Ricardo Mateus

University of Minho · Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE)

Since the last decade of the twentieth century, the healthcare industry is paying attention to the environmental impact of their buildings and therefore new regulations, policy goals, and Building Sustainability Assessment (HBSA) methods are being developed and implemented. At the present, healthcare is one of the most regulated industries and it i...

Vernacular architecture is characterised by a type of formal expression, which has been developed in response to a number of factors - geographic, climatic and economic - characterising the local area or region. Despite the fact that Portugal is a small country, there are many different architectural approaches and a range of techniques have been e...

The built environment accounts for approximately 50% of total raw material extraction and 25% of all waste in the European Union, much of which comprises materials with significant potential for reuse and recycling. Given the finite nature of the planet’s resources, transitioning to a circular economy (CE) approach within the built environment, par...

The construction sector is a major contributor to environmental degradation, prompting the need for integrating sustainability into its practices. This need has driven the development of sustainability assessment methods across various scales of the built environment. Simultaneously, the recent emphasis on Circular Economy (CE) principles has intro...

The Circular Economy (CE) emerged in the last decade as an imperative path to transition towards more sustainable practices and go beyond carbon neutrality. Applying CE principle in the built environment has been investigated and recent research advocated for positive impacts if the sector embraces the paradigm shift and moves away from linear towa...

Vernacular architecture embodies a lasting connection between communities, climates, and topographic landscapes, providing basic shelter needs for centuries. Adopting Montesinho Natural Park as a case study, this paper explores the essence of vernacular architecture, highlighting its adaptation and dynamic relationships with local climates, geograp...

Wood and bio-based construction products are perceived as a way to use renewable resources, to save energy and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG)-emissions during production and to store carbon during the entire service life of the building. This article compares the carbon footprint per kilogram of wood products (softwood beams, plywood, oriented st...

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) ensure future human well-being. However, they face challenges due to the pressing need to reduce carbon emissions, with nearly 40% originating from the construction sector. With the current global environmental and energy crisis, there is a pressing need to address building carbon emissions...

Roof plays an important protective role in a building, and claddings are the first element to collaborate in that function. In Portuguese architecture, ceramic roof tiles are the most common claddings in pitched roofs. Concrete roof tiles are a good alternative because of their technical performance and visual similarity to ceramic ones. Both have...

The built environment is responsible for around 50% of the total extraction of raw materials and 25% of all waste in the European Union, which comprises numerous materials that still have the potential for reuse and recycling. Due to the planet’s finite reserves, transitioning towards a circular approach in the built environment to achieve sustaina...

Global environmental awareness pushes the building sector to achieve carbon neutrality and find low embodied impact solutions. The European Union has set a 2050 goal and is regulating the whole carbon life cycle (embodied and operational) as part of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). In this scope, low-tech geo-bio-based material...

Building materials are responsible for significant CO2 emissions and energy consumption, both during production and operational phases. Earth as a building material offers a valuable alternative to conventional materials, as it naturally provides high hygrothermal comfort and air quality even with passive conditioning systems. However, disadvantage...

In the context of sustainable building development, Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) have garnered increasing attention in recent years owing to their minimal environmental and economic impact. However, owing to the inherent diversity of raw soil and the production process's reliance on expertise, the properties of these blocks are subjected to multi...

Facing the increased pursuit for sustainable buildings, the construction industry has been adopting new project technologies such as Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) and Building Information Modelling (BIM), providing new potentialities like continuous data storage, optimised building performance and integrated building design. Facing the o...

This research explores the environmental impact of architecture and the need for sustainability in building construction. Currently, economic costs often overshadow long-term considerations. However, the concept of sustainability aims to change this mindset by emphasizing material choices, energy efficiency, and the preservation of green spaces and...

The objective of the paper is to understand the most representative typologies of vernacular buildings at the Montesinho National Park (MNP), in the north of Portugal, based on information obtained from field research. The vernacular architecture in rural villages has suffered an important transformation process in recent years due to significant s...

Within the context of climate change and the environmental impact of the building industry, insulation materials contribute to improving the thermal performance of buildings, thus reducing energy demand and carbon emissions during the operation phase. Although most of them are responsible for significant carbon emissions during their production, bi...

The evidence of climate change has increased the necessity for actions to avoid severe consequences for future generations. Recognising the benefits of sustainable and energy-efficient buildings has led to the development of several methods to estimate and rate the performance of building. Healthcare buildings are functional and dynamic structures...

This study assessed the sustainability of two partition walls and intended to contribute to the Circular Economy in the construction sector. A life cycle approach and a multi-criteria decision support method were applied to know the environmental, functional, and economic performances of the production process of half-sandwich panels based on alkal...

Water is a crucial resource for life, and it is increasingly scarce in many regions of the globe. In addition, retail water use is responsible for up to 19% of public water globally supplied. Hence, this study has set out to explore the technical and economic feasibility of rainwater harvesting systems as an alternative water source for a retail st...

Bio-based and natural building materials can support the building sector to reduce its environmental impact. In this study, experimental research was developed to evaluate the performance of giant reed when used as a building thermal insulation. Reed was chosen due to its high availability and close relationship to Portuguese vernacular architectur...

(1) Background: The embodied energy of building materials is a significant contributor to climate change, in tandem with the energy use intensity (EUI). Yet, studies on the material impacts of European retail buildings, namely with relation to EUI, are missing. Hence, this study set out to: (i) evaluate the embodied energy and carbon emissions for...

Population in developed countries spend most of their time indoors, whether in their homes, workplaces, stores or leisure areas. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this situation worsened and now, more than ever, the importance of a high Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is highlighted. The IEQ is very important in building performance since it is dire...

The construction sector plays an important role in climate change. Thus, there is a pressing need to construct buildings that reduce heat losses, use natural and local materials, exploit renewable sources and ensure high comfort levels with a minimum environmental impact. Reed, considered carbon-neutral and a carbon dioxide sink material, has been...

Retail stores are among the building typologies with the highest consumption of natural resources. However, studies regarding the development of Building Sustainability Assessment methods for retail buildings are missing, despite their environmental, economic, and social importance. This study intends to address this gap in knowledge by (i) develop...

Wood and other bio-based building materials are often perceived as a good choice from a climate mitigation perspective. This article compares the life cycle assessment of the same multi-residential building from the perspective of 16 countries participating in the international project Annex 72 of the International Energy Agency to determine the ef...

Retail water use accounts for up to 19% of public water globally supplied. However, the water intensity of retail stores and its drivers remains largely unexplored. This study is the first of its kind to provide water intensity indicators for retail buildings, namely Water Intensity per store Area (WIA), Water Intensity per Store (WIS), Water Inten...

Assessing singular elements that constitute the air barrier of a building envelope is quite unfeasible in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The study of these solutions through this particular scope is often overlooked. Two major aspects contribute to it: the complexity of the relationships between elements and the reduced embodied impact of these mater...

This study explored which envelope solutions in retail buildings led to cost-optimal levels considering the Energy Performance of Building Directive and Portuguese regulation. For such, energy simulations were run in BIM software based on the analysis of a case study in Portugal. Typical alternative solutions were tested against the original case s...

CWA 17939 - TRAIN4SUSTAIN Competence Quality Standard. The construction sector is one of the main drivers of EU’s economy. Despite major efforts in harmonising and standardization of qualification and training procedures across the EU, the competence level of sustainability experts and the underlying training and education contents varies significa...

Purpose This research presents the development of a Building Passport for Sustainable Conservation (BPSC) as a questionnaire with a set of 23 core indicators, for a baseline assessment of heritage buildings. The aim of this tool is to identify priorities for future interventions, by recognising the contributions of heritage buildings to sustainabil...

In recent years, construction industry has been looking for ways to adopt technical solutions towards environmental preservation and conservation of natural resources. With the scarcity of building materials and the consequent increase in construction prices intensified after the Covid-19 pandemic, sustainable development based on the concepts of t...

The concept and practice of sustainability in urban planning have gained worldwide significance since the early 2000s and have become increasingly mainstream in the policymaking process. Adopting global frameworks, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and ISO standards, for sustainable communities provides an opportunity to buil...

Transition zones, specifically embankment structures on railway tracks, are recurrently damaged by high-speed rail traffic, thus producing abrupt variations in the track vertical stiffness. The main objective of this work is to study the implementation of Construction and Demolition (C&D) wastes, specifically Bi-Block (BB) concrete sleepers, to min...

The purpose of this closure is to present a response to the doubts arisen by the authors of the Discussion of the Review article with the title “Optimisation of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) using natural origin materials: A systematic literature review” [1], published in the journal Construction and Building Materials on 1 October 2021. The body...

This article presents a methodological framework combining a life cycle cost assessment (LCC) and a life cycle assessment (LCA). The purpose is to assess the relevance of embodied energy and carbon emissions on the cost-effectiveness of building renovation solutions towards nZEB at the neighbourhood scale by comparing an operational energy approach...

The building sector plays a significant role in reducing global energy use and carbon emissions. In the European Union (EU), the building stock represents 40% of total energy use and in which cooling and heating systems represent over 50%. Portugal is one of the EU countries where the consequences of energy poverty are most evident due to the famil...

The purpose of this study is to explore Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to predict the compressive and tensile strengths of natural fibre-reinforced Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs). To this end, a database was created by collecting data from the available literature. Data relating to 332 specimens (Database 1) were used for the prediction of the c...

A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the effect of the optimisation of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) using natural origin materials was made in this paper. The purpose of the study is to offer a clearer vision of recent scientific developments on the topic by addressing a number of specifically formulated research questions. To this end, 45 jou...

Despite the recognised importance of built heritage for sustainable development, and the multiple tools, recommendations, guidelines, and policies developed in recent years to support decision-making, good sustainable conservation practices often fail to be implemented. Challenges faced by practitioners often relate to external factors, and there i...

Knowing the properties of vernacular materials is crucial to heritage conservation and to develop innovative solutions. Reed, considered to be a carbon-neutral and a carbon dioxide sink material, has been used for centuries for diverse uses. Its high availability and properties made it a popular building material, including in Portuguese vernacular...

In general, steel and concrete composite floors tend to present a reduced functional performance (considering thermal and acoustic conditions), due to their low mass and to the high conductivity of the steel elements. By including components with high thermal insulation capacity in these structural systems, it is possible to maintain the structure...

Buildings are responsible for several negative impacts on the environment, most of them related to nonrenewable energy consumption, increasing the concern regarding buildings energy efficiency. In this context, computer software has been used to estimate the energy needs of the built environment, and the Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodo...

Due to the time-consuming and complicated process of performing Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA), this is usually incompatible with construction companies’ deadlines. With the emergence of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the construction industry, the opportunity for BSA methods to adopt and benefit from BIM arises. Following a prev...

Population growth, along with a rapid urban expansion, is imposing a heavy pressure on the planet’s finite resources. It is widely acknowledged that the building industry consumes large amounts of raw materials while generating waste and emissions. To set apart economic growth from environmental repercussions, the Circular Economy (CE) arose as an i...

This research applies the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to measure the gap between designers’ intentions towards heritage conservation and the actual design decisions. It aims at contributing to identify which psychological constructs (attitude, norm, perception of control) are hindering the implementation of sustainable conservation approaches...

A growing concern is given to the environmental impacts caused by the construction industry. Waste generation, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions are the main drawbacks of the rapid urbanization that the world is witnessing. As a response to these pressing issues, policymakers and academia are exploring the concept of Circular Econo...

This paper presents and discusses the selection of a set of core indicators for the sustainable conservation of built heritage. This core set of indicators was selected by following a two-step methodology: 1) first, a comparative analysis of indicators of two building sustainability assessment (BSA) tools with different approaches was performed by...

The search for environmental preservation and conservation of natural resources gives rise to new concepts and viable technical solutions on the path to sustainable development. In this context, this study's main objective is to analyse the influence of recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) on the development of pervious concrete, whose use as a floo...

The inclusion of Heritage in the global agenda for sustainable development has contributed to a broader discussion around the interconnection between heritage and sustainability. However, the definitions of both concepts lack consensus. In the last decade, hundreds of definitions of sustainability can be identified in the scientific literature. Oft...

The palafitic timber constructions of the central Portuguese coastline are an example of the adaptation to site-specific conditions (climate and sand landscape morphodynamics) using the available endogenous resources. Thus, in a context of environmental awareness and climate change, it is relevant to understand their features/strategies and how the...

Introduction The benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the construction industry are already known and proved. One of the applications of BIM is to estimate buildings energy demand and foster the introduction of more efficient design alternatives. BIM creates information to support designers’ decision-making and to allow them to comp...

Background In the last years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) have been integrated to support the pursuit of sustainability in the built environment. However, the integration of environmental information with different specificity and reliability requirements on distinct Levels of Development (LOD) of BIM object...

Introduction: The international research project IEA EBC Annex 72 investigates the life cycle related environmental impacts caused by buildings. The project aims inter alia to harmonise LCA approaches on buildings. Methods: To identify major commonalities and discrepancies among national LCA approaches, reference buildings were defined to present a...