Search Results (9,316)

Active school travel (AST) is an important source of daily physical activity for children, yet its environmental correlates remain mixed and may be more complex than conventional linear models suggest. This study examines the associations of school-travel distance, built environment, socio-demographic attributes, and natural environment with children’s AST in Wuhan, China. Using 2020 travel survey data for children aged 6–15 and an XGBoost–SHAP framework, the study evaluates relative importance, nonlinear association patterns, and pairwise interactions among key variables. The results show that school-travel distance is the dominant correlate of AST, accounting for 44.07% of total model importance. Built-environment variables collectively contribute 36.24%, substantially exceeding socio-demographic attributes, while terrain also shows a non-negligible role. Several built-environment variables, including transit station density, road density, intersection density, land-use entropy, and POI density, display clear nonlinear patterns and directional shifts. Distance and age further condition the associations of other variables with AST, indicating substantial heterogeneity across distance bands and developmental stages. Overall, the findings suggest that AST should not be understood through average main effects alone, and that more age-sensitive, distance-sensitive, and context-specific planning strategies are needed to support child-friendly school travel. Full article

Improving the health supportiveness of the campus built environment is a key strategy for alleviating health pressures in higher education institutions (HEIs). As a complex environmental system, a university campus requires systematic assessment of its environmental health performance to inform science-based design and planning decisions. This study systematically reviews the environmental characteristics of current healthy-campus assessment tools (HCATs) for HEIs and evaluates their compatibility with a Chinese standards context. A three-phase mixed-methods approach identified 12 HCATs, examined their environmental features, and constructed a content framework. Three representative Chinese alternative tools were compared. The results show that: (1) HCATs vary by development context but consistently prioritize physical environmental resources that support health behaviors, such as abundant and reasonable active transportation and fitness facilities and a health-promoting environmental culture, rather than conventional physics performance. (2) Although Chinese tools overlap with HCATs on certain environmental topics, they cannot replace HCATs in terms of environmental integration, coverage, and applicability to HEI settings. (3) Future Chinese HCATs should strengthen environmental support for behavior change and health promotion and improve operability. This study reveals gaps between current Chinese tools and HCATs, underscores the necessity of developing environment-focused HCATs for Chinese HEIs, and provides a foundation for related tools’ development work. Full article

As a form of living heritage, Historic Urban Landscapes (HULs) have long been limited by the static perspectives and reductionist tendencies of conventional conservation and research approaches. Although the geological and archaeological concept of “stratification” offers a methodological basis for understanding the diachronic evolution of heritage, its unidimensional temporal lens fails to capture the inherent complexity and systemic nature of historic urban landscapes. To address this gap, this study proposes a “multidimensional stratification” theoretical framework through theoretical critique and paradigm reconstruction. The framework introduces innovations at the ontological, epistemological, and methodological levels, positing that the evolution of historic urban landscapes emerges from the nonlinear interaction and dynamic interweaving of four core dimensions: time, space, society, and value. It further systematizes five intrinsic attributes of such landscapes: authenticity, integrity, continuity, adaptability, and dynamism. Building on this foundation, the paper constructs a systematic analytical pathway—elements–processes–patterns–modes–drivers–characteristics—that enables dynamic analysis from micro-level identification to macro-level generalization, offering a scalable tool for HUL conservation and regeneration. To demonstrate the framework’s applicability, the historic urban area of Shenyang—a nationally designated historical and cultural city—is selected as a case study. Its urban landscape comprises four core districts: the Shengjing City District, the South Manchuria Railway Concession District, the Commercial Port District, and the Tiexi Industrial District, representing historical strata from the Qing dynasty capital, modern colonial planning, commercial opening, to industrial heritage. Using the multidimensional stratification approach, this study elucidates the spatial complexity, temporal nonlinearity, social dynamism, and value pluralism embedded in Shenyang’s historic urban area. Corresponding conservation strategies grounded in holism, dynamism, and differentiation are proposed. The research not only advances the theoretical understanding of HUL but also provides a novel paradigm—integrating holistic, dynamic, and operational perspectives—for the conservation, renewal, and regenerative practice of historic urban landscapes worldwide. Full article

Global urbanization is shifting from incremental expansion to stock optimization, and old residential communities have become important spatial units for low-carbon transition. However, in existing built environments, traditional process-based inventory methods face practical constraints, including missing original drawings, complex site conditions, and severe vegetation obstruction. As a result, systematic accounting of buildings, landscapes, and natural carbon sinks remains difficult. This study integrates life cycle assessment (LCA), BIM reverse modeling, 3D point clouds, DesignBuilder simulation, inventory-based accounting, and i-Tree Eco to construct a life cycle carbon emission accounting framework for old residential communities. The framework links current-condition data reconstruction, quantity take-off, operational energy simulation, landscape inventory accounting, and vegetation carbon sequestration assessment. It is applied to Nanyuan Xincun in Hefei to quantify the community-scale carbon source–sink structure. The results show that Nanyuan Xincun presents a clear operation-led emission pattern, with the operation and maintenance phase accounting for 82.52% of total positive emissions. Within architectural engineering, operation and maintenance accounts for 82.91%, while material production accounts for 13.28%. Landscape engineering shows a more mixed structure, with operation and maintenance accounting for 52.95% and material production accounting for 36.49%. Vegetation carbon sequestration analysis shows that mature trees and shrubs are the main ecological carbon assets. Annual sequestration reaches 16.95 t-CO₂e/a, and trees and shrubs contribute 92.85% of total vegetation carbon storage. Under current vegetation conditions, annual sequestration is equivalent to 32.99% of annual landscape operation emissions, indicating considerable ecological compensation potential. Based on these findings, this study proposes four optimization pathways: operational energy reduction, low-carbon material substitution, construction and demolition waste recycling, and mature tree protection. These pathways provide data support for refined carbon management and low-carbon renewal in existing communities. Full article

This paper addresses the important issue of the proper management and protection of subterranean monuments. It concerns the analysis and decoding of the microclimate that is created in heritage structures, which are structures located beneath the soil or carved into rock. The aim of this study is to understand the hygrothermal processes occurring in the mass of underground structural elements, such as evaporation, condensation, water content, and heat fluxes, based on the principles of building physics. The methodology used is the following: a systematic literature review on the topic, an overview of the factors affecting the microclimate, the assessment methodology, and the simulation tools used to decode and evaluate microclimate in subterranean heritage structures; a discussion of the current gaps; and finally, a proposal for future directions for research. A review of the literature reveals that researchers worldwide have employed similar methodologies to approach this complex issue. Recordings and analyses of the microclimate inside underground monuments lead to decision-making and the formulation of actions for optimal preservation. Due to the large number of parameters involved in microclimate analysis, computer software for numerical simulation has been used in many cases. Following the review of the relevant literature in the field of study, a critical discussion concludes by proposing directions for future research on this important topic. Basic results of this research identify current gaps, problems, and limitations. These include technical and practical issues or gaps concerning lack of data for material properties and weather conditions. Another significant limitation arises from the complexity of physical interactions, as well as from the human factor, which involves the proper use of the simulation program and the correct interpretation of the calculation results. This study demonstrates that the microclimate of subterranean heritage structures is the result of complex interactions between climate, geology, architectural design, material properties, and human use. Across different geographical and cultural contexts, subterranean monuments exhibit distinct microclimatic behaviors. The comparative analysis of case studies highlights that while subterranean environments generally benefit from thermal stability, they remain highly vulnerable to moisture dynamics, ventilation changes, and external climatic coupling. Hence, there is a necessity for context-specific approaches rather than generalized conservation solutions. Decoding subterranean microclimates requires a multidisciplinary framework that combines environmental monitoring, material indicators, architectural analysis, and numerical modeling. Full article

The reliability of hygrothermal models depends on the quality of their inputs. Conventionally, thermal and moisture properties are treated as temperature-independent, yet previous studies have shown that many of these properties are temperature-dependent. This paper investigates the impact of using temperature-dependent material properties on hygrothermal simulation results compared to standard temperature-independent properties at the building envelope level. A representative exterior wood-frame wall assembly is modelled with constant material properties, including water vapour permeability, sorption isotherm, and water absorption coefficient corresponding to values measured at 3 °C, 21 °C, and 45 °C, as well as a case in which the properties vary with temperature. The variation in hygrothermal response is evaluated under several scenarios, including different climates (Toronto and Vancouver, Canada), cladding types (fibre cement and stucco), sheathing materials (oriented strand board (OSB) and plywood), and with and without rain-penetration load. Results indicate that the variation attributed to temperature-dependent material properties was greater for Vancouver than for Toronto and increased with rain penetration. In particular, the choice of cladding seemed to have a greater impact than the choice of sheathing material, with stucco showing greater differences than fibre cement. Overall, however, the temperature at which material properties are defined has a minimal impact on hygrothermal simulation results and wall performance assessments, with maximum hourly differences in sheathing moisture content (MC) differences ranging from 1.18 to 4.32 wt% without rain penetration. These findings demonstrate that the use of temperature-dependent material properties does not have a significant impact on the hygrothermal simulation results or the performance assessment of exterior wood-frame wall assemblies. Full article

Building services systems in comprehensive hospitals must support safety-critical clinical workflows within dense spatial and technical interfaces. Coordination among owners, designers, contractors, operators, and clinical users is often fragmented across planning, design, construction, and operation. This study adopts an exploratory qualitative case-study design using grounded theory coding procedures. Semi-structured interviews and field observations were conducted with 44 stakeholders involved in 10 tertiary hospitals in Shenzhen, China. Through open, axial, and selective coding, the study identifies contextual conditions, recurrent coordination breakpoints, and four lifecycle coordination mechanisms: requirement stabilization, technical integration, verification and handover, and feedback optimization. The findings show that failures in hospital building services systems are not merely technical defects. They are cumulative socio-technical failures generated by unstable clinical requirements, discontinuous responsibilities, weak knowledge translation, and delayed decisions at stage interfaces. The proposed model reframes coordination as an iterative lifecycle process and provides an analytically grounded framework for diagnosing coordination risks and organizing stakeholder responsibilities in complex hospital projects. Its effects on project outcomes require further validation through future implementation and comparative studies. Full article

Food markets represent a public good essential for urban supply and as intergenerational spaces supporting the small-scale economy, yet they face growing challenges in adapting to sustainability regulations and circular economy requirements. This study examines the current state of sustainability in Madrid’s municipal markets through interviews and questionnaires administered to market managers, analyzing building characteristics, renewable energy systems, passive savings strategies, and energy costs across different market typologies. Results reveal that in December 2025, only 9% of markets had solar thermal installations, while merely 11% were planning photovoltaic solar panel projects—figures insufficient to meet current EU energy efficiency mandates. The findings demonstrate a significant gap between existing infrastructure and the requirements of the Directive (EU) 2023/1791, which supersedes previous directives. These results indicate an urgent need for accelerated implementation of renewable energy systems in market buildings to achieve sustainability targets. The study contributes baseline data for developing intervention strategies that can reduce energy consumption and align Madrid’s market network with European decarbonization goals for 2030 and 2050. Full article

Driven by advances in artificial intelligence, immersive technologies, and related digital innovations, public cultural spaces are undergoing significant mediatization. Although architectural research has addressed this transformation through media architecture, responsive architecture, digital architecture, and intelligent architecture, it has largely focused on urban-scale interfaces or treated media as an external addition to space. To address this gap, this study examines mediated space at the interior scale of public cultural spaces and proposes a holistic analytical framework that understands media as an intrinsic condition of spatial operation. Through literature review, case analysis, and theoretical modeling, mediated space is classified into four types: physical, digital, interactive, and intelligent. The concept of the Spatial Organism is then introduced and structured into three interrelated entities: the media functional entity, the information exchange entity, and the symbolic representation entity. Building on this framework, the study develops a space–user perceptual interaction model and identifies four interaction stages and three interaction modes. The study argues that media intervention is reshaping spatial organization, meaning production, and evaluation, with interactivity, adaptability, and operational capacity as key evaluative dimensions. It thus offers a mechanism-oriented framework for understanding the mediatization of contemporary public cultural spaces. Full article

Reducing carbon emissions during construction is essential for meeting dual carbon targets. Current green scheduling methods assume fixed emission factors, overlooking time-dependent variations driven by grid peak-valley patterns. Under interval duration uncertainty coupled with tight dynamic carbon budgets, conventional algorithms struggle with sparse feasible solutions and slow Pareto front convergence. We formulate a bi-objective interval RCPSP model with time-varying carbon emission factors that minimizes both interval makespan and total carbon emissions. A possibility degree measure converts scalar carbon budgets into linearized hard constraints. To solve this NP-hard problem, we propose the Knowledge-Driven Interval Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm (KD-IMOEA), which integrates four components: Knowledge-Driven Initialization (KDI), Adaptive Time-window Carbon-aware Decoding (TCD), Carbon Budget-aware Repair Mutation (CBM), and Interval Pareto Elite Archive (IPA), forming an end-to-end carbon-aware optimization pipeline. We validate KD-IMOEA on J30 through J120 benchmark instances; results show it outperforms four established algorithms, including NSGA-II, in both convergence and distribution, with hypervolume (HV) gains up to 6.3%. A green building case study confirms that KD-IMOEA exploits spatiotemporal decoupling to identify float time and assign energy-intensive machinery to lower-carbon operating profiles. At the optimal compromise makespan of 169.5 days, this strategy cuts carbon emissions by 3.07% over traditional baselines, enabling management-driven emission savings without extending project duration. Full article

Contemporary studies of religious modernity tend to view faith systems as static traditions that resist secularization. Although it has recently been acknowledged that local religions may be resilient, scholars often overlook the internal creativity of action that enables such faiths to actively navigate secular constraints. To address this gap, this study investigates a shamanistic folk religion, the Moed faith, to answer a critical question: How can a marginalized religious system innovate to survive within a strict secular order without compromising its spiritual principles? This paper proposes Performative Adaptation as a mechanism of religious creativity by combining historical analysis and ethnographic data through the lens of Actor-Network Theory. It argues that the Moed faith reassembles itself as a dynamic ritual-art continuum rather than remaining a fixed entity. The findings reveal that practitioners actively separate ritual form from function, transforming sacred exorcism chants into the secular performing art of Modlaenz to secure Intangible Cultural Heritage status. Furthermore, this adaptation fosters a transnational Pan-Tai spiritual community, turning rigid geopolitical borders into zones of cultural contact. Ultimately, this research challenges the view of religion as merely a repository of tradition, demonstrating that faith systems can actively engage in institutional innovation and identity construction. Full article

This paper examines the integration of three-dimensional (3D) printing and robotic fabrication in contemporary architectural design, with a focus on overcoming the technical limitations that constrain large-scale adoption. While additive manufacturing enables the production of complex geometries and customized structures, its standalone application remains limited by fixed build volumes, planar deposition, lack of tensile reinforcement, open-loop process control, and single-process extrusion. To address these constraints, the paper proposes a functional integration framework that systematically maps robotic fabrication capabilities onto these five critical limitations. Evidence from recent studies demonstrates that such integration has already led to measurable advances, including up to a 90-fold increase in printable volume through mobile robotic systems, robotically fabricated reinforcement systems (e.g., Mesh Mold) achieving post-crack behavior comparable to conventional reinforced concrete, and the implementation of closed-loop sensor-based process control to enhance interlayer bonding. Despite these achievements, interdisciplinary collaboration across architecture, structural engineering, materials science, and robotics remains largely fragmented and is predominantly confined to academic and pilot-scale projects, such as the ETH Zurich DFAB House. Regulatory progress is also limited, with only isolated code-compliant implementations under frameworks such as ICC-ES AC509 and ISO/ASTM 52939. Persistent barriers including high capital costs, loss of information in BIM-to-fabrication workflows, anisotropic material behavior, and the absence of long-term durability standards continue to restrict widespread adoption. These findings suggest that advancing robotic additive manufacturing in architecture requires not only technological innovation but also coordinated cross-disciplinary integration, standardized testing protocols, and harmonized regulatory frameworks. Full article

As a mountain–water city in the upper Yangtze River region, Chongqing is characterized by complex river-valley terrain, dense riverside development, extreme summer heat, high humidity, and frequent calm-wind conditions. Existing studies on waterfront thermal comfort mainly focus on plain cities, whereas mountainous riverside parks remain insufficiently understood. This study investigated summer thermal comfort in three riverside parks in Chongqing—Jiulongtan Park, Coral Park, and Jiangtan Park—through field measurements of air temperature, black globe temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, and Thermal Radiation, combined with thermal sensation vote (TSV) and thermal comfort vote (TCV) surveys. Results showed that the maximum air temperature reached 43.7 °C and the maximum black globe temperature reached 61.6 °C. The hydrophilic layer recorded the highest wind speed (1.64 ± 0.39 m/s), while the elastic layer showed high PET values (36.00–46.10 °C). Regression analysis indicated neutral PET values of 32.49–35.74 °C. Correlation analysis showed that PET, mean thermal sensation vote (MTSV), and mean thermal comfort vote (MTCV) were positively correlated with air temperature, black globe temperature, mean radiant temperature (T_mrt), and relative humidity. In contrast, PET was negatively correlated with wind speed. This study reveals the coupled effects of river-valley terrain, elevation stratification, waterfront microclimate, and landscape elements on outdoor thermal comfort, providing a scientific basis for optimizing shading, ventilation, and hydrophilic spaces in hot-humid mountain–water cities. Full article

Healthy building concepts are increasingly recognized as important for improving occupant health and well-being, yet empirical evidence on their understanding and implementation in sub-Saharan African contexts remains limited. This study provides an exploratory assessment of construction professionals’ awareness and self-reported application of healthy building concepts in Gabon. Using a structured questionnaire survey of 45 construction professionals, including architects, engineers, and contractors, the study examines sources of awareness, patterns of application across project stages, and health-related dimensions prioritized in practice. The results indicate high levels of conceptual awareness within the surveyed group, but uneven and context-dependent application. Implementation is strongly concentrated at the design stage, while continuity during construction and operation remains limited. Professionals tend to prioritize tangible and measurable dimensions such as lighting, materials, air quality, and thermal comfort, whereas psychosocial and community-related aspects receive less attention. Based on these empirical patterns, the study proposes an empirically informed and context-sensitive framework structured around six strategic pillars to support the gradual integration of healthy construction practices in Gabon. Rather than offering a prescriptive model, the framework serves as an analytical reference to inform future research, professional capacity building, and policy dialog. Given the exploratory nature of the study and its reliance on self-reported data, the findings should be interpreted as indicative rather than generalizable. Full article

As a strategic node of the Silk Road Economic Belt and a prototypical valley-type city, Lanzhou is subject to the dual constraints of rapid urbanization and an inherently fragile ecological foundation, making the coordination between urban expansion and ecosystem services a critical issue for regional sustainability. Drawing upon multi-temporal land use remote sensing datasets provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Resource and Environment Science Data Center, in conjunction with soil, meteorological, and socio-economic data, this study integrates a land use transition matrix, the InVEST model, a modified coupling coordination degree model, and the geographic detector to comprehensively examine land use dynamics, the spatiotemporal evolution of urban expansion, and the spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem services (i.e., carbon storage, water yield, habitat quality, and soil conservation) in Lanzhou. In addition, the coupling coordination relationship and its underlying driving mechanisms are systematically explored. The results demonstrate the following: (1) Between 1980 and 2020, urban land area in Lanzhou increased from 103.87 km² to 286.83 km², accounting for 2.17% of the total area, with cropland constituting the dominant source of expansion and exhibiting a fluctuating “high–low–high” conversion trajectory. (2) Ecosystem services exhibit pronounced spatial heterogeneity, with carbon storage and habitat quality displaying a pattern of “low in the southeast and high in the northwest”, water yield showing an increasing gradient from southeast to northwest, and soil conservation characterized by “lower values in central areas and higher values in peripheral regions”; (3) Urban expansion has accelerated significantly, with Yongdeng County and Gaolan County emerging as principal expansion hotspots during 2010–2020. (4) The dominant driving mechanism gradually shifted from natural factors to the synergistic interaction between natural and socioeconomic factors, and the interaction among driving factors markedly enhanced the explanatory power for ecosystem service evolution. (5) The coupling coordination degree has transitioned from widespread imbalance to a spatially differentiated pattern, characterized by relatively coordinated conditions in peripheral areas and persistent imbalance within the central urban core. These findings provide a robust scientific basis for territorial spatial optimization and the synergistic development of ecological and economic systems in valley-type cities, and offer important implications for sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions. Full article