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Topic Review
Earthquake Consideration in Architectural Design: Guidelines for Architects
The need for architects and engineers to take earthquake resilience into account in their designs is becoming increasingly critical as urbanization keeps growing and more people move into earthquake-prone areas. Architectural earthquake-resistant designs are necessary to protect building integrity and occupant safety during seismic disasters.
  • 2.5K
  • 21 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Affordances of Innovative Learning Environments
Emerging innovative learning environments (ILEs) are designed to enable a wider pedagogical repertoire than traditional classrooms. In order to transcend stereotypical understandings about how the physical environment in schools may afford teaching and learning activities, it is becoming increasingly recognised that both design and practice reconceptualisation is required for affordances of new learning environments to be effectively actualised in support of contemporary education. 
  • 2.5K
  • 28 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Barriers of Circular Economy in Construction Industry
To facilitate the adoption of the circular economy (CE) in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector, some authors have demonstrated the potential of recent designs that take into account the sustainable management of an asset’s end-of-life (EOL), providing an alternative to the dominant designs that end with demolition. Eighteen approaches related to prefabrication, design for change, design for deconstruction, reverse logistics, waste management and closed-loop systems were found. Researchers has assessed the barriers to those 18 approaches identified in the literature.
  • 2.5K
  • 07 Dec 2021
Topic Review
BRP for Non-Residential Buildings
According to its strategic long-term vision, Europe wants to be a climate-neutral economy by 2050 and buildings represent a sector with low-cost opportunities for high-level CO2 reduction. The main challenge is to increase the renovation rate of the existing building stock, which currently is around 1.2%/year. The ALliance for Deep RENovation (ALDREN) project developed a Holistic and reliable European Voluntary Certification Scheme to trigger deep renovation of non-residential buildings. The ALDREN approach is composed by a sum of protocols and tools with the goal of encouraging property owners to undertake renovation of existing buildings using a clear, robust, and comparable method using coherent and harmonized instruments, the so called ALDREN EPC and ALDREN Building Renovation Passport for non-residential buildings.
  • 2.5K
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Digital Preservation for UNESCO Architectural Heritage
Architectural heritage includes built structures that are of outstanding value of natural and cultural identity and require conservation, preservation, presentation and transmission to the future generations. In this regard, UNESCO has enlisted six World Heritage Sites in Pakistan that need to be preserved. Moreover, the heritage sites are undergoing theft, vandalism, natural decay and other socio-cultural harms. One of the state-of-the-art methodologies is the digital preservation of the historic sites. Amongst the various available computer technologies, photogrammetry is the quickest and most cost-effective method that can be used for digital preservation. The research will focus on the digital preservation of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which is an emerging trend in an architectural context. Developing countries have limited funds and resources and most historic sites are being neglected by the lack of financial resources. This research suggests digital preservation as an emerging solution, identifies its challenges and suggests photogrammetry as a cost-effective solution to six UNESCO enlisted historic sites of Pakistan. It also suggests that once digitally recorded, information of historic sites can also be used in diverse applications to generate further finances. 
  • 2.5K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Impacts of Prefabrication in the Building Construction Industry
Interest in sustainable construction has been increasing due to recent events. The limitations of natural resources and the scale of global impacts, specifically as a result of the effects of global climate change, have consequences for the construction sector. These changes are giving rise to a need to reassess the way we face the built environment and rethink new solutions for construction systems or methods that contribute to mitigating negative consequences, among which we highlight the prefabrication method. This new scenario, characterised by the need to meet the decarbonisation goals set for 2050, as well as the effects of the spread of the pandemic crisis, emphasizes the importance of understanding the impacts that may occur in the construction industry, which are essentially understood as increases in sustainability, productivity, quality and, consequently, as reductions in deadlines, costs, and dependence on labour. Therefore, this entry seeks to study on the existing literature on prefabrication, seeking to gather relevant information on the new advances, challenges, and opportunities of this construction method whose approach has been mostly focused on partial or specific aspects for case studies, both highlighting the potential and identifying the gaps and opportunities of prefabrication in this new context. The prefabrication method brings benefits compared to the conventional method, and may be an alternative, as it has more positive global impacts on the environment, the economy, and society, and consequently on the sustainable development of construction, despite some limitations that have been reported and that should be looked into in the future.
  • 2.5K
  • 14 Nov 2023
Topic Review
Circular-economy in the Built Environment
       The circular economy in the building sector is an approach aiming at minimizing waste and emissions, as well as closing water, energy, and material loops. Under a circular built environment, landfilling is no longer an option to handle construction and demolition waste, and design for disassembly has a central role. Design for disassembly is a concept in which buildings and products are designed intentionally for material recovery, value retention, and meaningful next use.
  • 2.4K
  • 12 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Solid Waste Management
Disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the significant global issues that is more evident in developing nations. One of the key methods for disposing of the MSW is locating, assessing, and planning for landfill sites.  Due to rapidly expanding global urbanization, associated lack of resources, and inadequate urban waste management, MSW issues and management concerns are on the rise. Over a third of total municipal waste out of two billion tons generated remains uncollected worldwide. MSW is collected and disposed of at certain locations or burnt down in most developing nations. Landfill sites for solid waste must be inspected in terms of all requirements to reduce economic and environmental expenses.
  • 2.4K
  • 17 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Date Palm Fiber Reinforced Composites
The use of natural fibers in cementitious composites continue gaining acceptability and applicability due to the shortcomings and disadvantages of synthetic fiber; this is because natural fibers have advantages of sustainability, eco-friendliness, and economy. Biodegradable natural fibers, being low density and lightweight, with typical values of strength-to-weight ratio, aspect ratio, elastic modulus, and strength, may be competitive for substituting synthetic fibers such as glass and carbon. Indeed, natural fibers are mostly non-irritating for the skin and typically pose no troubles or issues for breathing, which is not the case with many synthetic fibers. Date palm fiber (DPF) is a natural fiber obtained as waste material from a date palm tree. In many countries, with large date production, DPF is easily available as a process by-product, with a low processing cost. Being sustainable and environmentally friendly, DPF is continuously gaining acceptability as fiber material in different composites such as concrete, mortar, gypsum composites, clay composites, and bricks.
  • 2.4K
  • 07 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Status and Challenges of Low Carbon Building Design
Excessive carbon emissions are causing the problems of global warming and the greenhouse effect, which urgently need to be controlled worldwide. It is crucial to reduce the carbon emissions of the construction industry as it is one of the main sources. Carbon is generated at all phases of the building life cycle, including in material production, building design, and building operation and maintenance. Notably, building design has various extents of influence on carbon emissions at each phase, for which a low carbon method urgently needs to be explored. The challenges of building design are as follows: lack of (1) a comprehensive standard system considering different factors, (2) lack of a carbon emission calculation method for the design phase, and a (3) no real-time optimization model aiming at carbon reduction. The path of “standard-calculation-prediction-optimization”(SCPO) for future building design is proposed to address these challenges. It takes standard system as the framework, the carbon calculation method as the foundation, the prediction model as the theory, and the low carbon building as the objective.
  • 2.4K
  • 28 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Phase Change Materials-Incorporated Glazing Units
The building envelope provides thermal comfort, an excellent visual view, and sunlight for the occupants. It consists of two parts: (i) opaque (non-transparent) part (e.g., walls and roofs) and (ii) transparent part (e.g., windows, curtain walls, and skylight devices). Recently, the use of fully-glazed facades, especially in large cities, has been increased due to their aesthetical and structural advantages. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) as latent energy storage material is the focus of this research, as well as other individual and combined techniques, including shading systems, solar cells (photovoltaic), and chromogenic (thermotropic and thermochromic) materials. PCM-integrated glazing systems have been extensively studied and rapidly developed over the past several decades from the standpoint of unique system designs, such as passive, active, and passive/active mixed designs, intelligent management, and sophisticated controls. In the academic literature, numerous studies on PCM-integrated building envelopes have been conducted, a comprehensive review of PCM-integrated GUs combined with other passive and active techniques using dialectical analysis and comparing the climatic conditions of each study using Köppen-Geiger climate classification climate classification has been performed only rarely. Consequently, the primary objective of this research is to reduce this discrepancy for all types of glazing, excluding glazed roofs.
  • 2.4K
  • 10 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Intelligent Buildings in Smart Grids
During the last decade, the smart grid (SG) concept has started to become a reality, mainly thanks to the technical progress achieved in telecommunications, informatics and power electronics, among other domains, leading to an evolution of the traditional electrical grid into an intelligent one. Nowadays, the SG can be seen as a system of smart systems that include cyber and physical parts from different technologies that interact with each other. In this context, intelligent buildings (IBs) constitute a paradigm in which such smart systems are able to guarantee the comfort of residents while ensuring an appropriate tradeoff of energy production and consumption by means of an energy management system (EMS).
  • 2.4K
  • 08 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Façade Defects and Inspection Practices
The increasing number of accidents arising from falling objects from the façade of tall buildings has attracted much attention globally. To regulators, a preventive approach based on a mandatory periodic façade inspection has been deemed as a necessary measure to maintain the functionality and integrity of the façade of tall buildings.
  • 2.3K
  • 30 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Algae-Powered Buildings
Environmental pollution, global warming, energy consumption, and limited natural resources are some key factors from which the built environment faces interrelated problems and their management plays a vital role in sustainability. Application of bioactive elements on buildings’ façades is a novel approach for solving the problems. Algae building technology (ABT) is an innovative approach to energy efficiency in the built environment.
  • 2.3K
  • 02 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Microwave Irradiation and Wastewater
Every year, the human impact on the world’s water sources becomes more pronounced. One of the triggers to this increase is the use of ineffective wastewater and sludge treatment systems. Recently, the number of studies of microwave processing in handling liquid municipal and industrial waste has increased. This paper discusses heat treatment, change in properties, decomposition of substances, removal of metals, demulsification, pyrolysis, biogas processing, disinfection, and other topics. 
  • 2.3K
  • 04 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Visualization Techniques in Building Energy Simulation and Monitoring
Data visualization has become relevant in the framework of the evolution of big data analysis. Being able to understand data collected in a dynamic, interactive, and personalized way allows for better decisions to be made when optimizing and improving performance. Although its importance is known, there is a gap in the research regarding its design, choice criteria, and uses in the field of building energy consumption. Therefore, the state-of-the-art of visualization techniques used in the field of energy performance, in particular by considering two types of building analysis: simulation and monitoring are discussed. Likewise, data visualizations are categorized according to goals, level of detail and target users. Visualization tools published in the scientific literature, as well as those currently used in the IoT platforms and visualization software, were analyzed. The overview can be used as a starting point when choosing the most efficient data visualization for a specific type of building energy analysis.
  • 2.3K
  • 09 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Sustainable development of infrastructure projects
This entry responds to the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In 2015, the international community responded to the sustainable development challenge with their report Transforming Our World: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development . The SDGs are the United Nations’ blueprint, with 193 nations signatories, to address the global challenges, such as poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, prosperity, peace and justice. The concept of sustainable development acquired its most cohesive definition in the United Nations’ 1987 Brundtland Commission report, which described it as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” . Using the “triple bottom line” , Ochieng, Price and Moore took the definition further by placing it in the context of global construction projects and describing it as the balance of economic, social and environmental aspects. In their book, they identify a number of systemic issues, “hard and soft” in nature, that provide new challenges for global construction projects in relation to sustainable development.
  • 2.3K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Molybdenum Tailings in Concrete Manufacturing
Dealingwithmineral tailings is one of themost important topics for solving the environmental problems in the mining industry. Among the techniques converting stacked molybdenum tailings to reusable cleaner products, one of the most effective ones is to use molybdenum tailings in concrete productions. The physical properties including density, microscopic structure and finesse module, and chemical composition of molybdenum tailings are similar with those of natural sand. The radionuclide assessment of molybdenum tailing meets the requirements for using as structural materials. Therefore, Molybdenum tailing is suitable to be used as the replacement of cement and fine aggregates in mortarand concrete. Based on the results of strength and duration performance comparison, the usage of molybdenum tailing as a replacement of natural sand is a more feasible way than that of ground super-fine molybdenum tailings in cement binder. It is feasible to use molybdenum tailings as fine aggregate in the preparation of structural concrete. When the amount of ground super-finemolybdenum tailings replacing cement is less than 10%, it is beneficial to improve the freeze-thaw and carbonization resistance of the concrete.
  • 2.3K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Fabrication Techniques Using Myco-Materials
Within Euro-centric traditions of architecture, the significance of a building is often tied to its permanence. The Pantheon in Rome, for example, is a nearly 2000-year-old cementitious dome structure, whose resilience to time elevates it to a monumental status. Notwithstanding the significance of cultural and economic factors associated with the need for permanent buildings and structures, there is a doubt on whether all buildings should be assembled with the goal of being permanent. Globally, the lifespans of buildings are rapidly decreasing. The average lifespan of buildings in China was reported to be 34 years, and 25 years for residential buildings in Japan. To great detriment, buildings are more than ever being demolished prematurely and yet, use materials that are manufactured with energy-intensive processes and are expensive or impractical to recycle. In the United States alone, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported there was 600 million tons of construction and demolition waste generated in 2018. Structural materials, including wood, and architectural metals, such as steel, copper, and brass, are valuable commodities that can be reused and recycled. However, in present-day architectural assemblies, these materials nearly ubiquitously inter-face with expanded foams, plastics, and resins, sometimes in irreversible composites. For example, wood is widely treated with synthetic resins and glues to increase its resistance to decay or structural performance.
  • 2.2K
  • 28 Sep 2022
Topic Review
External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems
External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS) is a commonly used solution in EU countries to increase building energy efficiency. The article describes ETICS in terms of environmental impact from two perspectives, i.e., industry and academia. In EU countries, ETICS manufacturers to place construction products to the market must subject it to the assessment and verification of constancy of performance (AVCP). The basis of this process is the European Technical Assessment (ETA). Based on the number of issued and valid ETAs for ETICS and the number of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), the dimension of sustainability issues was discussed.
  • 2.2K
  • 10 Jan 2022
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