Dear Colleagues,

The rapid development taking place across the world is now increasingly associated with carbon emissions and consequently global warming. As an alleviation measure, making buildings energy-efficient has seen wide applications in the construction of new buildings and renovation of existing buildings with cultural values.

The heritage sector in many countries, especially those with a long history and rich cultures, is facing a huge challenge. On one hand, high indoor air quality must be provided to preserve valuable national treasures while allowing continual public access as a path toward a sustainable society. One the other, energy efficiency must be improved and carbon emission in the premises reduced. This step is energy-intensive due to the continuous and tight control over the indoor physical environment. Furthermore, buildings are also deemed ‘hard-to-treat’ owing to their historical value, hence imposing restrictions on the usual low carbon retrofit solutions.

In recent years, the application of Artificial-Intelligence-based research has received widespread attention. Leveraging the benefits of such black box modelling techniques, researchers have started to focus on their application to the problem scenario of non-invasive indoor environmental monitoring and control in historical buildings. The usage of black box modelling techniques has also involved human factors and management regimes, thereby encouraging adequate policy-making or modification of existing ones, ensuring an optimal indoor environment with efficient energy usage.

This Special Issue is to provide an open platform to share successful worldwide applications and explore novel ways to balance the needs for the three pillars of sustainable development—environmental, economic, and social (cultural)—which are often competing against each other. We invite all researchers, including architects, estate managers, economists, engineers, planners, physicists, policy makers, and social scientists, to submit your research papers and case studies to join this discussion.

References:

• Ganguly S, Ahmed A, Wang F. Optimised building energy and indoor microclimatic predictions using knowledge-based system identification in a historical art gallery. Open access, Journal of Neural Computing and Applications May 2019 10.1007/s00521-019-04224-7
• Wang F, Liu CX, Mackillop F, Ganguly S, Henderson C, Flanagan S, Building redevelopment as a catalyst for sustainability - The Case of Renovation of a Historical Building as an Arts Centre, Sustainable Cities and Society. V42, P370-383, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2018.06.017 .
• Ganguly S, Wang F, Chen Z, Browne M & Glendenning. Comparative methods to assess renovation impact on indoor hygrothermal quality in a historical art gallery, Journal of indoor and built environment in July 2018 (DOI: 10.1177/1420326X18785791)

Dr. Fan Wang
Guest Editor

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• energy efficiency
• heritage conservation
• preservation
• environmental control
• building management system (BMS)
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• cultural sustainability
• performance assessment