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Key Principles

Key Principles

Read our 10 principles that provide the values underpinning our journal. These broadly explain the ethos and aspirations for what we do.

In addition to being a peer-review journal, we provide an intellectual space for engagement between researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

To achieve this, we will:

  1. Seek to publish highest quality research that has been evaluated through a fair, rigorous and robust peer-review process.
  2. Encourage and publish research and ideas that help improve the built environment, not just describe it.
  3. Maintain integrity in all our work with authors and oblige them to undertake and present their work according to ethical research and publishing guidelines.
  4. Make all research articles in the journal freely available (open access).
  5. Translate: make the research accessible not only for academics and researchers, but also for the end-users of research: policymakers, practitioners, clients, teachers and occupants.
  6. Inspire and engage: promote dialogue and greater understanding between authors and the end-users of research, to have greater impact through discussions in virtual and live events.
  7. Create an inclusive and supportive community of authors, and assist those without funding to publish in our journal.
  8. Operate as a not-for-profit, reinvesting any surplus funds into the journal and the research community that we serve.
  9. Be independent: our role and content are independent of the interests of any organisation, institution, company or government.
  10. Be comprised of researchers, academics and practitioners who understand both the content, context and applications of built environment research.

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content

Journal Content

Metrics for building component disassembly potential: a practical framework
H Järvelä, A Lehto, T Pirilä & M Kuittinen

The unfitness of dwellings: why spatial and conceptual boundaries matter
E Nisonen, D Milián Bernal & S Pelsmakers

Environmental variables and air quality: implications for planning and public health
H Itzhak-Ben-Shalom, T Saroglou, V Multanen, A Vanunu, A Karnieli, D Katoshevski, N Davidovitch & I A Meir

Exploring diverse drivers behind hybrid heating solutions
S Kilpeläinen, S Pelsmakers, R Castaño-Rosa & M-S Miettinen

Urban rooms and the expanded ecology of urban living labs
E Akbil & C Butterworth

Living with extreme heat: perceptions and experiences
L King & C Demski

A systemic decision-making model for energy retrofits
C Schünemann, M Dshemuchadse & S Scherbaum

Modelling site-specific outdoor temperature for buildings in urban environments
K Cebrat, J Narożny, M Baborska-Narożny & M Smektała

Understanding shading through home-use experience, measurement and modelling
M Baborska-Narożny, K Bandurski, & M Grudzińska

Building performance simulation for sensemaking in architectural pedagogy
M Bohm

Beyond the building: governance challenges in social housing retrofit
H Charles

Heat stress in social housing districts: tree cover–built form interaction
C Lopez-Ordoñez, E Garcia-Nevado, H Coch & M Morganti

An observational analysis of shade-related pedestrian activity
M Levenson, D Pearlmutter & O Aleksandrowicz

Learning to sail a building: a people-first approach to retrofit
B Bordass, R Pender, K Steele & A Graham

Market transformations: gas conversion as a blueprint for net zero retrofit
A Gillich

Resistance against zero-emission neighbourhood infrastructuring: key lessons from Norway
T Berker & R Woods

Megatrends and weak signals shaping future real estate
S Toivonen

A strategic niche management framework to scale deep energy retrofits
T H King & M Jemtrud

Generative AI: reconfiguring supervision and doctoral research
P Boyd & D Harding

Exploring interactions between shading and view using visual difference prediction
S Wasilewski & M Andersen

How urban green infrastructure contributes to carbon neutrality [briefing note]
R Hautamäki, L Kulmala, M Ariluoma & L Järvi

Implementing and operating net zero buildings in South Africa
R Terblanche, C May & J Steward

Quantifying inter-dwelling air exchanges during fan pressurisation tests
D Glew, F Thomas, D Miles-Shenton & J Parker

Western Asian and Northern African residential building stocks: archetype analysis
S Akin, A Eghbali, C Nwagwu & E Hertwich

See all peer reviewed articles

Latest Commentaries

Building-Related Research: New Context, New Challenges

Raymond J. Cole (University of British Columbia) reflects on the key challenges raised in the 34 commissioned essays for Buildings & Cities 5th anniversary. Not only are key research issues identified, but the consequences of changing contexts for conducting research and tailoring its influence on society are highlighted as key areas of action.

Lessons from Disaster Recovery: Build Better Before

Mary C. Comerio (University of California, Berkeley) explains why disaster recovery must begin well before a disaster occurs. The goal is to reduce the potential for damage beforehand by making housing delivery (e.g. capabilities and the physical, technical and institutional infrastructures) both more resilient and more capable of building back after disasters.

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