through conduction, resulting in an end-of-cycle average sand temperature slightly below the initial state. In subsequent years, both the peak sand temperature and the residual end-of-cycle temperature increased by 3.7 °C and 3.2 °C, respectively, by the third year, indicating cumulative thermal recovery and improved retention. Meanwhile, the peak conductive losses rate decreased by 98 W, and cumulative annual losses decreased by 781.4 kWh in the third year, with an average annual reduction of 4.15%. These results highlight the progressive self-conditioning of the surrounding soil and demonstrate that a low-cost, sand-based storage system can sustain a complete seasonal heating supply with declining losses, offering a robust and scalable approach for residential building heating applications. Full article

Urban morphology plays a decisive role in regulating microclimate and outdoor thermal comfort in arid cities, where extreme heat and intense solar radiation amplify thermal stress. This study examines the influence of four contrasting urban fabrics in Béchar (Algerian Sahara): the vernacular Ksar, the regular-grid colonial fabric, a modern large-scale residential estate, and low-density detached housing, on local microclimatic conditions. An integrated methodological framework is adopted, combining qualitative morphological analysis, quantitative indicators including density, porosity, height-to-width ratio, and sky view factor, in situ microclimatic measurements, and high-resolution ENVI-met simulations performed for the hottest summer day. Results show that compact urban forms, characterized by low sky view factor values, markedly reduce radiative exposure and improve thermal performance. The vernacular Ksar, exhibiting the lowest SVF, records the lowest mean radiant temperature (approximately 45 °C) and the most favorable average comfort conditions (PMV = 3.77; UTCI = 38.37 °C), representing a reduction of about 3 °C, while its high-thermal-inertia earthen materials ensure effective nocturnal thermal recovery (PMV ≈ 1.06; UTCI = 27.8 °C at 06:00). In contrast, more open modern fabrics, including the colonial grid, large-scale estates, and low-density housing, experience higher thermal stress, reflecting vulnerability to solar exposure and limited thermal inertia. Validation against field measurements confirms model reliability. These findings highlight the continued relevance of vernacular bioclimatic principles for sustainable urban design in arid climates. Full article

The UK’s net-zero by 2050 commitment necessitates urgent housing sector decarbonisation, as residential buildings contribute approximately 17% of national emissions. Post-1950 construction prioritised speed over efficiency, creating energy-deficient housing stock that challenges climate objectives. Current retrofit policies focus primarily on technological solutions—insulation and heating upgrades—while neglecting broader sustainability considerations. This research advocates systematically integrating Circular Economy (CE) principles into residential retrofit practices. CE approaches emphasise material circularity, waste minimisation, adaptive design, and a lifecycle assessment, delivering superior environmental and economic outcomes compared to conventional methods. The investigation employs mixed-methods research combining a systematic literature analysis, policy review, stakeholder engagement, and a retrofit implementation evaluation across diverse UK contexts. Key barriers identified include regulatory constraints, workforce capability gaps, and supply chain fragmentation, alongside critical transition enablers. An evidence-based decision-making framework emerges from this analysis, aligning retrofit interventions with CE principles. This framework guides policymakers, industry professionals, and researchers in the development of strategies that simultaneously improve energy-efficiency, maximise material reuse, reduce embodied emissions, and enhance environmental and economic sustainability. The findings advance a holistic, systems-oriented approach, positioning housing as a pivotal catalyst in the UK’s transition toward a circular, low-carbon built environment, moving beyond isolated technological fixes toward a comprehensive sustainability transformation. Full article

In recent years, the rapid construction of government-subsidized rental housing (GRH) has partially alleviated housing pressures caused by the growing number of migrant workers and persistently high rental costs in Shanghai. However, its overriding emphasis on construction and allocation efficiency neglects the realization of spatial justice, particularly in underdeveloped urban areas. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to examine all 25 GRHs completed and operational in Shanghai’s Five New Towns, employing morphological characteristics and inherent differences to analyze their impacts on spatial justice. First, this study integrates urban functions and spatial justice elements to establish a systematic classification framework and an evaluative system for GRH, and then assesses the achievement of spatial justice across existing projects. Subsequently, morphological analysis is employed to examine how GRHs shape the socio-spatial context of new towns, thereby assessing their role in reinforcing or undermining spatial justice. Finally, this study establishes data logic between typological factors and morphological characteristics and analyzes the inherent differences among various types of GRH by using Fisher’s exact test. The results reveal that although the existing GRHs are situated in different urban geospatial contexts, they exhibit a severe homogenization phenomenon in terms of construction modality, planning layout, and community boundary, with only the residential scale showing inherent differences. The research findings highlight a systematic neglect of spatial justice in the current GRH development paradigm and reveal the underlying causes. This study contributes to the discourse on spatial justice in GRH development by broadening its dimensions, and it provides valuable insights for promoting the realization of spatial justice through multi-tiered policy framework, place-making design strategy, and a joint operation model. Full article

Amidst Portugal’s ongoing housing crisis, particularly pronounced in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, thousands of residential units remain vacant. This article investigates why property owners often refrain from placing these homes on the rental market, despite high demand and rising prices. Drawing on empirical data from successive editions of the ALP (Lisbon Landlords Association) Barometer and framed by the literature on housing financialization, institutional trust, and patrimonial ownership cultures, the study shows that vacancy is not merely a result of speculation or neglect. Rather, it emerges as a rational response to a complex interplay of regulatory instability, legal mistrust, and deeply rooted socio-cultural norms. Landlords act not only as economic agents but also as custodians of family heritage, navigating uncertainty in a legal and symbolic environment increasingly perceived as hostile. The article argues that mobilizing Lisbon’s empty housing stock requires more than tax incentives or coercive measures. It demands rebuilding trust, ensuring legal predictability, and acknowledging the cultural meanings that shape property decisions. Policy recommendations include stabilizing rental legislation and designing culturally sensitive engagement strategies for small landlords. Full article