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Optimizing thermal insulation in residential buildings is crucial for energy efficiency, especially in Hot Summer and Cold Winter (HSCW) region. Current research often neglects retrofitting and real-life measurements, relying instead on simulations. This study conducted insulation retrofitting on a Chengdu high-rise residential unit, focusing on the flexible heating habits locally. The insulation renewal work involved transforming the thermal insulation structure by adding insulation to all internal surfaces of the rooms' opaque structure, including external walls, internal walls, ceilings, and floors. Experiments based on residents' routines quantified energy savings and improved indoor thermal conditions under intermittent heating. Results showed a significant decrease in daily heating energy consumption by 45.10 % on average, with a maximum of 55.53 %. The retrofitted room's energy-saving rate stabilized between 50 % and 55 % after the second hour. Indoor temperatures in the retrofitted bedroom increased by 0.7 °C on average and up to 1.4 °C. Raising the heating set temperature by 2 °C resulted in a 1.1 °C increase in the retrofitted room, higher than in the non-retrofitted one. These findings provide practical insights for renovating existing residences to achieve energy efficiency in the HSCW region.

Churches in China are material witnesses of cultural dissemination, and their architectural forms are in the process of localization. In order to determine the optimal degree of localization of church facades as well as to study the correlation between visual behavior and subjective cognition, five church facades with different degrees of localization were selected in present study, and the questionnaire survey as well as eye-tracking technology were used to collect data from two aspects: subjective cognition (the impression and acceptance levels) and objective eye movement (the first fixation duration, total fixation duration, fixation count, and visit count). The results showed the differences in public perceptions of church facades, and the impression of participants was continuously enhanced with the increasing of localization degree of church facade, while the acceptance level showed a U-shaped change. What's more, the correlation between the impression level and the first fixation duration was found to be 0.910, the Pearson coefficient between the acceptance level and the total fixation duration was found to be 0.928, indicating that eye-tracking indicators could accurately reflect the subjective cognition of the public. Performed analyses demonstrated that eye-tracking technology would provides an important technical mean for the design, conservation, and renewal of building facades.

Aging in a suitable residential environment is essential for the health and well-being of older adults. This study aims to analyze the residential environment preferences (REPs) of older people in China to create a residential environment suitable for their physical and mental health, enhancing their life satisfaction. This study used a sample questionnaire to identify relevant characteristics and analyze preferences, which were validated using non-parametric tests and Pearson’s correlation coefficient tests. The questionnaire consisted of 33 questions on characteristics of the residential environment on a 7-point Likert scale and was administered to 433 older adults aged 60 and over in 28 provinces in China. The results showed that “community safety” was the most important environmental characteristic, with an average importance rating of 5.77 out of 6. Accessible building design (average rating of 4.91), emergency response systems (average rating of 4.49), and indoor thermal comfort (average rating of 4.45) were also key factors in promoting aging in place. There was a positive correlation between the community environment and the indoor environment (e.g., community safety and indoor sound insulation, r = 0.209, p < 0.01), and both were, to some extent, negatively correlated with building features (e.g., public toilets and private courtyards, r = −0.278, p < 0.01; indoor thermal comfort and green building design, r = −0.165, p < 0.01). Age and physical health had a strong influence on preferences, but gender had little influence. This study paves the way for future research and policy development on age-friendly housing to ensure sustainable and supportive residential environments for the aging population.

Scenic parks in rural areas occupy crucial positions, serving as vital hubs for the daily lives of villagers and important leisure destinations for tourists. This research is dedicated to assessing the significance of the scenic park in Wawuzhuang Village from the perspectives of both villagers and tourists. Employing a comprehensive research approach, this study examines the current state of the scenic park and its ability to meet the requirements of villagers and tourists. Villagers, mainly elderly individuals with low levels of education, rely heavily on green spaces for leisure and social interaction. In contrast, younger tourists and villagers require spaces that offer more comfort and aesthetic appeal. This study highlights the possibility of designing rural scenic parks to meet the basic needs of both tourists and villagers. In addition, mixed-use designs and public participation designs are suggested to promote the use of rural parks, potentially creating an attractive community environment that attracts new villagers and more tourists. Although this study is limited to a single case, it lays the groundwork for further research in other rural areas. This research contributes to the sustainable development of rural revitalization.

Since the implementation of Chinese Western Development Strategy, gully regions of the Loess Plateau experience rapid development. Large number of residents living in gullies move to tableland, village combination and extension come to be a common phenomenon. Due to the neglect of ecological carrying capacity evaluation and the lack of scientific methods for human settlement planning, the unreasonable village combination and extension cause severe damage for the natural environment, low quality living environment, large waste of resource and lots of unnecessary investment. In this paper, cultivable land, water resource and infrastructure are figured out as three important limiting factors for the ecological carrying capacity evaluation. Grid computing method is used to draw distribution maps for each factor. After overlaying these distribution maps, the space distribution of ecological carrying capacity can be visualized. Tao Qu Yuan village is chosen as a research object for its high ecological carrying capacity. According to the ecological carrying capacity evaluation, the priority areas for new immigrants can be fixed, natural resource and social resource can be saved, and investment for new construction can also be reduced. Results summarized by this method can be used as guideline for the future village planning.

As an important part of the urban built environment, streets exploring the influence mechanism between the built environment and human perception. It is one of the issues in building healthy cities. In this study, the residential streets of Zhongshan Distict, Dalian were selected as the study site, including Mountain Low-rise Neighborhood, Old Mid-rise Neighborhood, and Modern High-rise Neighborhood. Meanwhile, spatial measurement and human perception perception evaluation of the street environment were based on Deep learning and street view image (SVI). The study used human perceptions as dependent variables, and physical features as the independent variables. Finally, two regression models of positive and negative perceptions were established to analyze the relationship between them. The results showed that in the three types of neighborhood, positive perception was mainly focused on Mountain Low-rise Neighborhood; Negative perception was mainly focused on Old Mid-rise Neighborhood. Greenness, Openness, Natural Landscape, Natural to artificial ratio of the horizontal interface, and Natural to artificial ratio of the vertical interface had a positive influence on positive perception. Pedestrian occurrence rate, Enclosure, and Vehicle Occurrence rate had a negative influence on negative emotive. Greenness was the physical feature that most affected human perception. This study provided a method for objectively evaluating the quality of the street built environment. It is important for promoting the quality of residential streets and public mental health.

Accurate and detailed solar radiation data play a crucial role in the simulation of building thermal and photovoltaic systems. However, developing a highly precise and dependable solar radiation model using cost-effective data has proven challenging. This work proposes a new attenuation solar radiation model formed by conducting a comprehensive analysis of existing models and gaining new insights into solar radiation's seasonal and stochastic properties. Meanwhile, the model is constructed using easily obtainable surface meteorological parameters. The results demonstrate that the proposed model exhibits good performance in terms of prediction accuracy. Moreover, the majority of existing hourly solar radiation models have been primarily developed for clear-sky conditions. However, there is a growing demand for solar radiation hourly estimations that can uphold a high level of accuracy and reliability even in different weather state. Conversely, the proposed model is developed and validated by more than twenty year's meteorological data encompassing various weather conditions in Japan. It effectively captures the stochastic nature of solar radiation by utilizing turbidity parameters, even on cloudy and rainy days. Additionally, the inclusion of interaction variables significantly enhances its interpretability.

This paper presents parametric and multi-objective optimization (MOO) approach in optimizing daylight and energy consumption by incorporating louvres shading devices depicting three different sky conditions: Birmingham, UK, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Sydney, Australia. The study aims to observe the best louvre design configuration for each given context. The proposed optimization system iterates the logic of the louvre shading device as the dynamic design parameters such as overhang, blade size, spacing, and blade rotation, together with the room orientation to achieve maximum useful daylight illuminance (UDI) and the shading aperture while simultaneously reduces energy consumption. A total of 8509 simulations for three cities have been run and distributed for the purpose of this research. The results of MOO stated an improvement in UDI for Birmingham, Jakarta, and Sydney of 80%, 146.26%, and 79.48%, and cooling energy consumption of 28%, 3.26%, and 2.99% respectively.

In China's hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) regions, many buildings are not centrally heated and commonly rely on energy-inefficient thermoregulation devices such as electric heaters and air conditioners. The use of Trombe walls in buildings can reduce building energy consumption by up to 30%. To investigate the potential of Trombe walls to reduce winter heat load in HSCW regions, an office building in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, located in the HSCW region was modeled and simulated. The low-e glass Trombe wall assisted with temperature-controlled ventilation system is presented in this paper. The ventilated low-e glass Trombe wall system (TWS) was mounted on the south-facing facade of the test room. Using Energy Plus software, numerical simulations were conducted to compare and evaluate the thermal performance of the ventilated low-e glass TWS with typical walls and classic TWS. The results showed that the ventilated low-e glass TWS could improve indoor thermal comfort without air-conditioning, but not to a comfortable level. When combined with air conditioning, the ventilated low-e glass TWS could reduce heating demand by 61.4% compared to typical walls and 11.1% compared to classic TWS.

Hydrogen-fuelled buses play an important role in the construction of low-carbon cities as a means of green travel. Beijing, as a pilot city of hydrogen-fuelled buses in China, is very important in the promotion of hydrogen-fuelled buses in China. Unfortunately, the public acceptance of hydrogen-fuelledfuelled buses and their environmental positive externality value have not been studied. In this paper, we investigated the willingness of Beijing households to pay for the promotion of hydrogen-fuelled buses and its influencing factors by means of a web-based questionnaire. The spike model was also used to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for hydrogen buses. The results show that the WTP of Beijing households is CNY 3.19 per trip. The value of a positive environmental externality is approximately CNY 29.15 million per trip. Household income level, environmental knowledge, individual environmental ethics, and perceived behavioural control are the main influencing factors of WTP. Therefore, policymakers should strengthen publicity efforts to increase individuals’ environmental awareness and environmental ethics and optimize the layout of hydrogen-fuelled bus schedules and riding experiences to improve individuals’ perceptual and behaviour control. Finally, the positive environmental externality value of hydrogen buses should be valued, which will help increase investor interest.

Along with the rise of awareness in implementing environmentally-conscious urban design, the classical process in approaching urban environmental analysis should be shifted to performance-based considerations. In architecture and urban design, the tools developed recently hold promise to assist the decision-making process in the early phase of designing. Thus, the further performance of the intended architecture project, particularly related to energy consumption and its environmental impact, can be nearly accurately predicted. Although many studies contain the computer design process for analyzing urban energy performance, the Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) process in the sub-tropical climate of Japan has not been widely used. This research investigates hypothetically the surface and site radiation in the early phase of designing a two-level wooden house in Orio District, Kitakyushu, Japan, through parametric and generative algorithms. The research was designed to map the best possible design solution of free-form loft-twisted structures through iterating design variables related to design elements such as building orientation, base radius, twisting and scaling factor, and the angle of the roof slope. The optimization targets the minimum quantity of solar radiation both for the site and the building surface affected by the geometry. The simulation uses an EPW file of Shimonoseki as the input weather file and is scheduled for fitting the period in the extreme hot week during the summertime. The findings are successful to produce a design with better performance compared to the benchmark model even though with insignificant improvement.

Energy use differences between day and night have been a key point in the efficient use of utilities. The battery energy storage system (BESS) is an attractive solution to level the grid load and has been introduced independently into many communities, although with high costs. Battery sharing presents the possibility of integrating independent energy storage systems to save money and improve energy use. Battery sharing highlights the interactions between a smart grid, smart buildings, and distributed energy storage to produce better energy management practices. In this work, we provide an analysis of battery sharing by establishing a coordinated control model for a distributed battery system. In our case study design, we selected 39 buildings with different capacities of energy storage systems as a battery-sharing community to optimize sharing schedules and the load-leveling performance. The results indicate that battery sharing could achieve a 13.2% reduction in building battery capacity compared with independent operation. We further investigate the impact of a building’s load profile patterns on the battery capacity in a battery-sharing community. It is economical to introduce a larger capacity battery system into buildings with no closing days and higher electricity consumption throughout the year. The optimal BESS capacity in commercial buildings depends on the lowest daytime power consumption. Commercial buildings with closing days have limitations regarding BESS deployment. On closing days, buildings can only use BESS by sharing. Buildings with two closing days a week lose 14.3% more energy than those with one closing day.

As the university campus is a place for learning, conducting scientific research, and communication, campus street spatial quality has an impact on its users. Therefore, refinement evaluations of campus spatial quality are essential for constructing high-quality campuses. In this study, machine learning was used to conduct semantic segmentation and spatial perception prediction on street view images. The physical features and perception quality of the surrounding areas of the Chongshan campus of Liaoning University were obtained. The study found that the visual beautiful quality (VBQ) of the student living area was the highest, and the VBQ of the teacher living area was the lowest when compared to the research and study area, student living area, sports area, and surrounding area. Greenness and openness had positive influences on VBQ, while enclosure had a negative influence. This study analyzed the influence mechanism operating between spatial physical features and VBQ. The results provide theoretical and technical support for campus space spatial quality construction and improvement.

Thermal performance of exterior walls can be improved with increasing insulation thickness, but the corresponding material cost will also rise. Therefore, the optimum thickness of insulation material necessarily exists when the economy is considered. Adding insulation materials with the optimum thickness for exterior walls of rural traditional dwellings in northeast of Sichuan hills can effectively enhance their thermal performance and lighten the economic burden of residents while decreasing energy consumption. Hence, the optimum thickness of five insulation materials was calculated by using the degree-days method and P1-P2 economic model as well as the energy-saving and economic benefits were evaluated based on EnergyPlus and dynamic investment payback period model. Then the influence law and the impact degree of influencing factors on the optimum thickness were analyzed via orthogonal test and analysis of variance. Eventually, the remarkable energy-saving and economic benefits of modifying the most crucial factor (heating-degree day) were assessed. Results show that the optimum insulation thickness ranges from 0.081 m to 0.144 m under the local climate and economic context. Besides, rationally lowering the heating-degree day can increase the energy-saving rate and economic benefits by 29.5% and 78.2%, respectively. The results can provide some new insights into the energy-saving retrofit of local traditional dwellings.

Urban wetlands play an important role in the urban ecological environment. Due to their special habitat characteristics, urban wetlands can serve as micro refuges for endangered plants. This study takes Isoetes sinensis as a case study to explore the feasibility of introducing endangered plants into urban wetlands to identify potential habitats through field studies, eco-physiological experiments, and urban wetland surveys in the central district of Hangzhou, China. The study demonstrates that I. sinensis can survive in habitats with a water depth less than 15 cm, a water velocity less than 0.04 m/s, and an ammonium-nitrogen content in water less than 0.5 mg/L. On this basis, 1.75% of the wetland (145.38 ha) in the central district in Hangzhou can serve as wetland habitats for I. sinensis. Moreover, other potential habitats for I. sinensis will be available following further improvement of environmental conditions in urban wetlands. Planting I. sinensis in urban wetlands is an effective step to assist in the protection of this species. However, it should be noted that there are some uncertainties related to successful reintroducing I. sinensis into urban wetlands, such as the appearance that like weeds, the poor resistance to pesticides and the changes of urban wetland environment.

Currently, quality air and renewable energy are main concerns in protecting the environment. Comparing willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy is rare in the existing literature. However, the public faces these issues simultaneously. In addition, population mobility under China’s household registration system, i.e., urban living experience, may affect the willingness to pay for environmental protection. Consequently, the difference between people’s willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy in China is discussed. Binary logistic regression is adopted to analyze the correlation factors based on data from the China General Social Survey. The results show that willingness to pay is influenced by environmental attitudes, awareness of energy use, government responsibilities, age, household income level, and trust. The effects of urban living experience on willingness to pay weakens as age decreases. Thus, improving environmental awareness and specialized knowledge remain important means of promoting willingness to pay. Our findings can help marketers and policy designers develop balanced or targeted measures when taking joint actions.

Understanding the factors influencing the aesthetic experience of architectures is an important topic in empirical aesthetics. In this study, we examined the effect of three architectural factors, i.e., ceiling height, openness, and contour, on viewers’ aesthetic appreciation through a series of experiments. In previous studies on architectural aesthetics, participants were usually asked to view an image of an architectural space for a few seconds. The long viewing time allows them to focus on different parts of the architecture and then make an aesthetic judgment. The long viewing time, however, also makes it difficult to obtain viewers’ aesthetic scores for a large number of architectural spaces in a short period. In this study, we shortened the visual presentation time to 200 ms, which allowed the viewers to have only one fixation on the image, and asked the viewers to make an aesthetic judgment. It was found that the experiment with a 200-ms viewing time could establish how the three architectural factors influenced aesthetic judgment as well as previous experiments with a 3,000-ms viewing time, suggesting that aesthetic judgment could be made within one fixation. Additionally, we investigated the impact of color on architectural aesthetic judgment by presenting grayscale images. We found that the three architectural factors influenced aesthetic judgment in similar ways for both color and grayscale images. In summary, we found that color was not a main factor modulating viewers’ architectural aesthetic judgments, and we also presented a way to quickly obtain aesthetic scores for architectural spaces.

Architects should consider the aesthetic experience of potential users when designing architectures. Previous studies have shown that subjective aesthetic judgment of architectures is influenced by structure features, and Western observers prefer structures that have curvilinear contours, high ceilings, and open space. The building styles, however, vary across cultures, and it remains unclear whether the preference for contours, ceiling height, and openness exist across cultures. To investigate this issue, this study analyzes the aesthetic judgment of Chinese observers, and the results demonstrate that Chinese observers also prefer high ceilings and open space. Preference for curvilinear contours, however, interacts with ceiling height and openness. Simple effect analysis reveals that Chinese observers prefer curvilinear contours only when the ceiling is low and the space is closed. In sum, these results suggest that preference for high ceilings and open space is robust for Chinese observers, but the preference for curvilinear contours is less reliable.

In recent years, many scholars worldwide have carried out research related to the relationship between the construction of rural dwellings and the indoor thermal environment in response to the issue of building sustainability. China’s rural revitalization has developed rapidly in recent years. Although previous research showed that the poor indoor thermal environment of vernacular dwellings has negative effects on residents’ thermal comfort and health, it is poorly studied in terms of residents’ space usage habits, their thermal comfort satisfaction, and their thermal sensation. Linyi, the largest and most populous city in Shandong, China, was selected as the research area to investigate the thermal environment and space usage by using in-depth questionnaire interviews and systematical measurements. The results show that there are seasonal differences in space usage in a typical vernacular dwelling. The field measurements show that the indoor temperature is 0–5 °C in winter if there is no heating and 26 °C in summer. By comprehensive comparison, it is found that there is a contradiction between residential space usage and the functional layout; residents choose to use rooms with worse thermal conditions in winter. The analysis of the questionnaires shows that residents have higher satisfaction with the indoor thermal environment in summer than in winter, and the thermal comfort range of residents is 23.3~30 °C in summer and 11.25~17.5 °C in winter. Additionally, the neutral thermal temperature of the indoor space is 26.7 °C in summer and 14.4 °C in winter. Although residents have better adaptability to the cold climate, the measurement data in winter are still beyond the comfort range. We suggest that these results can be used as a reference and data base for improving the living environment of rural vernacular dwellings in Chinese cold regions.

The elderly community day care model is an emergent solution to the aging problem influenced by the Eastern perspective of family in China. Due to the structural problem of spatial disorder in most of China’s urban built-up areas, the planning and construction of elderly day care centers (EDCCs) is facing great challenges. This study aims to comprehensively compare the spatial distribution and accessibility measurement methods for elderly residents and EDCCs in typical Chinese urban built-up areas based on the accessibility theory and spatial analysis methods from the community living circle perspective. The results show that different spatial distribution analysis methods have their own emphases and limitations, requiring comprehensive application in practice. The potential model method is most suitable for the accessibility measurement in this scenario. The threshold setting of service distance for the urban built-up areas public service facilities in the current Chinese standard needs to be further optimized. The existing EDCCs suffer from serious quantity deficiencies and misplaced supplies in the region. These findings can reveal the EDCCs distribution characteristics of typical Chinese urban built-up areas and provide new insights for urban planners and policy makers who are assessing the equity and efficiency of public service facilities.

Robots have been increasingly involved in global construction and are considered one of the most promising solutions for the reform of the construction industry. The superiority of the robotic construction process compared to the present stage of actual construction with predominantly human participation is mainly reflected in the high efficiency and high accuracy of its construction, thus improving the benefits to the natural, economic, and social environment and significantly changing the current construction labor market. At present, the development and application of robotic construction technology worldwide are mostly at the laboratory stage and are not applied to actual construction projects on a large scale. In this paper, we explore the methods and steps of robotic involvement in the construction of a complete timber building through the reconstruction of a completed timber building, from the design process and construction process to the final evaluation of construction efficiency. Finally, by comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the two design and construction methods, manual construction and robotic construction, the problems and difficulties in current robotic construction and the opportunities and challenges faced by robotic automation in the construction industry are identified.

Urban squares are an important part of a city’s overall spatial environment. However, many urban squares lack rational designs, causing the thermal environment to deteriorate. To ensure sustainable urban development, urban square microclimates should be improved. Given that, this study investigates the effects of three coverages of three landscape elements of urban squares through modeling and simulation using the ENVI-met model validated by field measurements. The correlation between physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and different amounts of landscape elements is investigated using Spearman analysis. This study presents a case study of a typical urban square in a cold climate area. Design strategies in the area are proposed. The results show that the microclimate and thermal comfort of the urban square can be improved by expanding water bodies, modest increasing buildings and optimizing vegetation. Vegetation is the most important landscape element affecting thermal comfort in the urban square. The PET can be reduced by about 1.5 °C by increasing the vegetation cover from 40% to 70%. However, the degree of microclimate regulation by vegetation is disturbed by water bodies and buildings (|ρ| ≥ 0.5). Therefore, to achieve a more comfortable thermal environment, a combination of landscape elements should be considered.

As the European building stock is in evident need of deep energy retrofitting to meet current European decarbonisation targets, the construction market calls for industrialised systems to boost massive renovations and activate economies of scale. The article outlines the development of an offsite fabricated system for building energy refurbishment through rainscreen façade elements. A focus is placed on such elements as they offer excellent system integration possibilities and the opportunity to boost the level of offsite fabrication, compared to other already industrialised façade systems, such as unitised façades. This research was carried out within the framework of BuildHEAT research project, funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 framework programme. The system concept is based on a systemic approach that combines energy efficiency, multifunctionality, integration of renewable energies, and ease of installation as design drivers. System development has rolled out through different phases, with an increased level of detail. During the schematic design phase, a set of different prefabricated façade panel dimensions were analysed. Afterwards, the component and system integration were assessed according to their impacts in terms of energy performance and fulfilment of mandatory technical requirements. As a last step, the most promising technical combinations underwent detailed design to verify construction feasibility and eliminate any bottlenecks during the fabrication phase. Results show that the proposed prefabricated solutions allowed: (i) simplified active system integration (photovoltaics, solar thermal, and building services), (ii) ease of installation on site, minimising the impact of renovation actions on occupants without compromising on final quality and reducing installation costs. Current limitations to extensive market diffusion of the system are related to two main aspects: (i) the need for on-site adjustments; and (ii) increased manufacturing costs compared to traditional external insulation interventions (e.g. ETICS). The current cost of the system (2020) is in the range of 3 - 1.5x the cost of, respectively, an ETICS or a vented rainscreen façade. However, as a next step, including the life-cycle perspective in the calculation, as well as accounting for economies of scale, the system will be evaluated, expecting a cost figure comparable to the rainscreen façade.

Albasia (Albizia falcataria), known as sengon wood, is a fast-growing tree species commonly found in Indonesian forests and community plantations. However, the low-density, hardness, and strength significantly restrict its commercial application. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of densification on the physical properties of Albizia falcataria under high-temperature and -pressure. Different temperatures were applied to the Albizia falcataria board (100 °C, 120 °C, 140 °C, sandwich 140 °C). The densification process influences the density properties, color changes, thickness, compression ratio, equilibrium moisture content, and anatomical properties of the material. With this procedure, the density can be increased to 0.62 kg/L, a gain of approximately 112.78% over untreated wood. The density of wood increases, resulting in the decomposition of its chemical components, especially hemicellulose, which darkens the wood color and stabilizes equilibrium moisture control. As a result, the thermal compression modification treatment under high-temperature and -pressure is a highly effective method for enhancing the physical properties of fast-growing wood species, such as Albizia falcataria.

The use of parametric and multi-objective optimization (MOO) as a new way of approaching architectural design has been growing in line with current breakthroughs in computational architecture. Wood, on the other hand, is a living and unique building material that provides durability, manufacturing flexibility, and local availability. One of the structure types that provides high structural stability is the hyperboloid. However, the exploration of hyperboloid structures in building design, together with the building daylight objective, is still limitedly reported. This paper presents the application of the parametric approach and multi-objective optimization in optimizing the structure and daylight objectives of a hyperboloid two-story wooden house in Japan, made of 105 mm × 105 mm × 4000 mm Japanese timber. The method involves iterating dynamic parameters such as radius bottom, offset distance, timber members, twisting level, building height, radius-top, and roof slope to optimize the structural objective of minimizing normal force average, displacement, and cost while simultaneously maximizing building volume. Regarding daylight objectives, unit movement and glazing ratio that control the glazing strategies were explored to optimize useful daylight illumination (UDI) in summer and winter. The optimization and exploration yielded 10,098 solutions in structural analysis and 406 solutions in daylight exploration. Based on the data analysis, the proposed methodology has successfully produced the best design solution, discovering the balance between the objective trade-offs. In addition, the most influential parameter that shapes the value of design objectives has been identified. The findings of this research were expected to contribute to and enhance the performance-based design optimization, and support design decision-making process in the early design stage of a wooden house with a hyperboloid structure.

Space cooling is currently the fastest-growing end-user in buildings. The global warming trend combined with increased population and economic development will lead to accelerated growth in space cooling in the future, especially in China. The hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone is the most densely populated and economically developed region in China, but with the worst indoor thermal environment. Relatively few studies have been conducted on the actual measurements in the optimization of insulation design under typical intermittent cooling modes in this region. This case study was conducted in Chengdu—the two residences selected were identical in design, but the south bedroom of the case study residence had interior insulation (inside insulation on all opaque interior surfaces of a space) retrofitted in the bedroom area in 2017. In August 2019, a comparative on-site measurement was done to investigate the effect of the retrofit work under three typical intermittent cooling patterns in the real-life scenario. The experimental result shows that interior insulation provides a significant improvement in energy-saving and the indoor thermal environment. The average energy savings in daily cooling energy consumption of the south bedroom is 42.09%, with the maximum reaching 48.91%. In the bedroom with interior insulation retrofit, the indoor temperature is closer to the set temperature and the vertical temperature difference is smaller during the cooling period; when the air conditioner is off, the room remains a comfortable temperature for a slightly longer time.

A constant supply of novel ideas and contributions from all economic sectors is required to further the sustainable development of cities. Therefore, there is a growing need for well-educated graduates to enter metropolitan job markets. As urban environments and culture have been shown to affect a graduates’ eventual carrier choice and trajectory, governments often seek to change their local environments to attract graduates who can help efficiently allocate and utilize a city’s often-limited environmental budgets. In this study, the conjoint analysis (CA) method was employed to explore the effects of four environmental attributes (water pollution, air pollution, littering, and green area) on graduate employment preferences in northeast China. Water pollution was shown to have the greatest effect on graduate preferences (43.6%), followed by air pollution (34.1%), littering (20.7%), and green area (1.6%). According to this ranking of importance, cities could improve their environmental attributes to maximize the attraction of Northeast graduates. Moreover, this study applied the Baidu index (a big data sharing platform) to improve the attribute selection process of the CA method. The improvement reduced the cost of the CA method and enhanced its objectivity.

Under the background of Chinese Rural Revitalization Strategy, how to improve rural regional environment and living quality is very important and urgent. At present, residential buildings in gully regions of the Loess Plateau have poor insulation and high-energy consumption. Thus, better ecological design can largely save energy and improve living comfort. The findings of this paper provide an insight into the ecological design potentials for reducing energy demand across rural regions in China. In this paper, we select three main types of residential buildings in gully regions and build energy demand models based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. The results show that the energy demand in the building use stage is extremely high in all three typical buildings, which account for around 90% of the whole life cycle. The energy demand of the traditional adobe residential building is lower than the brick-concrete structure buildings. The LCA method used in this paper can quantify the energy demand in each stage of life cycle, which helps to put forward the corresponding ecological design strategy. The research results can be used as a reference in the future development of this region and other rural regions in China.

The growth of the scale of cities intensifies urban heat island (UHI) by obstructing the wind and building more radiation at pedestrian level, thus leading to an energy consumption. Commercial pedestrianized-zones cannot only become symbols of cities but also an important factor increasing local economic income. This study conducts on-site measurement and numerical simulation to evaluate the cooling energy efficiency of different parameters (building, vegetation, pavement material) in Fo Shan city, which locates in hot-summer and warm-winter climate region of China. Also, calculations are done to evaluate the index physiological equivalent temperature (PET) for understanding thermal sensation at a pedestrian level (1.5 m). To evaluate different impacts of this zone renewal on the environment and choose the most energy-saving method, it is easy for us to utilize the linear regression for understanding the relationship between coverage ratio of trees (TCR) and thermal comfort in canyon space, which shows that ∆PET = 0.1703 × TCR + 0.2444 with a most important R2 value of 0.9836, for TCR increases from 12.5% to 22%. In open space, also increasing coverage ratio of trees (TCR) can effectively improve humans’ thermal comfort, which shows that ∆PET = 0.2644 × TCR + 0.3955 with a most important R2 value of 0.8892.