About this Research Topic

Background

Buildings often account for the largest part of a country’s energy usage which is still mainly based on fossil fuels. There is a great emphasis on reducing the reliance of buildings on fossil fuel energy and a move towards nearly zero carbon buildings (NZCB) globally. This requires a major shift in the way buildings and their integrated heating, cooling, and ventilation systems are designed, operated, maintained, and demolished/reused. Achieving this goal will require a rethinking of the traditional designs and system types currently in use.

According to the UN Climate Panel (IPCC) reports on the current status of global climate change, the global warming caused by human-created greenhouse gas emissions is growing, and it is considered a challenge to keep the global temperature growth at the level of a maximum of 1.5 °C, according to the Paris Agreement from 2015. In the last few years, we have been able to observe frequently how dramatic the consequences can become, both for the natural environment and the global society. Violent rains and floods, landslides, extreme temperatures, fires, and droughts are some examples. The negative climate changes have already gone too far to be stopped immediately, if ever, and we should be prepared to adjust our behavior, needs, and activities if we wish to save our Earth and human civilization as we know it.

People spend most of their time living or working inside, and the indoor climate conditions affect our physical and psychosocial conditions significantly. Thus, a sustainable and healthy indoor environment for living and working is necessary for the human body’s health and well-being, as well as efficient performance. We used to associate the sustainability of the built environment with its energy performance and environmental impact, and although we have conducted a lot in these two areas recently, we have so far also omitted to define some important technical requirements regarding indoor climate conditions. The failure to do so may have dramatic consequences for public health. Extreme weather, such as heat waves associated with global climate changes, occurs more and more frequently, also in cold climates. Additionally, we need to be prepared that the energy use for cooling of buildings and its cost will increase in the near future if we do not change our design strategies. To ensure an optimal performance and sustainability of the built environment we need to develop new and more dynamic design methodologies, using interdisciplinary knowledge and technologies.

This Research Topic is intended to publish the newest results of research based on integrating knowledge across interdisciplinary areas of experience. The involved researchers and scientists, representing different areas of expertise, will have the opportunity to share the experience by publishing findings getting outside their individual, professional comfort zones, contributing to a real lift of interdisciplinary knowledge, and establishing a platform for an integrated design including the joined technology and social sciences.

In order to address the complexity of the indoor environment and its quality, this Research Topic is divided into the following subsections:

• Low energy buildings and human health
• Sustainable and healthy building envelopes
• Airtightness and indoor air quality
• Systems for daylighting and sun-screening
• Building-integrated renewable energy systems
• Building-integrated ventilation and cooling systems
• Intelligent building-control systems
• BIM-integrated simulation tools

The proposed subsections are supposed to focus on the following aspects:

Low-energy buildings and human health addressing optimization-related benefits and challenges regarding the design complexity of new and renovated buildings in terms of energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality, including more in-depth research into the integration of technical and social aspects for occupant comfort and well-being such as thermal, visual, and social indoor conditions.

Sustainable and healthy building envelopes addressing optimization-related benefits and challenges regarding energy performance in new and renovated buildings in terms of building physics aspects, including more in-depth research on heat, and in particular air and moisture transfer, to ensure the quality of sustainable and energy-efficient building envelopes, as well as healthy indoor conditions.

Airtightness and indoor air quality addressing benefits and challenges associated with a high level of airtightness necessary to meet
a high level of energy efficiency in new and renovated buildings, including more in-depth research on innovative building technologies and materials for sustainable and airtight building envelopes for healthy indoor air conditions.

Systems for daylighting and sun-screening addressing benefits and challenges related to the risk of overheating associated with, among others, a high window-to-wall ratio (WWR), often preferred by designers of new and renovated buildings, considering the expectations of users and technical requirements for access to daylight and views as well as aesthetic values.

Building integrated renewable energy systems addressing benefits and challenges related to the integration in building envelopes (especially facades and roofs) to produce energy from renewable sources, such as building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), including interdisciplinary research into advanced building skins such as ventilation and cooling systems.

Building integrated ventilation and cooling systems addressing benefits and challenges related to the integration of building envelopes systems, primarily for ventilation and cooling, including research on systems combining natural and mechanical-driven resources and powers.

Intelligent building-control systems addressing benefits and challenges related to the integration in building envelopes or installed inside building systems, mainly for regulation and control, using various building automation or sensor technology.
BIM-integrated simulation tools
addressing advanced building and system simulation tools and their integration with building integration modeling (BIM), including in particular research on energy performance optimization
in new and renovated buildings in relation to indoor environmental conditions.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Keywords: Sun-screening and cooling systems, Indoor Climate Conditions, Sustainable Indoor Environment, Low energy buildings, Intelligent building-control systems, healthy building envelopes

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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