Being the vital element of successful cities, public spaces play an important role in achieving sustainable development goals and in coping with climate change. The new urban agenda considers public spaces indispensable for sustaining the productivity of cities, social cohesion and inclusion, civic identity, and quality of life. Accordingly, there is no doubt about the importance of public spaces, while their quality is generated through the symbiosis of various elements. On the basis of normative theories of urban design, several public space design frameworks have been established in order to define what makes a good public place. Such a framework for public space quality evaluation is developed and tested at the Chair for Planning and Design in Landscape Architecture at the University of Belgrade—Faculty of Forestry. The framework covers six criteria which illuminate key aspects of public spaces: safety and security, accessibility, legibility, comfort, inspiration and sensitivity and liveability. In this research, special attention is paid to the criteria of comfort analysed on two scale levels in Belgrade, Serbia. In the past, Belgrade was affected by extreme weather events that caused serious and sometimes disastrous consequences. The most pronounced challenges among them are heat waves in summer that, due to the shortage of vegetation combined with the proliferation of tarmac and concrete surfaces and reduced air ventilation, particularly threaten the densely populated central municipalities of Stari Grad, Savski Venac and Vracar. The first scale level covers the analysis of the public space network and the degree of establishment of green infrastructure in Lower Dorcol quartier, which is located in the Municipality of Stari Grad, using quantitative and qualitative indicators and GIS (Geographic Information System) digital tools. The aim of this study is to observe the actual state of the public space network and to define a future scenario of its development in line with climate change challenges. Jevrejska Street, as an element of the above-mentioned public space network, is the subject of the next phase of the research. The study on this scale level will cover qualitative and quantitative analysis of public space elements such as paving, urban equipment, greenery, lighting, water facilities, etc. Next to that, by using the ENVI Met platform, the actual and proposed improvement of the street will be explored. The final part of this research will include a discussion about the research methodology used in order to improve the public space design process and to point out the need for the careful consideration of comfort as an important aspect of good public space. Full article

In this research work, we describe the development and subsequent validation of EnerMon a flexible, efficient, edge-computing based Internet of Things (IoT) LoRa (LongRange) System to monitor power consumption. This system provides real-time information and a descriptive analytics process to provide a ‘big picture’ about energy consumption over time and identify energetic waste. The solution is based on Arduinos, current transformer sensors, Raspberry Pi as an application server and LoRa communication alongside a description and information on what is to be expected of it, describing the development process from the design phase to the validation phase with all steps in between. Due to LoRa low debit communication, an edge computing approach was implemented to create a real-time monitoring process based on this technology. This solution, with the help of descriptive analysis, allows the creation of an energetic local footprint, using a low-cost developed solution for less than 80€ per three-phases monitoring device. This solution also allows for easy installation without communication range and obstacles limitations making it easy use in different situations from big complex building to smaller consumers, such as electric boilers, or simply to measure the energetic footprint of tourists in a small local tourist apartment. Full article

South Korea must submit its targets for greenhouse gas reduction by 2030 to comply with the Paris Agreement. While South Korea’s government has announced a roadmap for achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030, issues are present regarding the methodology used to set reduction targets, select the reduction method, and estimate the potential emissions reduction in the building sector. Accordingly, the present study identified the limitations based on an analysis of the roadmap and suggested an improvement plan for each limitation. To improve the roadmap, the methodology used to set emissions targets was changed from business-as-usual (BAU) to the absolute emissions method, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines were applied to estimate greenhouse gas emissions, and methodology for determining emissions targets by year was proposed. The reduction method has been proposed abstractly, and five methods have been suggested: Energy consumption by building age and establishment of gross floor area for cooling/heating, supply status for each type of lighting, estimation of reduction amount through supply of LED lighting, reduction amount estimation by analyzing current supply status data for home appliances and office equipment, proposal of methodology for improvement of duplicate estimation for building energy maintenance systems (BEMS), and estimation of reduction potential by applying efficiency improvement in power generating equipment. Full article

Replacing conventional pavements with the corresponding high albedo ones constitutes a well-known technique to improve outdoor thermal environment of modern cites. Since most of the existing studies assess the impact of the high albedo pavements at the pedestrian’s height and with respect to thermal comfort, this study aims to examine the effect of the application of highly reflective pavements on the heating and cooling energy needs of a building unit, located inside a dense urban area. Aiming at a higher accuracy of the energy performance simulations, an integrated computational method between ENVI-met model, Meteonorm weather data generator and Energy Plus software is established, to consider the site-specific microclimatic characteristics of the urban areas. The analysis is performed both for the design and the aged albedo values as significant changes may occur due to aging process. The analysis revealed that the application of cool materials on the ground surfaces only marginally affects the energy performance of the examined building unit, both for the design and the aged albedo value; changes on the annual heating and cooling energy demand, for both albedo scenarios did not exceed 1.5% revealing the limited potential of cool pavements regarding the improvement of the energy performance of urban building units. Full article

The northwest of Spain is defined by very high relative humidity values, with an average relative humidity of 85% throughout the year, which is considered too high by most standards and therefore can be related to various health problems and fungi growth. To reduce the relative humidity level in the indoor environment, different dehumidification technologies are being employed. However, commonly employed cooling based dehumidification systems have a very high energy consumption, from 720 W in residential buildings to 3150 W in industrial buildings. This article aims to show a new method for indoor moist air dehumidification, based on a controlled adiabatic expansion of moist air, similar to the Foehn effect, by means of a nozzle–diffuser system. The main results, based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and experimental tests in wind tunnels, show an initial working range of up to 80% relative humidity, with almost ten times reduction in energy consumption compared to the classical mechanical refrigeration dehumidifiers. Moreover, future improvements, such as a Peltier cooling system, which allows a reduction of the temperature in the nozzle throat, improving the condensation process, and a variable inlet area, could potentially improve the working range towards the required 30–60% relative humidity in buildings. Full article

The Loess Plateau is located at the transition zone between agriculture and livestock farming; its spatial and temporal pattern of drought is the key for an appropriate adaptation to climate change. This study investigated monthly meteorological observation data of 79 meteorological stations from 1955 to 2014 to calculate the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index at different time scales. The spatial and temporal characteristics and persistence of drought were analyzed. The results showed the following: (i) The drought trend is most apparent in spring (0.096/10a) and lower in summer (0.036/10a) and autumn (0.009/10a). (ii) A higher drought level indicates a lower frequency of droughts occurrence and vice versa. The frequency of light drought was highest (11.36%), while that of extreme drought was lowest (0.12%). (iii) The mean drought intensity was highest in summer, followed by spring, autumn, and winter. The drought intensity was mainly light, showing a pattern of severe drought in the northwest and light drought in the southeast. (iv) The Loess Plateau will continue a trend of drought in the future, but the season of the continuous intensity will differ. Droughts in spring and summer are highly persistent, autumn drought trends continue but may slow, and winter droughts become random events. Full article

Literature review shows that, to date, no local based method has been developed for evaluation of optimal wall constructions in a hot and humid climate from architects’ point of view. Hence, this study aims at developing a multi factor optimization model (MFOM) for comparative selection of opaque wall construction in a hot and humid climate based on four main evaluation criterion namely energy efficiency, thermal comfort, moisture control, and cost efficiency. In order to indicate the application of the MFOM, a case study methodology was employed in Kish Island, Iran, which is characterized by a hot and humid climate. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed in the research process including literature and field survey, computer simulation, thermal, moisture and economic analysis finalized with a simple multi attribute rating technique (SMART) grading the outputs for final assessment. According to the results, it can be deducted that the application of the MFOM has the potential to save cost and energy, improve the thermal quality of the indoor environment while predicting the possible construction hazards posed by condensation in hot and humid climates. Full article

In the building construction industry, simultaneous and integrated evaluation of a building’s environmental and economic performance in the early planning stage greatly facilitates stakeholders’ decision-making for sustainable building construction. This study aimed to develop a streamlined Environmental Life Cycle Costing (ELCC) model for buildings, applicable to the early planning stage of construction projects. To this end, we selected three of the private cost-related life cycle cost categories that are determinants of stakeholders’ decision-making in the early planning stage of construction and extracted 10 major building materials that account for over 95% of the total direct construction cost. Then, we developed a streamlined ELCC model for buildings by combining the monetary value-based life cycle analysis model, KOLID (Korean Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method Based on Damage-Oriented Modeling), and the present worth method. Finally, we conducted a case study to empirically verify the applicability of the proposed model. Full article