Green Architectures and Infrastructures for the Urban Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Building and city models adopted over the past half century are no longer practicable and usable since they disregard the relationship of the urban environment with nature and have produced important negative impacts in the urban environment. It is therefore essential to implement solutions that adapt or mitigate the effects the urban heat island and to address urban challenges. Furthermore, designing sustainable energy-efficient buildings is a main goal of world environmental policies to reduce the carbon footprint of the building sector that typically contributes to at least 30–40% of both energy consumption and carbon emissions in most countries.

This context calls for zero or at least low-impact technical solutions in conceiving the building envelope and the urban environment. Since most cities show space constraints, in the general field of green infrastructures, green roofs and walls could play a major role because, in addition to the several social, economic, public health, and environmental benefits, they can help to improve buildings’ thermal performance, especially in summer, and to improve urban stormwater management. Nonetheless, some limits still affect the energy modeling and environmental and economic analyses of these components, and green roofs and walls must be adapted to local conditions and included in urban green infrastructure plans to mitigate climate change.

Knowledge about green architectures has increased significantly in the last 30 years. The scope of this Special Issue focuses on novel developments in the field structural of green architectural research, ecological approaches, resource optimization techniques, spatial structures, materials technology, and other related themes.

The Guest Editors are looking for papers that outline the general development of the main disciplines of green design and how to reach sustainability in a world with rapid climate change. The potential topics for submissions to this Special Issues include (but are not limited to) the following:

• urban resilience and incentives or regulations measures in planning practice;
• runoff quantity and quality and water consumption of green infrastructures;
• energy performance and thermal comfort of buildings;
• urban agriculture, farming, and gardening;
• manufacturing and construction processes of green building components;
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) analyses;
• heat and mass transfer modelling and analysis;
• experimental characterization of new materials for green architectures;
• parametric and optimization analyses;
• long-time real measurements about countable effects and benefits of green buildings.

High-quality papers addressing the above-mentioned issues with particular interest in recent analytical, numerical, and experimental analysis; monitoring evidence; frameworks; case studies of good green architecture design for climate change adaptation and mitigation; development and application of green architectures; and reviews of the current state of knowledge and opportunities for future research will be considered. Articles discussing new methods, indicators, and data useful for more reliable energy modeling and for a better understanding of the actual environmental impact and cost of this technology are also welcome.

This Special Issue will contribute to evaluating the best solutions for green buildings within the scope of the resilience and climate adaptation strategies needed for cities and passing on this information to decision makers.

Dr. Stefano Cascone
Dr. Piero Bevilacqua
Prof. Dr. Natale Arcuri
Dr. Antonio Gagliano
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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• green building
• green infrastructure
• sustainable development
• greenspace
• climate change
• urban heat island
• atmospheric temperature
• energy efficiency
• thermal performance
• energy conservation
• passive cooling
• energy utilization
• water management
• runoff
• evapotranspiration
• irrigation biodiversity
• environmental protection
• conservation of natural resources
• extensive green roofs
• vegetation
• substrate