Current Issue

Buildings and Cities invites you to submit to one of the following four new Special Issues.

Download a PDF with the full details by clicking on the title of the Call or visit the Buildings and Cities Community Website via the links below.

Energy, Emerging Technologies and Gender in Homes

Guest Editors: Kirsten Gram-Hanssen (Aalborg U) & Yolande Strengers (Monash U)

Deadline for abstract submission: 7 SEPTEMBER 2021

How are visions, relationships and practices with emerging technologies and energy interacting with gender relations and dynamics in homes?

From aspirations for leisure-enhancing electronic and digital gadgets through to self-cleaning buildings, imaginaries (visions) of technology in the home reflect long-held gendered associations. This special issue investigates how emerging technologies are informed by gender and generate gendered effects in ways that support or undermine energy policies and initiatives. The issue will explore the relationship between gender, emerging technologies and energy from many perspectives, to help realise more gender-inclusive technologies, buildings, policies, programs and outcomes, and to ensure that gender insights can assist in making energy policy more effective by building on everyday life understandings.

For the full submission details and further information, visit the B&C Community Website:
https://www.buildingsandcities.org/calls-for-papers/energy-gender-homes.html

Urban Expansion

Guest Editor: Shlomo Angel (Marron Institute of Urban Management, New York University)

Deadline for abstract submission: 03 DECEMBER 2021

How can urban expansion be undertaken more sustainably, how can expansion be contained and appropriate strategies created for rapid and modest urban growth?

This special issue explores the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of urban expansion; when, where and how expansion can and should be contained; and when, where, and how it can and should be managed in an orderly, inclusive, and sustainable manner. When cities grow in population, economic output and cultural amenities, they need more physical space. Such space can be created through densification (the focus of a recent B&C special issue) and/or by expanding their footprints into the rural periphery. Urban expansion in geographic space is often ill-defined and its measurement and projection into the future are controversial. ‘Sprawl’ is detrimental to the surrounding countryside, costly in terms of infrastructure, excessive waste in energy and resources, and increased GHG emissions. But the regulatory containment of urban expansion is problematic as it can result in land and house price inflation, making cities less affordable. The speed of urban expansion has consistently been underestimated especially in the Global South where expansions occur in a disorderly and unplanned manner with negative consequences for inhabitants.

For the full submission details and further information, visit the B&C Community Website:
https://www.buildingsandcities.org/calls-for-papers/urban-expansion.html

Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems

Guest Editors: Ed Arens, Hui Zhang, Rajan Rawal & Yongchao Zhai

Deadline for abstract submission: 06 SEPTEMBER 2021

How can the innovation process be assisted and accelerated for implementing this technology? What leadership can these different actors provide for promoting this transition?

This special issue explores the further development and adoption of decentralized building thermal environmental control, in which occupants can create and control their local thermal environments with personal devices while the central space conditioning (HVAC) is scaled back. This approach to personal control promises to make a greater proportion of a building’s occupants comfortable, while at the same time reducing the energy- and system costs of a central HVAC system. The adoption of this technology involves a diverse array of actors (manufacturers, standards organisations, design professionals, client groups, real estate and facilities operators) and its adoption challenges their existing practices.

For the full submission details and further information, visit the B&C Community Website:
https://www.buildingsandcities.org/calls-for-papers/mainstreaming-pcs.html

Modern methods of construction: beyond productivity improvement

Guest Editor: Stuart D. Green (University of Reading)

Deadline for abstract submission: 13 SEPTEMBER 2021

What are the potential unintended consequences of modern methods of construction which are not currently considered?

This special issue investigates the externalities of modern methods of construction (MMC). It examines the dominant narrative used to promote MMC. Although an increased proportion of pre-manufactured value (PMV) may improve narrowly-defined site-based ‘productivity’, evidence is needed on the associated externalities and potential long-term adverse systemic consequences. What can be learned from previous attempts to modernise the construction process with industrialised methods. The aim is to examine the assumptions underpinning the prevailing ‘presumption in favour’ of MMC. Contributions will provide evidence about the externalities which lie beyond the narrowly-defined construct of productivity. Priority will be given to empirical papers aimed at exploring the systemic consequences of an ever-increasing proportion of PMV in construction. The special issue is open to a range of quantitative and qualitative research methods using primary and/or secondary data. Contextualised case studies are especially welcome.

For the full submission details and further information, visit the B&C Community Website:
https://www.buildingsandcities.org/calls-for-papers/cfp-mmc.html

Systemic inequalities in indoor air pollution exposure

Buildings and Cities in partnership with UCL, have launched a press release on their recent publication "Systemic inequalities in indoor air pollution exposure in London, UK" by Ferguson et al.

Exposure to air pollution is one of the greatest health risks in many countries, for example causing an estimated 28,000 – 36,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. Low-income households are exposed to higher levels of outdoor and indoor air pollution. What leads to these indoor exposure inequalities and what can be done to reduce them?

Read the full report on the Buildings and Cities website.

We are pleased to announce that B&C has been formally approved for inclusion in The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The journal has been awarded DOAJ's 'SEAL OF APPROVAL' that is given to only 10% of eligible publications.

DOAJ is a long-standing mark of journal quality. Inclusion is only open to journals with high quality editorial process and transparency, complexity of peer review, easy and freely available articles in open access publishing mode.

All peer-reviewed content in Buildings & Cities will be indexed in the DOAJ. This means B&C is Plan S compliant.

Buildings & Cities was awarded the DOAJ Seal of Approval for demonstrating best practice in open access publishing.