It is our pleasure to welcome you to the Buildings and Cities journal. We are created by and for the research community that we serve. Our emphasis is on creating, supporting and maintaining a vibrant global and inclusive community of authors and readers.
Our content is diverse and cross-disciplinary. Buildings and Cities considers the interplay and interactions between the different scales of region, city, building stocks, neighbourhood, street or block, and the individual site / building. We also address fragmentation – of disciplinary boundaries and responsibilities, regulation and governance, research and practice.
Understanding how these elements interact is critical for meeting the current challenges we face in policy and practice. We will bring additional content to you – briefing papers, synthesis articles, policy analysis, replication articles, methods articles, commentaries, book reviews.
We’re innovative. We will actively encourage engagement with the end users of research – policy makers, practitioners, clients and wider society. We recognise that the dialogue must be two-way to be meaningful. In addition to content on our website, we will partner with organisations to host events to discuss research needs, research findings and the actions that need to arise.
We’re launching this journal to respond to the multiple crises and challenges facing the built environment. First and foremost are the challenges in our towns, cities and peri-urban areas to create a built environment that supports human development and ecological systems and reduces resource demand and GHG emissions. Places that are safe, healthy, inclusive, sustainable and adaptable over time. A built environment that mitigates climate change and makes a positive contribution to global and local vitality. The professional responsibilities owed to society are shifting; consequently education, training, skills and organisational practices need to respond.
The editors have a proven reputation for providing a rigorous, high-quality peer-review process for journal articles and curated themed issues. Our previous success at Building Research & Information shows what we can deliver with confidence. We use a double-blind peer review system with a minimum of 3 expert reviewers. Our editors advise and assist authors with the feedback they receive.
We recognise the enormous contribution that authors, reviewers and editors contribute to this journal – so we don’t exploit authors’ and reviewers’ work by extracting a profit. Any surplus will go into the journal or back into the research community as small grants or financial assistance for publishing. We’re independent from large publishers who impose strictures on their journals and editors. As a not-for-profit organisation, we are not motivated to publish more and more to benefit shareholders (we have no shareholders).
You are invited to participate in this active community and contribute your research and insights. We will encourage a two-way dialogue and exchange with practitioners, clients, policy makers and the public.
Richard Lorch,
Editor in Chief
Spatiotemporal evaluation of embodied carbon in urban residential development
I Talvitie, A Amiri & S Junnila
Energy sufficiency in buildings and cities: current research, future directions [editorial]
M Sahakian, T Fawcett & S Darby
Sufficiency, consumption patterns and limits: a survey of French households
J Bouillet & C Grandclément
Health inequalities and indoor environments: research challenges and priorities [editorial]
M Ucci & A Mavrogianni
Operationalising energy sufficiency for low-carbon built environments in urbanising India
A B Lall & G Sethi
Promoting practices of sufficiency: reprogramming resource-intensive material arrangements
T H Christensen, L K Aagaard, A K Juvik, C Samson & K Gram-Hanssen
Culture change in the UK construction industry: an anthropological perspective
I Tellam
Are people willing to share living space? Household preferences in Finland
E Ruokamo, E Kylkilahti, M Lettenmeier & A Toppinen
Towards urban LCA: examining densification alternatives for a residential neighbourhood
M Moisio, E Salmio, T Kaasalainen, S Huuhka, A Räsänen, J Lahdensivu, M Leppänen & P Kuula
A population-level framework to estimate unequal exposure to indoor heat and air pollution
R Cole, C H Simpson, L Ferguson, P Symonds, J Taylor, C Heaviside, P Murage, H L Macintyre, S Hajat, A Mavrogianni & M Davies
Finnish glazed balconies: residents’ experience, wellbeing and use
L Jegard, R Castaño-Rosa, S Kilpeläinen & S Pelsmakers
Modelling Nigerian residential dwellings: bottom-up approach and scenario analysis
C C Nwagwu, S Akin & E G Hertwich
Mapping municipal land policies: applications of flexible zoning for densification
V Götze, J-D Gerber & M Jehling
Energy sufficiency and recognition justice: a study of household consumption
A Guilbert
Linking housing, socio-demographic, environmental and mental health data at scale
P Symonds, C H Simpson, G Petrou, L Ferguson, A Mavrogianni & M Davies
Measuring health inequities due to housing characteristics
K Govertsen & M Kane
Provide or prevent? Exploring sufficiency imaginaries within Danish systems of provision
L K Aagaard & T H Christensen
Imagining sufficiency through collective changes as satisfiers
O Moynat & M Sahakian
US urban land-use reform: a strategy for energy sufficiency
Z M Subin, J Lombardi, R Muralidharan, J Korn, J Malik, T Pullen, M Wei & T Hong
Mapping supply chains for energy retrofit
F Wade & Y Han
Operationalising building-related energy sufficiency measures in SMEs
I Fouiteh, J D Cabrera Santelices, A Susini & M K Patel
Promoting neighbourhood sharing: infrastructures of convenience and community
A Huber, H Heinrichs & M Jaeger-Erben
New insights into thermal comfort sufficiency in dwellings
G van Moeseke, D de Grave, A Anciaux, J Sobczak & G Wallenborn
‘Rightsize’: a housing design game for spatial and energy sufficiency
P Graham, P Nourian, E Warwick & M Gath-Morad
Implementing housing policies for a sufficient lifestyle
M Bagheri, L Roth, L Siebke, C Rohde & H-J Linke
The jobs of climate adaptation
T Denham, L Rickards & O Ajulo
Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
M Koch, K Emilsson, J Lee & H Johansson
Life-cycle GHG emissions of standard houses in Thailand
B Viriyaroj, M Kuittinen & S H Gheewala
IAQ and environmental health literacy: lived experiences of vulnerable people
C Smith, A Drinkwater, M Modlich, D van der Horst & R Doherty
Living smaller: acceptance, effects and structural factors in the EU
M Lehner, J L Richter, H Kreinin, P Mamut, E Vadovics, J Henman, O Mont & D Fuchs
Disrupting the imaginaries of urban action to deliver just adaptation [editorial]
V Castán-Broto, M Olazabal & G Ziervogel
Building energy use in COVID-19 lockdowns: did much change?
F Hollick, D Humphrey, T Oreszczyn, C Elwell & G Huebner
Evaluating past and future building operational emissions: improved method
S Huuhka, M Moisio & M Arnould
Normative future visioning: a critical pedagogy for transformative adaptation
T Comelli, M Pelling, M Hope, J Ensor, M E Filippi, E Y Menteşe & J McCloskey
Nature for resilience reconfigured: global- to-local translation of frames in Africa
K Rochell, H Bulkeley & H Runhaar
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
V Castán Broto, L Westman & P Huang
Fabric first: is it still the right approach?
N Eyre, T Fawcett, M Topouzi, G Killip, T Oreszczyn, K Jenkinson & J Rosenow
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F Samuel & K Watson
Understanding demolition [editorial]
S Huuhka
Data politics in the built environment [editorial]
A Karvonen & T Hargreaves
Latest Commentaries
Systems Thinking is Needed to Achieve Sustainable Cities
As city populations grow, a critical current and future challenge for urban researchers is to provide compelling evidence of the medium and long-term co-benefits of quality, low-carbon affordable housing and compact urban design. Philippa Howden-Chapman (University of Otago) and Ralph Chapman (Victoria University of Wellington) explain why systems-based, transition-oriented research on housing and associated systemic benefits is needed now more than ever.
Unmaking Cities Can Catalyse Sustainable Transformations
Andrew Karvonen (Lund University) explains why innovation has limitations for achieving systemic change. What is also needed is a process of unmaking (i.e. phasing out existing harmful technologies, processes and practices) whilst ensuring inequalities, vulnerabilities and economic hazards are avoided. Researchers have an important role to identify what needs dismantling, identify advantageous and negative impacts and work with stakeholders and local governments.