Special Issues

Alternatives to Air Conditioning

In an increasingly hotter world, what policies, designs, technologies & behaviours can provide thermal adequacy for coolth?

Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health

Urban areas are highly complex systems. Solutions to urban problems are often co-dependent and inter-connected. How can a systems approach to cities improve sustainability and health outcomes?

Retrofitting at Scale: Accelerating Capabilities for Domestic Building Stocks

What are the capabilities and capacities for delivering retrofit at scale?

Urban Densification

Urban Densification

How can urban densification be defined, monitored and controlled to create positive outcomes and avoid unintended consequences / negative impacts?

Education and Training: Mainstreaming Zero Carbon

How can education and training develop the capacities, capabilities and competences to rapidly decarbonise both new construction and the existing building stock?

Carbon Metrics: Assessing & Controlling GHG Emissions Across Scales

What constitutes appropriate and scalable carbon metrics in the built environment? How can a basket of different metrics inform policy and practice?

Climate Justice: The Role of the Built Environment

Questions of justice are embedded in every aspect of climate change. Ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change will exacerbate inequities worldwide.

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content

Journal Content

Evaluating mitigation strategies for building stocks against absolute climate targets
L Hvid Horup, P K Ohms, M Hauschild, S R B Gummidi, A Q Secher, C Thuesen, M Ryberg

Equity and justice in urban coastal adaptation planning: new evaluation framework
T Okamoto & A Doyon

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

Suburban climate adaptation governance: assumptions and imaginaries affecting peripheral municipalities
L Cerrada Morato

Urban shrinkage as a catalyst for transformative adaptation
L Mabon, M Sato & N Mabon

Maintaining a city against nature: climate adaptation in Beira
J Schubert

Ventilation regulations and occupant practices: undetectable pollution and invisible extraction
J Few, M Shipworth & C Elwell

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

Gender and the heat pump transition
J Crawley, F Wade & M de Wilde

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

European building passports: developments, challenges and future roles
M Buchholz & T Lützkendorf

Decision-support for selecting demolition waste management strategies
M van den Berg, L Hulsbeek & H Voordijk

Assessing social value in housing design: contributions of the capability approach
J-C Dissart & L Ricaurte

Electricity consumption in commercial buildings during Covid-19
G P Duggan, P Bauleo, M Authier, P A Aloise-Young, J Care & D Zimmerle

Disruptive data: historicising the platformisation of Dublin’s taxi industry
J White & S Larsson

Impact of 2050 tree shading strategies on building cooling demands
A Czekajlo, J Alva, J Szeto, C Girling & R Kellett

Social values and social infrastructures: a multi-perspective approach to place
A Legeby & C Pech

Resilience of racialized segregation is an ecological factor: Baltimore case study
S T A Pickett, J M Grove, C G Boone & G L Buckley

See all

Latest Commentaries

Time to Question Demolition!

André Thomsen (Delft University of Technology) comments on the recent Buildings & Cities special issue ‘Understanding Demolition’ and explains why this phenomenon is only beginning to be understood more fully as a social and behavioural set of issues. Do we need an epidemiology of different demolition rates?

Where are Women of Colour in Urban Planning?

Safaa Charafi asks: is it possible to decolonialise the planning profession to create more inclusive and egalitarian urban settings? It is widely accepted that cities are built by men for other men. This male domination in urban planning results in cities that often do not adequately address challenges encountered by women or ethnic and social minorities. Although efforts are being taken to include women in urban planning, women of colour are still under-represented in many countries, resulting in cities that often overlook their needs.

Join Our Community