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A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 February 2024) | Viewed by 22064

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yunyang Ye

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
Interests: building energy policy; building energy systems; sustainable and resilient buildings; electrification and decarbonisation of built environments; grid-interactive efficient buildings; building-to-grid integration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xuechen Lei

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99354, USA
Interests: building energy efficiency; building information modelling; grid-interactive efficiency buildings; urban-scale building simulation and analytics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Electrification and decarbonization are changing the climate, human comfort, and building energy usage at an urban level. Existing power generation infrastructures can be significantly affected by the adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs), which are instrumental facilitators for a more environmentally friendly energy infrastructure. Behind-the-meter DERs enable some electricity end users to be not only consumers, but also generators. These research domains deserve in-depth studies on potential pathways to decarbonization and the associated impacts on climate, human comfort, and energy usage at an urban scale.

This is a multi-domain research topic, which needs contributions from architectural, mechanical, electrical, environmental, economic, and policy researchers. We encourage researchers from different research areas to share domain knowledge and research findings. In this Special Issue, we invite original contributions for state-of-the-art methodologies, case studies, and reviews related to urban climate, comfort, and building energy performance.

We welcome papers on the topics including but not limited to:

Building energy performance at an urban or community scale;
Decarbonization and electrification;
Grid-interactive efficient buildings;
Building-to-grid integration;
Thermal comfort;
Urban and building adaptation strategies to climate change;
Urban microclimate;
Urban-scale environmental and economic analysis.

Dr. Yunyang Ye
Dr. Xuechen Lei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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. Buildings 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 2600 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 microcliamte
decarbonization and electricification
urban-scale building energy performance
grid-interactive efficient buildings
thermal comfort
urban-scale environmental and economic analysis

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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19 pages, 5425 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Impact of Tree Species on the Wind Environment in Tree Arrays Based on Fluid–Structure Interaction: A Case Study of Hangzhou Urban Area

by Junhao Zhu, Xiaojun Luo, Yumei Zhai, Guoyi Zhang, Chicheng Zhou and Zhonggou Chen

Buildings 2024, 14(5), 1409; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14051409 - 14 May 2024

Viewed by 871

Abstract

In order to improve the level of the urban living environment and improve the comfort level of the microclimate, this paper investigates and simulates numerically the influence on the wind environment of different tree species in various tree array layouts, aiming to enhance wind comfort in tree landscapes and reduce the risk of high wind speeds. Initially, the study analyzes the commonly used tree species in Hangzhou’s urban tree arrays (beech, soapberry, and camphor trees), summarizing three types of tree array layouts: retention, through, and enclosure. Subsequently, standard tree models are established to define their crown porosity, trunk elastic modulus, and other physical characteristics. Using fluid–structure interaction methods, the impact of different tree species on the wind environment within various tree array layouts is numerically simulated at a wind speed of 14 m/s. In conclusion, the retention layout is most effective in controlling wind speed. Camphor trees perform excellently in reducing wind speed within both retention and enclosure tree array layouts, with wind reduction efficiencies of 16.06% and 14.09%, respectively. Soapberry trees show optimal wind speed reduction in the through layout, achieving 12.31%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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15 pages, 5925 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reinventing Sustainable Neighborhood Planning: A Case Study of Le Rheu, France

by Ho-Soon Choi

Buildings 2024, 14(2), 536; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14020536 - 17 Feb 2024

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2897

Abstract

This study focuses on sustainable development in urban planning and develops a 21st century sustainable neighborhood. For empirical neighborhood design, urban design was conducted on a specific 5.2 ha site in Le Rheu Commune, France. Targeting a site with the attributes of ecologically based sustainable urban planning, this study derived a neighborhood design model using sustainable development strategy methods from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. Consequently, an infrastructure-based design was created, integrating and accommodating the infrastructure and various urban amenities necessary for the neighborhood. Additionally, infrastructure within the neighborhood was proposed as a design element for technology-based sustainable urban planning. This is a novel, empirical study based on urban planning theory. This theory-based empirical research model contributes to urban planning theory and the knowledge of urban planners and architects. Future studies should conduct urban planning research that combines sustainable neighborhood planning based on ecological infrastructure, as attempted in Le Rheu Commune, with the IoT, such as smart home care. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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17 pages, 13256 KiB

Open AccessArticle

High-Rise Residential District Morphology Optimization for Enhancing the Green Space Cooling Effect

by Feng Shi, Yuan Chen, Wenru Yue and Yupeng Wang

Buildings 2024, 14(1), 183; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14010183 - 11 Jan 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1016

Abstract

Large-scale urban green spaces exert a cooling effect in cities and have great potential for optimizing the urban climate. In this study, taking the typical green space Xingfulindai in Xi’an as an example, we carried out field measurements and ENVI-met simulations of the area and the surrounding high-rise residential areas to analyze the cooling effect. The results show that the cooling effect is the strongest at night in summer seasons, spreading up to 250 m, and the cooling intensity along the downwind direction can be up to 2 °C. On this basis, a total of 16 ideal models of seven groups of high-rise residential blocks were established to analyze the effect of three morphological indices, namely, building orientation, podium ratio, and otherness with respect to the cooling effect of the green space, and a block morphology design strategy for high-rise residential areas was proposed to enhance the cooling effect of the green space. This study provides climate-adaptive optimization strategies for the construction and renewal of residential blocks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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26 pages, 20611 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Investigation of Outdoor Thermal Comfort Assessment for Elderly Individuals in a Field Study in Northeastern China

by Bo Wang, Hongyu Zhao, Bingbing Han and Xue Jiang

Buildings 2023, 13(10), 2458; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102458 - 27 Sep 2023

Viewed by 1280

Abstract

The harsh climate and the aging of urban populations have negatively impacted the quality of life of the elderly in severely cold regions. As a result, there is an urgent need to improve environment quality and accurately evaluate outdoor thermal comfort. However, existing studies have paid little attention to older adults living in severely cold climates. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying the elderly population in severely cold cities with high aging rates in China. By combining on-site testing, questionnaire surveys, CFD modeling, parametric computing, and statistical analysis, the study presents an adapted UTCI for elderly people, as well as multi-seasonal prediction models. The results (1) show that the neutral ranges of the UTCI are significantly affected by both climate zones and age groups. Older people are more tolerant to heat but more sensitive to cold. (2) The results also reveal the importance of factors such as air temperature, wind speed, solar radiation temperature, wind direction, relative humidity, and cloud cover in evaluating outdoor thermal comfort. (3) Multi-seasonal thermal comfort models based on neural networks were developed, and empirical studies verified that the model had the highest accuracy in the transitional season and the lowest accuracy in the winter season. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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24 pages, 11498 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synergistic Effects of Roadside Trees and Spatial Geometry on Thermal Environment in Urban Streets: A Case Study in Tropical, Medium-Sized City, Taiwan

by Jou-Man Huang and Liang-Chun Chen

Buildings 2023, 13(8), 2092; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13082092 - 17 Aug 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1193

Abstract

With the global warming effect and the rapid growth of global urbanization, the concept of urban heat islands (UHIs) has become one of the most important environmental issues in the world. Early studies on UHIs mostly focused on highly developed, large cities and found that urban heat island intensity (UHII) can be as high as 4~7 °C. In recent years, it has also been found that the UHI of medium-sized cities can also reach 4–6 °C. Previous studies have also found that planting, street orientation, and aspect ratio individually have a great impact on the thermal environment of streets, but there are not many studies that comprehensively discuss the synergistic effects of these factors. Therefore, this study takes a tropical, medium-sized city, Chiayi City, as a case study to use the ENVI-met numerical simulation tool to comprehensively compare and analyze the influence of the trees and geometric characteristics of streets on the microclimate and comfort in the streets. As a result, in a tropical, with sea winds (west winds), medium-sized city, by comparison of 12 street schemes with different roadside tree situations (planting or not), orientations (E–W, N–S), and aspect ratios (0.3, 0.7, 1.0), the improvement benefits and possible mechanisms of air temperature, wind speed, MRT, PET, SET, absolute humidity, etc. at the pedestrian street level (H = 1.4 m) were obtained and show that the cooling effect of trees was deeply affected by the street orientation and geometry. An analysis of changes at different heights was also obtained. Finally, design strategy suggestions, such as the street orientation, should be prioritized to be parallel to the prevailing wind; modifying tree shapes or building forms on streets perpendicular to the prevailing wind for creating cool and comfortable streets in future tropical, medium-sized cities were proposed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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19 pages, 1843 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Metaheuristic Hybrid of Double-Target Multi-Layer Perceptron for Energy Performance Analysis in Residential Buildings

by Cheng Lin and Yunting Lin

Buildings 2023, 13(4), 1086; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13041086 - 20 Apr 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1478

Abstract

Recently, metaheuristic algorithms have been recognized as applicable techniques for solving various computational complexities in energy problems. In this work, a powerful metaheuristic technique called the water cycle algorithm (WCA) is assessed for analyzing and predicting two annual parameters, namely thermal energy demand (TD_A) and weighted average discomfort degree-hours (DD_A), for a residential building. For this purpose, a double-target multi-layer perceptron (2TMLP) model is created to establish the connections between the TD_A and DD_A with the geometry and architecture of the building. These connections are then processed and optimized by the WCA using 80% of the data. Next, the applicability of the model is examined using the residual 20%. According to the results, the goodness-of-fit for the TD_A and DD_A was 98.67% and 99.74%, respectively, in terms of the Pearson correlation index. Moreover, a comparison between WCA-2TMLP and other hybrid models revealed that this model enjoys the highest accuracy of prediction. However, the shuffled complex evolution (SCE) optimizer has a better convergence rate. Hence, the final mathematical equation of the SCE-2TMLP is derived for directly predicting the TD_A and DD_A without the need of using programming environments. Altogether, this study may shed light on the applications of artificial intelligence for optimizing building energy performance and related components (e.g., heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems) in new construction projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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16 pages, 6978 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Accessibility Study of a Compact Wind Tunnel with an Unequal Spacing Grid for the Outdoor Wind Environment

by Xiaojun Ma, Yu Zhao, Xueying Wen and Jiujiu Chen

Buildings 2022, 12(12), 2188; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12122188 - 9 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1450

Abstract

One of the key issues in architectural design and regional planning is to create a safe and comfortable outdoor building environment, which calls for more studies. Wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are the primary methods for the current studies. The airflow and boundary conditions are controllable for the wind tunnel experiment, and the data is reliable. In most wind tunnel platforms, spires and roughness elements are applied to create the gradient wind of the atmospheric boundary layer, leading to the oversized, high construction cost, and complex operation. In this paper, in order to explore a simple method for measuring and studying the outdoor building wind environment using wind tunnels, a compact wind tunnel platform adopting grids with unequal spacing was designed and tested, based on the theoretical model of the atmospheric boundary layer. A comparison between the test results and the theoretical values indicated that this new wind tunnel platform could achieve a gradient wind field and is accessible in applying low-speed wind tunnels to the measurement and research of the building wind environment. The application case in a high-rise building of the central business district (CBD) region in Beijing, was presented in this paper. Compared with another analytical method, the CFD simulation, the compact wind tunnel revealed its applicability that could be used for predicting and evaluating the outdoor wind environment around the building. This compact wind tunnel is more flexible and convenient than the traditional ones, with a smaller size, easier construction and operation, and lower costs. Therefore, we suggest more applications of this compact wind tunnel platform in future experimental studies of outdoor wind environments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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18 pages, 5659 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Case Study about Energy and Cost Impacts for Different Community Scenarios Using a Community-Scale Building Energy Modeling Tool

by Yunyang Ye, Xuechen Lei, Jeremy Lerond, Jian Zhang and Eli Thomas Brock

Buildings 2022, 12(10), 1549; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12101549 - 27 Sep 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2185

Abstract

The United States building sector consumed approximately 75% of electricity in 2019. By implementing renewable energy technologies and control strategies into buildings, future buildings will serve as energy generators as well as consumers. To accommodate this transition, communications among buildings and between buildings and the grid could provide more possibilities to optimize the energy performance of buildings. This paper develops a community-scale building energy model tool and conducts a case study adopting behind-the-meter distributed energy resources, sharing energy in different buildings, and using different electricity tariff structures. Three scenarios are studied: (1) electricity only supplied by the grid, (2) photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on and available to some but not all buildings, and (3) a connected community. To consider the impacts of locations and energy tariffs, this paper selects four cities and three electricity tariffs to evaluate the energy and cost performances of these three scenarios. The results show that the PV panels in Scenario 2 reduce 25% to 33% of the community-level electricity consumption and 20% to 30% of the community-level electricity cost compared with Scenario 1 in all studied locations and energy tariffs. By considering power management in the connected community (Scenario 3), the electricity consumption and cost can be further reduced by 6% to 7% and 5% to 11%, respectively, compared with Scenario 2. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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20 pages, 3309 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integrated Economic and Environmental Assessment-Based Optimization Design Method of Building Roof Thermal Insulation

by Haitao Wang, Yuge Huang and Liu Yang

Buildings 2022, 12(7), 916; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12070916 - 29 Jun 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2336

Abstract

The design of thermal insulation in roofs is very important to reduce energy consumption and decrease the environmental impacts of buildings. An integrated economic and environmental assessment-based optimization design method is presented in this paper to find the best candidate insulation design scheme for building roofs, including the determination of roof thermal insulation type and the optimum insulation thickness. In the optimization design method, a zonal method-based double-skin ventilation roof heat transfer model is developed to predict the roof energy consumption. Economic and environmental benefits due to thermal insulation are calculated by using the economic analysis model, the environmental analysis model, and roof energy consumption. Moreover, an integrated dimensionless economic and environmental assessment index is proposed to evaluate different roof thermal insulation design schemes. The optimum insulation thickness is determined by maximizing the sum of economic benefit and environmental benefit due to thermal insulation. The validation results in a real building show that the predicted data for the zonal-based double-skin ventilation roof heat transfer model agreed well with the measured data, with a maximum relative error of 8.2%. The optimum insulation thickness of extruded polystyrene (EPS), mineral wool (MW), and polyurethane (PU) was between 0.082 m and 0.171 m for the single-skin roof in a low-temperature granary in Changsha region in China. The ranking of the integrated assessment indexes of thermal insulation is EPS > MW > PU. A double-skin ventilation roof can reduce the optimum thickness of thermal insulation. The best result is obtained by EPS for the double-skin roof with a grey outer surface color for the low-temperature granary roof in Changsha region in China. The influencing factors of insulation type, roof structure, and roof outer-surface color should be considered in finding the best candidate insulation design solution for building roofs. The integrated economic and environmental assessment-based optimization design method can help designers to efficiently find the best design scheme of thermal insulation to maximize the sum of economic benefit and environmental benefit for building roofs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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25 pages, 26497 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainability Study of a Residential Building near Subway Based on LCA-Emergy Method

by Xinnan Chen, Hairuo Wang, Junxue Zhang, He Zhang, Ashish T. Asutosh, Guodong Wu, Guobin Wei, Yaling Shi and Minghui Yang

Buildings 2022, 12(5), 679; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12050679 - 19 May 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2261

Abstract

In the context of ecological building and green building popularity, building sustainability assessment is becoming more and more important. In this paper, a comprehensive evaluation platform by coupled LCA method and energy method was designed, verified, and analyzed to assess the sustainability of the building system. The main results illustrated that the construction stage is the most critical stage in terms of emergy angle. From a sustainability perspective, the Emergy Sustainability Indicator was at a moderate level (1.0141), which can be considered to increase the proportion of renewable energy and reduce the proportion of non-renewable resources to improve the sustainability degree. Of the three scenarios designed, the second scenario has the best sustainability in the building system. The unit emergy value of the whole building was also shown to demonstrate the unit emergy of an individual. In order to verify the accuracy of the data, a sensitivity analysis was conducted. Finally, two types of positive measures are proposed to ameliorate the environmental sustainability in the building system, containing the increasing proportion of renewable energy and using recycled building materials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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16 pages, 2594 KiB

Open AccessPerspective

A Perspective of Decarbonization Pathways in Future Buildings in the United States

by Yunyang Ye, Ammar H. A. Dehwah, Cary A. Faulkner, Haripriya Sathyanarayanan and Xuechen Lei

Buildings 2023, 13(4), 1003; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13041003 - 11 Apr 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3524

Abstract

The commitment of electrification and decarbonization goals in the United States (U.S.) will significantly change the performance of future buildings. To meet these goals, it is critical to summarize the existing research related to building electrification and decarbonization and discuss future research pathways. This paper provides a perspective on decarbonization pathways of future buildings in the U.S. A critical review of the existing research was conducted, which is divided into three closely linked categories: technologies, economic impacts, and code regulations. Technologies support investments and code regulations while marketing affects the design of building codes and standards. In the meantime, code regulations guide the development of technologies and marketing. Based on the review, future potential research directions for building decarbonization are then discussed. Due to the needs of building decarbonization, future research will be multidisciplinary, conducted at a large geographic scale, and involve a multitude of metrics, which will undoubtedly introduce new challenges. The perspective presented in this paper will provide policy-makers, researchers, building owners, and other stakeholders with a way to understand the impact of electrification and decarbonization of future buildings in the U.S. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Climate, Comfort and Building Energy Performance)

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