Guest editors: Nicola Antaki, Doina Petrescu & Vera Marin
Deadline for abstracts: 10 February 2025 (noon GMT)
What are the roles and impacts that living labs play in increasing civic resilience and supporting ecological transition in different contexts and at different scales?
This special issue examines the roles that living labs have in creating or enhancing resilience in local communities. What mediation methods are used in the different stages of collaboration? How can success or efficacy be measured? What lessons arise about transferability between different labs / situations? What inventive methodologies are developed/used in living labs within different contexts and at different scales?
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Guest editor: Michael Donn (Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington)
Deadline for abstracts: 11 November 2024 (noon GMT)
As codes and regulations become stricter, is simulation the right tool for compliance as well as sketching performance to assist design? Can building simulation address the competing demands and tensions that regulators, clients and designers place on it? If not, what alternatives could be appropriate?
This special issue seeks research reporting on quality assurance measures, case studies, user studies that address the development of trust in the performance calculations of designers. Papers are sought that describe the challenges, innovative methodologies, or strategies to enhance reliability and effectiveness. Overall, the papers should show evidence of improvement in guiding sustainable building practices. The “performance gap” typically references energy performance. However, this special issue is open to all design assessment parameters: Indoor Air Flows, Daylight, Energy, Overheating and Acoustics.
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Challenges ahead: why urban planning and urban design need robust quantitative evidence for decision making.
While some progress has been made, particularly in areas like healing architecture where the impact of design on human well-being is more directly observable, much work remains to be done to extend evidence-based design to broader fields of architecture, urban planning and design. Meta Berghauser Pont (Chalmers University of Technology) explains the challenges and pathways needed for a shift toward evidence-based design in urban planning and urban design.
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Challenges ahead: why robust research and education can help drive the necessary changes in regulating construction products to meet society's demands
Mustafa Selçuk Çıdık (University College London) considers the crucial role that research and higher education need to play in generating evidence and knowledge to shape the complex landscape of construction product regulations, particularly in relation to innovation, safety and performance. Independent, robust research and clear guidance are needed to ensure public safety, technological progress and sustainability. In addition, higher education must prepare future professionals to work within, and critically challenge, these regulatory frameworks.
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Challenges ahead: collecting, managing, integrating and sharing comprehensible findings on actual performance from cradle to grave
Adrian Leaman (Usable Buildings) reflects on the Probe research project, drawing lessons for the architectural and building research challenges ahead. He advocates practice-based, real-world, case-study research with a positive commitment of all concerned to qualitative improvement for the public and private good using a more engaged professional support system.
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Challenges ahead: how the recent past is shaping the research agenda
Over the last five years, the word ‘emergency’ has been a recurrent term in different domains of human culture and activities. However, this is more than a grim picture on the many critical issues that our societies nowadays need to face. Sergio Altomonte (Université catholique de Louvain) offers a positive interpretation of this state of ‘emergency’, moving forward from its common understanding as ‘an unexpected and difficult or dangerous situation […] which requires quick action.’
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Challenges ahead: research has a role to protect the public interest and inhabitants
Susan Roaf (Heriot-Watt University) explains why the building regulatory system is not fit for purpose. Regulations fail to protect the safety, well-being and financial health of inhabitants from both regular occurrences and extreme events. Evidence from research about the safety and performance of buildings needs to form the basis for new regulations.
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Challenges ahead: Making the UN's Building Breakthrough a reality
Usha Iyer-Raniga (RMIT University) explains why a systemic and systematic approach is urgently needed to put the built environment on the right path to decarbonization, whilst recognizing countries are at different levels of progress. The UN’s Building Breakthrough agenda for a whole life cycle approach to the built environment and decarbonization is a game changer. This can place buildings and construction in a critical pathway towards decarbonisation and align with the long-term impact of decisions made today.
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Challenges ahead: how the conduct of research needs to change
The emergence of scientific discovery at the interface of disciplinary fields is not necessarily driven by the academic system – rather, discovery happens despite it. Marilyne Andersen (EPFL) considers the paradoxical characteristics of interdisciplinarity, that is both declared as a needed research approach but is also rarely recognised as an asset in academic practice. In a landscape of conflicting objectives, built environment research may have something unique to offer to the question of academic interdisciplinarity.
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Challenges ahead: why relational research is vital for society and reduces dysfunction and disaster
Sarah Darby (University of Oxford) reflects on relationality and why it matters, urgently. This is based on insights from two events from the same day, in September 2024. One was a family rite of passage; the other, publication of a report into the causes of a wholly avoidable disaster, the destruction by fire of a block of social housing. The case for researchers working with practitioners and developing a common language has never been stronger.
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Message to COP29: more effective collaboration is essential
The GHG emissions reduction efforts of governments, industries and societies continue to fall short of what is needed. Responsible researchers recognise the critical role of the built environment to meet this challenge and the consequences of climate change. We need to partner with those at the forefront of decision making affecting the building, construction and real estate sector. Interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary innovation are needed more than ever to support the decision making and practical action of every stakeholder in the sector, especially those shaping the policy landscape.
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Challenges ahead: addressing the complex issues of building performance, public safety, climate change and socio-ecological value
Several systemic failures have occurred across multiple aspects of the built environment in many parts of the world. Brian Meacham (Crux Consulting) explores what can be done to improve this situation. A need to reframe buildings and the built environment as a socio-ecological-technical system means applying systemic thinking and integration across disciplinary boundaries in research, design, construction and regulation.
MoreEndorsements
We have found the journey with Buildings & Cities very professional – no doubt the smoothest publication process we have worked through in our careers. The editor’s direction has been clear and easy to navigate and respond to.
I am excited about the prospects of this new journal, Buildings and Cities. Its highly respected and experienced editorial team will ensure that the journal’s focus on interdisciplinary and multi-scale approaches will push our industry forward in addressing critical issues facing the built environment.
The quality of editorial work and support to authors is unmatched within the landscape of property and construction journals. The editors are highly experienced and have a strong track record of working closely with each author.
By crossing the scale of buildings and cities, as well as bridging the gap between social and technical research, Buildings and Cities is of vital importance to academics and practitioners working to support sustainable and socially just improvements in the built environment. The editor-in-chief has an extraordinary and well-deserved reputation for fostering new ideas as well as thoughtful and constructive critique. This journal is poised to make significant contributions to the fields its topics integrate.
My experience of the review process has been extremely positive: it has always been rigorous, constructive and improved the papers considerably.
The launch of Buildings and Cities has to be warmly welcomed. The members of the editorial team have an excellent track record in actively engaging with the scholarly community for ensuring that published papers are not only rigorous but also relevant.
Featuring integrated, topical perspectives about the issues in built environment, authors will find guided support, an expert editorial team, and a superior, high quality publication with a visionary, not-for-profit journal, Buildings and Cities. Readers will see articles addressing key research and high-level discussion about accelerating and implementing strategies to address stringent climate goals.
I wholeheartedly commend the new Buildings and Cities journal under its Editor in Chief, Richard Lorch, together with Niklaus Kohler, Ray Cole, Fionn Stevenson and others. It was a privilege to serve on the editorial board of its predecessor, Building Research and Information for 19 years. It is my opinion that it was consistently the most interesting and impactful journal in its field – which Lorch, together with other Board members and contributors essentially defined. I have every confidence that Buildings and Cities will continue this record.
In light of the many challenges that cities face, we need a journal that cuts across disciplinary and professional boundaries to enhance our understanding and insights. This new transdisciplinary journal with a strong editorial team will be a great support to researchers and practitioners alike.
Buildings and Cities is poised to be a leading scientific peer reviewed journals. Its Editor in Chief, Richard Lorch, has an unparalleled reputation of upholding academic fairness and complete integrity. Consequently, I have no hesitation in recommending 'Buildings and Cities' to my peers.
Interdisciplinary insight is vital in addressing the sustainability of the built environment, which encompasses the complex intersection of resources, infrastructures, institutions, communities and citizens. In recognizing this Buildings and Cities is set to become one of the foremost journals supporting innovative research in sustainability across diverse urban settings and scales. With an experienced editorial team at the helm it offers a valuable resource for students, scholars and practitioners interested in inclusive and integrated approaches to sustainable development.
Does built environment research and practice need a new, international, independent, authoritative and openly accessible resource? Buildings & Cities offers a timely and exceptionally relevant response to this question because it is designed to inspire dialogue, engage debate and promote robust evidence, ideas and knowledge. It is founded on principles of rigorous peer-review, relevance, integrity, and inclusiveness, and driven by the recognised competence of it editorial team.
Not only is the evaluation of buildings’ and cities’ performance through time and across scales more possible than ever before, it is more necessary. The journal Buildings and Cities, with its experienced editorial team led by Richard Lorch, is poised to be a leader in this important role.
Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content
Health inequalities and indoor environments: research challenges and priorities [editorial]
M Ucci & A Mavrogianni
Operationalising energy sufficiency for low-carbon built environments in urbanising India
A B Lall & G Sethi
Promoting practices of sufficiency: reprogramming resource-intensive material arrangements
T H Christensen, L K Aagaard, A K Juvik, C Samson & K Gram-Hanssen
Culture change in the UK construction industry: an anthropological perspective
I Tellam
Are people willing to share living space? Household preferences in Finland
E Ruokamo, E Kylkilahti, M Lettenmeier & A Toppinen
Towards urban LCA: examining densification alternatives for a residential neighbourhood
M Moisio, E Salmio, T Kaasalainen, S Huuhka, A Räsänen, J Lahdensivu, M Leppänen & P Kuula
A population-level framework to estimate unequal exposure to indoor heat and air pollution
R Cole, C H Simpson, L Ferguson, P Symonds, J Taylor, C Heaviside, P Murage, H L Macintyre, S Hajat, A Mavrogianni & M Davies
Finnish glazed balconies: residents’ experience, wellbeing and use
L Jegard, R Castaño-Rosa, S Kilpeläinen & S Pelsmakers
Modelling Nigerian residential dwellings: bottom-up approach and scenario analysis
C C Nwagwu, S Akin & E G Hertwich
Mapping municipal land policies: applications of flexible zoning for densification
V Götze, J-D Gerber & M Jehling
Energy sufficiency and recognition justice: a study of household consumption
A Guilbert
Linking housing, socio-demographic, environmental and mental health data at scale
P Symonds, C H Simpson, G Petrou, L Ferguson, A Mavrogianni & M Davies
Measuring health inequities due to housing characteristics
K Govertsen & M Kane
Provide or prevent? Exploring sufficiency imaginaries within Danish systems of provision
L K Aagaard & T H Christensen
Imagining sufficiency through collective changes as satisfiers
O Moynat & M Sahakian
US urban land-use reform: a strategy for energy sufficiency
Z M Subin, J Lombardi, R Muralidharan, J Korn, J Malik, T Pullen, M Wei & T Hong
Mapping supply chains for energy retrofit
F Wade & Y Han
Operationalising building-related energy sufficiency measures in SMEs
I Fouiteh, J D Cabrera Santelices, A Susini & M K Patel
Promoting neighbourhood sharing: infrastructures of convenience and community
A Huber, H Heinrichs & M Jaeger-Erben
New insights into thermal comfort sufficiency in dwellings
G van Moeseke, D de Grave, A Anciaux, J Sobczak & G Wallenborn
‘Rightsize’: a housing design game for spatial and energy sufficiency
P Graham, P Nourian, E Warwick & M Gath-Morad
Implementing housing policies for a sufficient lifestyle
M Bagheri, L Roth, L Siebke, C Rohde & H-J Linke
The jobs of climate adaptation
T Denham, L Rickards & O Ajulo
Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
M Koch, K Emilsson, J Lee & H Johansson
Life-cycle GHG emissions of standard houses in Thailand
B Viriyaroj, M Kuittinen & S H Gheewala
IAQ and environmental health literacy: lived experiences of vulnerable people
C Smith, A Drinkwater, M Modlich, D van der Horst & R Doherty
Living smaller: acceptance, effects and structural factors in the EU
M Lehner, J L Richter, H Kreinin, P Mamut, E Vadovics, J Henman, O Mont & D Fuchs
Disrupting the imaginaries of urban action to deliver just adaptation [editorial]
V Castán-Broto, M Olazabal & G Ziervogel
Building energy use in COVID-19 lockdowns: did much change?
F Hollick, D Humphrey, T Oreszczyn, C Elwell & G Huebner
Evaluating past and future building operational emissions: improved method
S Huuhka, M Moisio & M Arnould
Normative future visioning: a critical pedagogy for transformative adaptation
T Comelli, M Pelling, M Hope, J Ensor, M E Filippi, E Y Menteşe & J McCloskey
Nature for resilience reconfigured: global- to-local translation of frames in Africa
K Rochell, H Bulkeley & H Runhaar
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
V Castán Broto, L Westman & P Huang
Fabric first: is it still the right approach?
N Eyre, T Fawcett, M Topouzi, G Killip, T Oreszczyn, K Jenkinson & J Rosenow
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F Samuel & K Watson
Understanding demolition [editorial]
S Huuhka
Data politics in the built environment [editorial]
A Karvonen & T Hargreaves
Latest Commentaries
5th Anniversary Essays
These commissioned essays from Buildings & Cities' authors and readers explore how the research landscape is changing. New essays are continuously being added to the collection during 2024 as part of B&C's anniversary.
Collectively, these essays offer fresh insights into the processes and issues that are currently inadequate or missing in the built environment research landscape. A wide perspective from different disciplines and geographies creates a positive, collective vision for shaping the research agenda. Recommendations are made for what needs to change.
We hope this will provoke and inspire research funders, researchers and other stakeholders to discuss, reflect and act. Ideas range from systemic change to key research questions to improving engagement to change of focus.
The Challenges of Evidence-Based Design
While some progress has been made, particularly in areas like healing architecture where the impact of design on human well-being is more directly observable, much work remains to be done to extend evidence-based design to broader fields of architecture, urban planning and design. Meta Berghauser Pont (Chalmers University of Technology) explains the challenges and pathways needed for a shift toward evidence-based design in urban planning and urban design.