Building Research & Information

Hot and arid regions require substantial energy to maintain indoor thermal comfort due to extreme climatic conditions. Selection and optimization of building materials offer substantial potential for enhancing energy efficiency and thermal comfort. This study investigates building envelope materials’ impacts on energy efficiency and occupant comfort through multi-objective optimization, evaluating six materials (insulated adobe, adobe, fire bricks, concrete, stone masonry and sintered bricks). In addition to Energy Use Intensity (EUI), Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage of People Dissatisfied (PPD), a novel comfort level index is proposed, integrating thermal comfort perception and energy efficiency. This index quantifies both occupant thermal comfort perception and energy effectiveness of achieving such comfort conditions. A case study of Sukkur, Pakistan, using EnergyPlus simulations revealed insulated adobe as the optimal solution. Its Pareto-optimal configuration reduced annual energy consumption by 37.6% compared to concrete while ensuring thermal comfort for occupants. The results highlight that insulated adobe has superior thermophysical properties for balancing energy savings and comfort in hot, arid climates. This framework provides architects and policymakers with a decision-making tool to achieve climate-responsive designs through material optimization, advancing sustainable construction practices. The methodology and index offer theoretical and practical contributions to building performance evaluation.

The demand for green insulation materials is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years as the building sector moves towards carbon neutrality. Waste-based thermal insulation materials offer a promising area of research that aims to make a significant contribution to energy and resource efficiency while helping the building sector achieve sustainability targets. However, despite the growing interest of researchers, proposed waste-based thermal insulation products are still mostly at an experimental research level, far from ready for the construction market. The study investigates the potential availability of waste materials for use in thermal insulation products, focusing on the Italian context. The objective is to identify available quantities of waste suitable for use in or as insulation products and the possible barriers to their widespread adoption in the construction industry. The methodology starts with an international literature review, followed by an analysis of national waste statistics to verify quantities, and production and/or collection points for each waste. As a result, more than 20 materials are identified as promising for market uptake. The materials are mostly based on early-stage research, thus a lack of comprehensive analysis regarding their performances limits their application in building renovation and highlights the need for further research.

The conservation of architectural heritage increasingly focuses on modern functional demands. However, while some existing evaluation frameworks incorporate aspects such as social value, many still emphasize structural preservation and aesthetic restoration, often underrepresenting user-centred sustainability. This study designed a template based on focus group interviews with 16 experts and a literature review. A survey involving 425 residents was conducted to evaluate the functional adaptability of heritage buildings. The findings revealed notable gaps between perceived importance and actual performance. Indicators like Ease of Maintenance and Accessible Design were rated as highly important but performed poorly, while Structural Safety and Fire Safety Systems showed strong performance but lower perceived importance. The results indicate a shift in stakeholder priorities, with operational relevance and inclusivity now outweighing traditional safety concerns. By aligning historical preservation with modern usability, the proposed framework promotes sustainable and inclusive heritage adaptation. It offers actionable insights to integrate stakeholder perspectives into evaluations and inform policy and conservation practices.

As the construction industry is progressively adopting circular economy principles, there is an increased interest in prolonging the service lives of buildings by designing them to be adaptable. This is particularly relevant for timber buildings, as extended-use phases promote prolonged carbon storage and sustainable forestry. Applying the concept of Design for Structural Adaptation (DfSA) to load-bearing timber may grant such benefits, yet it is uncertain whether there are motivations for stakeholders to apply the concept on an industrial scale. In particular, the economic implications of implementing DfSA for timber are currently unclear. This study addresses this uncertainty by investigating the economic feasibility of applying DfSA to a theoretical multi-residential cross-laminated timber building in Sweden. A model for comparative cost–benefit analysis was developed and applied to two alternatives: a business-as-usual building and one designed for structural adaptation. A sensitivity analysis was performed to explore the factors determining the economic feasibility of DfSA, and a best- and worst-case scenario was developed. The results showed that a low investment cost for DfSA is the most crucial factor in determining its economic feasibility.

Research has proven that the ideal thermal comfort parameters for sleep differ from those for awake conditions. However, predicting thermal comfort for sleep is challenging, especially studies that permit subjects to perform normal adaptive behaviour such as choosing their own sleepwear and adding or removing blankets. Therefore, this study uses empirical data to predict subjects’ sleep interruptions from indoor environmental quality (IEQ) conditions. We monitored 15 human subjects in their own homes over 378 total person-nights, under their preferred sleeping conditions, recording asleep, awake, and restless periods, via wristband fitness trackers. We simultaneously monitored indoor environmental variables including dry-bulb temperature, relative humidity, sound pressure levels, and carbon dioxide concentrations. By using explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), specifically, the XGBoost model, the study revealed that CO2 levels and heat index demonstrate the most significant association with sleep classification. Within the observed conditions of 16–25°C (with most observations falling within 21–23°C), an increase of 1.4°C in the average temperature and a 2–6% fluctuation in relative humidity tended to increase restlessness in the subjects. When temperature fluctuations exceeded 60% relative to the mean temperature, these fluctuations were correlated with a significant 50% reduction in sleep efficiency.

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) has a pivotal role in determining the health, comfort, wellbeing and productivity of people within the built environment. The continuous escalation of temperatures worldwide intensifies the global interest in creating design solutions to ensure a comfortable and healthy built environment. Building location, orientation, climate, typology and occupant actions influence IEQ. Indoor activities and building components contribute to indoor air pollution. New design solutions are integrating passive and active strategies and combining traditional and innovative techniques. This Special Issue, Impact of indoor environmental quality on health and wellbeing in a warming climate, delves into the dynamic field of IEQ research from both subjective experiences of building occupants to the objective measurement of physical parameters. The 14 articles cover topics related to weighting schemes of IEQ factors, building design strategies, new methodological approaches to studying IEQ, and evaluation of thermal comfort, natural ventilation, indoor air quality, and light conditions under different contexts.

Sensory-Informed Architectural Design for autistic individuals can significantly enhance health and well-being. This study introduces a taxonomy to classify sensory and spatial design qualities, promoting a unified understanding of current frameworks. Through a literature review of 76 sources, 83 sensory-informed design qualities were identified. The sources were selected based on their relevance to autism-friendly design, ensuring a robust dataset for analysis. Critical gaps in the field were identified, including the reliance on intuition sensory zoning as the main driver for spatial topology without quantifying the sensory drivers, and an emphasis on interior design elements over spatial configuration. Furthermore, the lack of a classification system for the design qualities of autism was noted. Using a thematic analysis, this study proposes four main themes to form an original taxonomy for classifying sensory and design qualities. Unlike prior literature focusing on discrete design qualities, this taxonomy integrates and categorises spatial- and sensory-based aspects into a comprehensive framework. The taxonomy systematically organises design qualities into structured categories, offering a practical tool for designers, educators and policymakers. In conclusion, by addressing fragmented and vague design qualities in earlier research, this study bridges theoretical concepts with practical implementations by forming a solid base for future research.

With rapid technological evolution, Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) have improved energy and water consumption visibility and provided the ability to rapidly detect energy and water waste. However, their integration with facilities management has had little attention from researchers. This study explores the design and optimization of technical information flows between automated data analysis systems and human facilities management systems in a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) case study. Semi-structured interviews were used to support the co-design of an intervention, based on the systematic integration of EMIS into existing facilities management systems. When the intervention was deployed, longstanding and previously unidentified issues were quickly highlighted and resolved, leading to significant savings. The study concludes that integrating EMIS and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) can enhance the efficiency of middle-out actors in reducing energy and water waste in facilities management. While near-real-time feedback and other technological solutions are effective, the findings highlight the importance of communicating technical information clearly through appropriate channels, as well as middle role challenges such as limited resources, high workloads, and insufficient senior management backing. As facilities management adapts to and integrates new technologies, its full potential can be realized through effective communication and feedback mechanisms.

Acquiring precise and comprehensive representations of architectural structures or industrial installations is crucial for a variety of monitoring and cadastral applications. A number of tools have been developed for this purpose, but they often face the problem with balancing accuracy and acquisition time. Terrestrial laser scanners typically provide the highest precision in point clouds, as they perform scanning while motionlessly mounted on rigid tripods. Careful pre-planning is needed for scanner locations on the object under investigation. Limited number of scanning locations often compromises point clouds at inaccessible locations, especially in complex environments. In this paper, we propose a solution to this issue by employing an autonomous quadrupedal robot-based laser scanner to augment the point clouds obtained with high-precision stationary scanners. We demonstrate this approach in an auditorium consisting of stairs, multi-row seats and additional complex-shaped acoustic diffusors.

Performance metrics (PMs) are essential in aiding hospital building maintenance managers in their decision-making processes. Although computerized maintenance management systems (CMMSs) are widely used in hospital maintenance and can store extensive data, there is limited literature documenting PMs derived from these sources. This study aimed to identify PMs in corrective building maintenance using a CMMS dataset from a Brazilian public hospital covering the years 2017–2022. A case study was conducted by analysing the evolution of work orders (WOs) over time and investigating lead times across hospital sectors and maintenance services. Textual analysis was used to explore the relationship between specific terms within WOs and lead times. The findings revealed (i) the impact of COVID-19 on WOs, (ii) a lack of evidence that requests were prioritized based on their origin and (iii) the relationship between specific keywords in user requests and faster responses. This study demonstrates that analysing past WOs can potentially enhance hospital corrective maintenance processes.