Passive strategies for environmental sustainability and energy reduction in the construction industry are becoming increasingly important in, both, the scientific community and the industrial world. Particularly, cool roofs demonstrate acknowledged contribution in cooling energy saving and reducing urban overheating such as urban heat island. Additionally, high albedo strategy has shown promising benefits from a global perspective by counteracting global warming measured by means of CO2eq emission offset. In this view, the present research work combines experimental, numerical, and analytical analysis approaches to measure the impact on energy and the environment from the application of cool clay tiles over the roof of a residential buildings located in central Italy, consistently monitored since 2010. The purposeful investigation demonstrated a consistent CO2 emission compensation of more than 700 tons, 15% of which is produced by the passive cooling contribution of buildings and climate mitigation techniques. The work, therefore, indicated that local energy saving strategies must be combined with larger scale models for performing an exhaustive environmental analysis.

One of the main economic benefits associated with the sustainable character of buildings is certainly the reduced use and energy consumption. The savings can be very significant, especially when you consider that a non-residential building, energy-efficient point of view, can be achieved a power savings of 30% (Kats, 2003). This, combined with the rising energy prices and growing awareness of environmental issues, has gradually shifted the demand towards buildings with good sustainable features; as a result, the concept of "sustainability" has become a real "driver" for designers " (Turner and Frankel, 2008). However it is appropriate and interesting to understand whether and to what extent a general trend, widely shared, is recognized by the market in terms of value. To simplify, it is appropriate to distinguish between the evidence of statistical data and considerations that have significant but only qualitative characteristics; then highlight statistics that demonstrate the relationship between the buildings performance in terms of sustainability, and the corresponding market value and, at the same time, raise the motivation and guidance of end users and investors to see if the market can push towards sustainability because of there issues such as economic benefit and convenience, and not only opportunities and responsibilities.

Cool roofs are effective solutions to counter the overheating of building roofs, inhabited spaces below and urban areas in which buildings are located thanks to their capability of reflecting solar radiation. Nonetheless, the relatively low surface temperatures that they induce can cause condensation of humidity and leave the surface wetted for large part of the day, thus promoting the growth of bacteria, algae and other biological fouling; this can cause a quick decay of the solar reflective performance. Biological growth is countered by surface treatments, which however may be toxic and forbidden in many countries and may also vanish quickly. It can also be countered by lowering the thermal emittance and thus decreasing heat transfer by infrared radiation to the sky and the consequent night undercooling, but this can decrease the performance of cool roofs. An alternative approach, which is analyzed in this work, is to embed in the first layer below the cool roof surface a phase change material (PCM) that absorbs heat during the daytime and then releases it in the nighttime. This can increase the minimum surface temperatures, thus reducing the occurrence humidity condensation and, with this, the biological growth. In this work, preliminary results on the coupling of a cool roof surface with a PCM sublayer are presented, being obtained by theoretical investigation on commercial materials and taking into account the time evolution pattern of the environmental conditions.

The study proposes determining the potential of solar collection in urban environments, considering urban building different morphological variables corresponding to representative urban settings in the Mendoza Metropolitan Area (AMM), Argentina. The methodology involves monitoring the global solar irradiance on the vertical plane in North facades, completely sunny and partly sunny, affected by solid masking and masking woodland. Results obtained so far indicate that solar masking is critical for vertical surfaces, with a reduction of the available solar energy between 2% and 66% in the winter season, depending on the type of trees and the building morphology. In the summer season, the measured solar masking values range from a maximum of 83% and a minimum of 10% influence of surface shaded by the neighboring buildings and trees. The results demonstrate the impact of the main variables that determine access to the sun in an urban environment (Urban Tree Canopy, Building Morphology, Building Height, Urban Street Width) The study will allow for future reform and progressive updating of urban and building codes to implement higher levels of energy efficiency for and minimum environmental impact by urban buildings, considering the principal urban building variables.

The urban policies and territorial live a period of profound transformation, characterized by a shift to new approaches and governance tools. Public intervention implemented through programs active an application for assessment: beyond the explicit applications contained in the various intervention tools, the decision-making sphere, facing the loss of representativeness of organized politics and the growing complexity of the variables that influence the public choices has the absolute necessity of auxiliary tools that allow you to optimize the use of available resources and at the same time make the decision-making path shareable and transparent. Fewer resources always available, the importance of the time during transformation processes, the rational legitimacy of choices - pose a number of difficult problems to solve that lead to the need to experiment with new tools to support decision makers, from the early stage of planning or in the pre-design phase (Saaty, 1990; 2008). In this valuation context of compatible functional solutions, the Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodologies (Roy & Bouyssou, 1993), and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in particular, play a significant role as they allow to be taken into account all the intrinsic values of the assets in question, both economic and extra-economic. The use of these methods can provide choices that are not always based on the best cost-benefit ratio (Nesticò, Macchiaroli, & Pipolo, 2015). As well as guaranteeing the presence and the clarification of different values, the formalisation of an evaluation process carried out in these terms, expression of the community needs, also allows the control and the correspondence between general and specific choices. Since the asset is of particular value, it is, however, necessary that the various criteria and weights taken on the basis of the evaluation are shared by the community or rather, by direct users and by potential or future users.

Urbanization is a global phenomenon which is projected by the United Nations to grow annually at 65 million between 2000 and 2030 in developing countries. As an archipelagic nation, the Philippines is considered as a highly urbanized nation where over three-fourths of its population is estimated to reside in urban areas, posting a proportion of one person residing in rural area for every three in urban area. The National Capital Region (NCR), the core region of the counry, registers a 100% urbanization level and where the most densely populated areas converged. It generally exhibits an urban population growth rate that exceeds the national growth rate. Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, is the second largest and the world’s most densely populated city given its small land area and huge human population. The concentration of people in this city and the urbanization processes are foreseen to create environmental stress leading to potential biodiversity losses coupled with other urban environmental occurrences such as flooding, air pollution, sea level rise, earthquake, subsidence, traffic congestion, water pollution, among others. These natural and man-made hazards pose challenge to the multi-functional uses and various benefits of urban green spaces (UGS). UGS play a significant role in enhancing the quality and resiliency of the environment as well as in improving the health and general well being of city dwellers. It is in this context that the challenges and opportunities of UGS are examined. The paper attempts to identify and determine the factors that influence UGS as basis for urban biodiversity planning and management.

This paper looks at the courtyard house as a traditional urban dwellings of yesteryears with a view to explore its potential in informing the housing developments of the future. In order to address the question, the paper starts with a historical overview of this built form as an urban dwellings that fulfilled its functional and spatial requirements in times gone by. It then goes on to highlight the inadequcy of post colonial housing solutions in Algeria and to look into two important aspects of this traditional housing typology; its socio-cultural relevance and environmental performance. The analysis is carried out using both secondary research in the form of three examples from the literature. and primary research carried out as field work in the form of temperature measurements inside a house, during the hot season, in Boussaada (Algeria). The discussion and concluding remarks attempts to make an arguments for re-considering what could be learned from such traditional housing typology to inform future urban development that would subscribe to the values of sustainable development.

Media facades is a subdivision of urban computing integrating digital displays into buildings, including structures and road furniture. It is frequently connected with over dimensional screens and vivified, lit up publicizing, and places like Times Square. The facade is dematerialized and transformed into one immense promoting medium for sending messages. Media facades can bring out the most assorted feelings, from a major city feeling to disturbance at light contamination. They are likewise seen as Pop Art or as blemishes. Design tends to utilize media facades increasingly as a stylistic component. What used to be added to exteriors after the enhanced building development in the method for a flaw is currently a part of the design procedure and offers new extension for visionary outline which is authored to the term (Mediatecture). This research identifies the impact of using media facades on commercial buildings environmentally and economically. In addition to that, experimental design cases of interactive building facades will be discussed and a SWOT analysis will be analyzed to exemplify the challenges and discuss how they may be addressed. Also, the examples are presented to demonstrate how to work with the difficulties inalienable in media facade design forms taking into account the formation of different proposals for a media facade on current public and new buildings in Egypt.

Government housing projects are among the complex issues facing developing countries’ governments. There have been many attempts to solve problems related to this issue and a lot of effort has been made in this direction. The main problem is lowering the cost of lodging, without sacrificing its quality and the effectiveness by which it fulfills the needs of its occupants. This became possible upon the use of the value engineering technique. Value engineering is an effective tool used to solve problems related to housing, by lowering cost on one hand and sustaining or even ameliorating quality and performance. The purpose of this study is to try to identify a series of proposed solutions and value indicators and to describe their role in improving value in government housing projects. This process may assist the designer in choosing and managing, value indicators during the creative phase, using references from the literature and the analysis of case studies. The literature review identified the reasons for high costs and poor performance, which are often a result of a misunderstanding of the fundamental principles of design criteria and value indicators, followed in government housing projects. The review also pinpointed the most important considerations that improve value. Results obtained in this study feature the positive effects of methods under the umbrella of value engineering, applied in government housing projects. It was found that savings of 15% to 40% can be achieved in the total cost of a certain project, using this technique. Generating ideas in the creative phase is one of the most important stages in value engineering studies. A set of value indicators and proposed solutions in the form of a checklist were derived and can be used in the future, during the creative phase of value engineering studies in the initial design stage of government housing projects.

Government housing projects are among the complex issues facing developing countries’ governments. There have been many attempts to solve problems related to this issue and a lot of effort has been made in this direction. The main problem is lowering the cost of lodging, without sacrificing its quality and the effectiveness by which it fulfills the needs of its occupants. This became possible upon the use of the value engineering technique. Value engineering is an effective tool used to solve problems related to housing, by lowering cost on one hand and sustaining or even ameliorating quality and performance. The purpose of this study is to try to identify a series of proposed solutions and value indicators and to describe their role in improving value in government housing projects. This process may assist the designer in choosing and managing, value indicators during the creative phase, using references from the literature and the analysis of case studies. The literature review identified the reasons for high costs and poor performance, which are often a result of a misunderstanding of the fundamental principles of design criteria and value indicators, followed in government housing projects. The review also pinpointed the most important considerations that improve value. Results obtained in this study feature the positive effects of methods under the umbrella of value engineering, applied in government housing projects. It was found that savings of 15% to 40% can be achieved in the total cost of a certain project, using this technique. Generating ideas in the creative phase is one of the most important stages in value engineering studies. A set of value indicators and proposed solutions in the form of a checklist were derived and can be used in the future, during the creative phase of value engineering studies in the initial design stage of government housing projects.