For the sake of energy and cost savings, it is sometimes necessary to maintain the indoor climate in a room at conditions that deviate from optimal thermal comfort. More important than thermal sensation is how a change in conditions will affect the thermal acceptability of a space and whether the percentage of people who are (dis)satisfied with the environment will change with regard of the acceptability. The aim of this technical note and arithmetic study is to find out to what extent the thermal indoor climate can be assessed on the basis of thermal acceptability, in addition to the thermal (dis)satisfied, by making use of research that has already been carried out. In addition to the relationship between the percentage of (dis)satisfied and acceptability, attention is paid to how this result relates to current Dutch government building regulations. The paper concerns a proposal for the assessment of thermal indoor climate based on the thermal acceptability, in addition to the thermal (dis)satisfied.

A proposed development by the City of London, at London Wall West, illustrates the intractable problems that can occur for a city seeking post-pandemic renewal whilst, at the same time, aiming to lead the way towards constructing a sustainable future. Current forecasts by the United Nations (UN) paint a gloomy picture of progress so far in meeting defined targets for combating climate change, with particular stress laid on the failure of cities to address their huge toll in generating CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The way city policy makers of East Asia already have engaged with virtual reality (VR), as an 'all or nothing' approach to digital transformation, offers a glimpse of how to proceed elsewhere - although, a similar policy, if applied in the West, will require that we adopt a 50/50 approach, partially physical, partly virtual, where people have choice on how much time they spend as an avatar in a metaverse. Success in developing an ecosystem of metaverses will depend on designers adopting a behavioral approach to constructing the virtual world; lessons from the past teach us that, as in the physical world, people's well-being in the metaverse will demand that we pay close attention to their environmental and psychological needs to ensure that a virtual life can be as fulfilling as life outside in the physical world. If all this can be achieved technologically, the resulting lifestyle changes, together with a requirement for less physical construction, give promise that we can get back on track in meeting the Paris Agreement target. By encompassing a radical policy of 'Building Less is More', cities, worldwide, will find a new route to zero carbon.

Urban sustainable development of cities could ameliorate many aspects such as population expansion, housing price increase, and ecological environment. For a better understanding of urban sustainability, many scholars have conducted different frameworks to make an accurate evaluation for urban planning. However, a myriad of existing research analyzes sustainable development based on separate and static indicts, which inevitably miss some important information related to interconnects between different indicators and timelines. This study, thus, proposes a comprehensive method that integrates the system dynamic and Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis to examine the interrelationships between different subsystems with a time series, in order to predict the feasibility of new policies for future development. A probabilistic system dynamics approach for policy optimization of sustainable urbanization is proposed with the consideration of dynamic changes and time flows. Several scenarios are simulated to perform and validate the proposed framework, where the comparisons from different results provide optimal strategies for urban sustainability. Some interesting findings can be drawn: (1) the social system is more sensitive to policy change, typically for transport connections and traffic saturation flow respects; (2) policies A1, B1, and B2 are encouraged to implement, as these regulations will boost the urban development; (3) the proposed hybrid method can be used to analyze the variables with a dynamic and long-term urban system.

High expectations from employers and complex communication between stakeholders in the construction industry, resulted in fundamental changes during the design and construction process. Excellence in communication and coordination is required between stakeholders and automated interdisciplinary change management to meet needs and expectations in the construction industry. Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers numerous benefits, including reducing construction time, cost, and risk while improving project quality, communication, and coordination. However, there are still significant barriers to BIM implementation. Since Iran is in the early stages of BIM implementation, a roadmap for adopting BIM in Iran's construction industry is designed for the first time to exploit BIM benefits in this paper. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with professionals to structure the roadmap. In addition, online interviews were carried out with 16 experts. Furthermore, a Delphi-based approach was employed to reach consensus. The roadmap consists of six main pillars with 53 activities designed to create a matured BIM plan based on local culture and needs. And the roadmap begins with assigning a strong leadership to lead the process. The industry is expected to be motivated to adopt BIM as it learns the benefits associated with BIM. Then, it continues with developing related best practices, rules and regulations. In the third stage, the roadmap encourages the industry to provide the required education and training. In the next pillar, the roadmap follows the establishment and development by defining a contractual platform. In the fifth pillar, the quality of BIM and its results will be measured and compared with expectations and pre-defined goals. Eventually, the government will provide a continuous BIM implementation. The study is expected to facilitate BIM implementation in the Iran construction industry which will improve the quality of Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) practices. It will help to culminate tangible and intangible project deliverable by reducing time, cost, risks and improving overall quality. Therefore, all stakeholders satisfy the final outcome beside resolving conflicts and interferences.

The residential sector is responsible for the consumption of 46% of the building's total primary energy consumption in Jordan. The Jordanian housing stock will need to be significantly improved to meet the government's commitment to reduce national emissions by 2050. This research aims to examine the available statistical data on residential buildings, to help better understand the current state of housing stock in Jordan and pave the way to generate a national housing stock model, as well as to identify opportunities in improving the energy efficiency of these buildings. The study synthesized data from the Department of Statistics housing survey and the Jordan Green Building Council survey to investigate the Jordanian national housing stock. The aggregated data was examined using a descriptive statistical analysis method. The data was then merged to provide aggregated datasets with detailed building characteristics.The study successfully characterized residential buildings archetypes and identified a range of typical thermal performance-related building characteristics (e.g., envelope properties, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, lighting systems, etc.). The findings of the statistical analysis can be useful for policymakers in Jordan to gain insights into the current state of the housing stock, identify trends and patterns, and make informed decisions and initiatives such as the improvement of regulatory building code requirements for energy efficiency.

In terms of global sustainable development, buildings are one of the largest energy consumers. Although technology advancements actively assist in constructing environmentally friendly buildings, educational buildings still consume a large amount of energy. On the other hand, establishing high-quality school structures is vital to give a high-quality education to future generations. Thermally comfortable zones aid physical and mental well-being of students. To this aim, this study considers evaluating the possibility of improving energy efficiency and thermal comfort in educational buildings by making minor changes to the architecture rather than reconstructing. As a case study, a university building in a temperate climate zone is selected. Seven different retrofitting strategies including changing the window and frame types, adding a Trombe wall, replacing insulation materials, adding solar collectors, decreasing set temperature and airtightness and modification on lighting system are simulated in a dynamic building energy simulation tool. The results showed that adding rock wool insulating material reduced student discomfort hours by 17%. Furthermore, using a solar collector was the most expensive choice.

Buildings are a huge carbon emitter. Efforts are being made to cut both embodied and operational carbon emissions to reduce the impact on the built environment. This study aims to compare the Life Cycle Carbon Footprint (LCCF) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of two alternatives: refurbishment and radical replacement of an existing community centre building in Liverpool to identify options that could achieve significant CO₂ emission reductions in an economically viable way. The calculation methods are standardised by the United Kingdom (UK)'s Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to overcome the limitations of life cycle analysis (LCA) undertaken in previous research. This refers to the Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) database from which embodied calculation factors were extracted to get the greenhouse gases. While the operational emissions data were obtained from a thermal simulation through Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) software. The results of this study showed that the refurbishment scenario is the best option since it emits 50% less greenhouse gas (GHG) and reaches 64% lower costs compared to the new build case throughout the building's life cycle. Such that the LCCF of the refurbishment scenario was 215,084.36 kgCO₂ e/m2 and its LCC £ 88,135.32, while the replacement scenario achieved 429,397.44 kgCO₂ e/m2 and £ 246,213.59. It can be deducted that to reach significant reductions in carbon emissions rates with a lower economic impact, refurbishment is preferable to demolition and new construction, even if the building shows several damages and defects, which suggests that the UK government should incentivise and encourage re-use for faster environmental rehabilitation.

Finite Element Method (FEM) is widely employed for solids and multiphysics problems analysis in practically all engineering and science fields. Yet, when it comes to Topology Optimization (TO), significant issues arise concerning the geometry, hence the mesh, and non-stationary condition. Contrarily to broader Finite Element Modelling, FEM for TO has much less bibliographic support and research. Herein we depict, apply and discuss the major challenges and options concerning modelling with finite elements within TO problems. It is shown that, for the optimisation of a steel connection part, mesh refinement is critical for effective yet computationally efficient analysis. Moreover, a case-based and user-friendly approach, in the form of a tutorial article, is proposed to address the practical FE meshing for TO.

There is a high proportion of migrants in the construction industry; however, little is known of the factors that increase the risk of mental health difficulties among this group and in particular in Australia. Research studies on the mental health of migrant construction workers in Australia were searched in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar. The literature search found seven studies, of which five included a subgroup of migrant construction workers or stakeholders in the field and two studies sampled specifically from this population but from higher educational backgrounds. Three of the studies used cross-sectional surveys and the other four used qualitative interviews in combination with either other qualitative techniques or a literature review. The limited evidence suggests that migrant construction workers living in Australia are likely to experience psychological distress in the context of adverse working conditions, financial hardships and interpersonal stressors. Common methodological limitations of the literature reviewed for this paper were a lack of comparison groups, combined samples of workers from different occupations, limited use of standardized measures of psychological distress and a focus mainly on occupational factors. Implications include operationalizing interventions in a manner that is accessible to migrants and their culture. The review stresses that more research is required in this field sampling specifically from the migrant construction workers population, using comparison groups, prospective designs, and qualitative methods to help better understand the unique experiences of mental ill-health in this group.

Studies have shown that view to greenery and other natural landscape elements may have a beneficial restorative effect on urban residents, and the effect may be evaluated by the Visible Green Index (VGI) which refers to the proportion of green landscape represented by plants and waterscape in people's vision. This article proposes a method based on Sightline Sampling Algorithm (SSA) that can quickly calculate the VGI distribution in urban space. This method is operated on a voxel model, scans the distribution of plants around the viewpoint by constructing sampling sightline rays to quickly obtain the corresponding VGI information. Parametric analysis shows that for optimized combinations of voxel size and sampling size, the method can quickly calculate VGI at continuous locations with a fairly satisfactory accuracy. As a case study, the distributions of VGI in three campuses of a university in Shanghai, China is examined using the SSA method. The result shows that the method can evaluate the existing green view levels. Potential areas for improvement, i.e. high pedestrian density while poor green view percentages are identified, and the improved VGI distribution with renovation design scheme is predicted. The VGI method can be a potential tool to support architects and landscape designers in analyzing green visual quality and assessing the restorative benefits of urban landscape design.

A recently proposed direct Displacement-based procedure of nonlinear static (pushover) analysis on multi-storey reinforced concrete (r/c) buildings is verified here against the results of nonlinear response history analysis. An asymmetric, regular in elevation, torsionally flexible, multi-storey r/c building designed according to Eurocode EN 1998 is investigated. Taking fully into account the inelastic torsion and the higher mode effects, as well as the P-Delta effects, the proposed procedure applies a pattern of seismic floor enforced-displacements along the "Capable Near Collapse Principal Axes of the building", aiming at the Near Collapse state. The envelope of the results of sixteen final non-linear static analyses on the investigated building shows that the main aspects of the spatial seismic action effects can be safely captured by the proposed procedure, especially regarding the inelastic interstorey drift ratios, as well as the plastic mechanism of the building.

Dense buildings in modern cities make street pollutants more and more difficult to disperse, and the exposure level of urban residents to pollutants has increased significantly. This study focuses on the spatial and temporal distribution of ambient air pollution in urban streets and the relationship between street morphology and pollutant dispersion, and explores ways to reduce ambient air pollution in streets through spatial design. The study used the CityGrid urban grid data monitoring station to conduct an empirical study on an urban trunk road in Wuhan during the winter of 2020 to 2021, monitoring pollutants including NO₂, O₃, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀. The results showed that pollutant concentration changes in the near-road environment are affected by a combination of meteorological elements and traffic flow characteristics. The wind parallel to the road is more favorable to evacuate pollutants inside the street canyon, and the ambient wind above the canyon perpendicular to the road causes vortices in the canyon that cause gaseous pollutants to accumulate on the leeward side of the canyon. The distribution of particulate pollutants is mainly related to the distance of road pollutant sources. Building access ventilation can effectively evacuate street pollutants, and NO₂ and O₃ decay to stable levels in shorter distance from the road than PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ in downwind direction. The future urban street planning can effectively alleviate street pollution levels through strategies such as street canyon morphology control, green landscape facilities arrangement, increasing the building interface opening, and building bottom overhead.

The complexity of the building environment directly affects the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) inside the building. Therefore, the paper systematically reviewed the effective and feasible measures, designs and relevant epidemic prevention guidelines formed in the field of epidemic prevention during the period of COVID-19, as well as the excellent research and projects around the world. The study found that most of the people infected with COVID-19 were infected indoors, but the current building design was not included in the scope of epidemic prevention design, not effectively resist the spread of infectious diseases, and there is no standard guideline for epidemic prevention building design so far. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate building epidemic prevention standards, and by considering the epidemic prevention design in the architectural planning and design stage, the use of building epidemic prevention products, healthy wind environment design, etc. to establish a healthy building environment can effectively reduce the risk of epidemic transmission inside the building. However, due to insufficient epidemiological data and pathological research on the risk of epidemic transmission among residents, further research on the standards for epidemic prevention and quantitative risk assessment methods of building is limited.

Architectural form design is crucial to building indoor and outdoor natural ventilation, and elevated building design is one of the methods for improving the outdoor wind environment. Through Integrating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation with architectural design, an informed decision for architectural design is provided for better architectural design schemes. CFD simulation was used to explore the impacts of elevated heights on the XJTLU Central Building's wind environment at the pedestrian height around the building. Results show that the elevated design of the building has a good effect on improving the wind environment at the pedestrian height of 1.5 m around the building. For this study case and similar height buildings, the elevated design can increase the wind speed of the 1.5 m pedestrian height in the windward area of the building when the elevated height is 2.4～3.0 m. When the elevated design height is above 3.0 m, the elevated design has little impact on the 1.5 m height wind speed at the windward area of the building. On this basis, the impact of various building heights and elevated widths on the pedestrian height wind speeds were explored. Results show that when the building height is between 24 and 72 m, increasing the building height can increase the wind speed at pedestrian height in the high wind speed area of the windward area, and gradually reduce the wind speed of the pedestrian height in the low wind speed at the windward area of the building. When the total height of the building and the elevated height is unchanged, results show that increasing the elevated width of the building can increase the pedestrian height wind speeds in the high wind speed area of the windward area and has no significant impact on the pedestrian height wind field distribution in the low wind speed area of the windward area.

The objective of this paper is to quantify the slippage and rotation in the connections of a double fixed corrugated web beam. Two types of connections between the component parts of the built-up beam were used, i.e. MIG brazing and spot welding, which offer different rigidities and bearing capacities for the built-up beams. Experimental tests were conducted on three MIG brazed and two spot welded specimens, respectively. The test setup consisted of a six-point bending configuration which is equivalent to a uniform distributed load applied to the beam. The load was applied from a 500kN actuator through a leverage system that allowed the distribution of the force. An out-of-plane structure prevented the beam from lateral torsional buckling. The testing exhibited relatively large slippage and deformation in the bolted connections and in the supporting device, respectively. However, the high rigidity of the beam maintained the mid-span deflection in the serviceability limit state limits. The built-up corrugated web beams made of cold-formed steel profiles represent an efficient and suitable structural solution for buildings. Nevertheless, experimental research due to inevitable slippage and the endplate deformation must be performed to characterize the connection.