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Sustainable Buildings: Advances for Material Efficiency and Circular Economy in the Built Environment

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 January 2022) | Viewed by 5824

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Infrastructure and Environment, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK
Interests: engineering for development; urban mining; material efficiency; circular economy; design innovation; design for environment; industrial ecology

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environment Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2BU, UK
Interests: sustainable materials; sustainable construction; novel construction materials; materials and energy; cementitious materials; material substitution; cement science; data science and sustainability; industrial decarbonization; circular economy; industrial ecology

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Guest Editor
School of Design, Universidad Adolfo Ibanez (UAI), Diagonal Las Torres 2640, Samtiago, Chile
Interests: low carbon construction; design technology; additive manufacturing; 3D printing; design thinking and methods; design computation; sensing technologies; digital fabrication; informal and vernacular construction

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Guest Editor
Engineering Product Development Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore 487372, Singapore
Interests: materials selection; natural materials; design education; design theory and methodology; ideation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Material consumption is greatly driven by the demand for construction materials. Due to the growing need for infrastructure and buildings across the globe, emissions associated with material production (currently ~23%) are expected to remain or increase in the future, further contributing to the climate emergency. Urgent measures are thus needed to reduce material consumption and/or associated carbon emissions.

This special issue aims to bring together authoritative commentary, step-change research, and evidence based recommendations to improve material efficiency and promote the circular economy in the construction sector in an environmentally beneficial manner. Given the complexity of stakeholders, geographical diversity, construction approaches, and building archetypes, we seek to invite research from all perspectives across the whole life cycles of buildings and infrastructure. We hope that this Special Issue can provide a consolidated set of rigorous research into low carbon construction, material and components substitutions, end-of-life circularity and designing with reuse. The scope of this issue covers all aspects related to material sourcing, production, construction, renovation and maintenance, demolition and/or adaptive reuse, end-of-life reuse, and demolition waste recycling. Submissions may include material, component, building and/or territorial assessments, and recommendations from any aspects of sustainability, circularity, industrial ecology, symbiosis and/or metabolism. Novel contributions from materials science, and technology policy within this scope are also welcome.

We look forward to working with you to make this Special Issue a high quality collection of Sustainable Built Environment research.


Dr. Mohit Arora
Prof. Dr. Rupert Myers
Prof. Dr. Felix Raspall
Dr. Arlindo Silva
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.

Keywords

  • net zero buildings
  • sustainable construction
  • embodid energy
  • material substitution
  • design with reuse
  • circular economy
  • climate mitigation
  • technology policy

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

38 pages, 3086 KiB  
Article
A Methodology to Qualitatively Select Upcycled Building Materials from Urban and Industrial Waste
by Sara Parece, Vasco Rato, Ricardo Resende, Pedro Pinto and Stefania Stellacci
Sustainability 2022, 14(6), 3430; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063430 - 15 Mar 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4933
Abstract
The rising concern about climate change and other challenges faced by the planet led society to look for different design solutions and approaches towards a more balanced relationship between the built and natural environment. The circular economy is an effective alternative to the [...] Read more.
The rising concern about climate change and other challenges faced by the planet led society to look for different design solutions and approaches towards a more balanced relationship between the built and natural environment. The circular economy is an effective alternative to the linear economic model inspired by natural metabolisms and the circular use of resources. This research explores how innovative strategies can be integrated for evaluating local urban and industrial wastes into sustainable building materials. A literature review is conducted focusing on circular design strategies, re-use, recycle, and waste transformation processes. Then, a methodology for the selection of upcycled and re-used building materials is developed based on Ashby’s method. A total of thirty-five types of partition walls, which include plastic, wood, paper, steel, aluminium, and agricultural wastes, are evaluated using a multi-criteria decision aid (M-MACBETH). Among these solutions, ten types of walls show high-performance thermal and sound isolation, fourteen types are effective for coating, and two exhibit structural reliability. Regardless of their functional limitations, the proposed solutions based on waste materials bear great potential within the construction industry. Full article
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