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Buildings
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Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities
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Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 21702

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Henry Abanda

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, School of the Built Environment, Faculty of Technology, Design & Environment, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Interests: BIM; building rehabilitation; sustainable construction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Blaise Mempouo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Buildings, Energy & Environment (BEE) Research Group, Department of Architecture & the Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD United Kingdom
Interests: low carbon technologies/HVAC systems for residential and commercial buildings, smart homes and smart buildings (Internet of Things & KNX protocol); integrated systems (including heat pumps, air conditioning systems, ventilation (MVHR), radiant heating/cooling systems, shading systems, natural ventilation, HVAC) for sustainable heating and cooling to realise Zero Energy Buildings (ZEB); building systems for enhanced indoor environmental quality (IEQ), indoor air quality (IAQ), comfort and energy saving; monitoring and Evaluation by experimental measurement and simulation; sustainable construction and renewable energy; energy and resource efficiency in the building code for tropical countries.

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Globally, the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry has struggled to overcome challenges faced by cities. This has led to calls to transform living spaces into smart cities. The advent of innovative technologies (e.g., the Internet-of-Things (IoT), Big Data, Drones, Semantic Web, Building Information Modelling (BIM)) and their influx in the market have been hailed as solutions that can aid in the development of smart cities. However, in understanding these emerging innovative technologies, talking less of their efficient adoption in practice can be overwhelming, if not confusing. This is further exacerbated by a paucity of research about smart city standards that can improve the efficiency of smart cities. Also, the differences between the developed and developing world call for a more contextualised approach to the deployment of these innovative technologies to allow a healthier transformation of cities. However, while smart city concepts recently gained momentum in the global north, the same cannot be said of the global south.

The aim of this Special Issue of Buildings is to seek an in-depth understanding of the applications of emerging technologies for the development of smart cities in emerging economies and developed and developing countries. Specifically, solicited studies about smart cities include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Emerging technologies and their applications in the development of smart cities;
  • Smart city standards and their applications and effectiveness in the development of smart cities;
  • Indegenious knowledge for smart cities, especially in developing countries;
  • Lessons learnt from smart city developments/case studies;
  • Regional comparative studies about smart cities.

Dr. Henry Abanda
Dr. Blaise Mempouo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • BIM
  • emerging technologies
  • Internet-of-Things
  • indigenous knowledge
  • smart city standards
  • smart cities

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 1845 KiB  
Article
Route Planning for Fire Rescue Operations in Long-Term Care Facilities Using Ontology and Building Information Models
by Ru-Guan Wang, Pai-Yu Wu, Chang-Yuan Liu, Jia-Cheng Tan, Mei-Ling Chuang and Chien-Cheng Chou
Buildings 2022, 12(7), 1060; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12071060 - 21 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2339
Abstract
As our society ages, more and more elderly or disabled people live in long-term care (LTC) facilities, which are vulnerable to fires and may result in heavy casualties. Because of the low mobility of LTC residents, firefighters often need to enter the facility [...] Read more.
As our society ages, more and more elderly or disabled people live in long-term care (LTC) facilities, which are vulnerable to fires and may result in heavy casualties. Because of the low mobility of LTC residents, firefighters often need to enter the facility to save people. In addition, due to LTC facility management needs, many doors or windows on the passages for a fire rescue operation may be blocked. Thus, firefighters have to employ forcible entry tools such as disk cutters for passing through, which may lengthen the rescue time if an incorrect route or tool is utilized. As new information technologies such as ontology and building information modeling (BIM) have matured, this research aims at proposing a BIM-based ontology model to help firefighters determine better rescue routes instead of using rules of thumb. Factors such as the path length, building components and materials encountered, and forcible entry tools carried are considered in the model. Real LTC fire investigation reports are used for the comparisons between the original routes and the ones generated by the proposed model, and seven experts joined the evaluation workshop to provide further insights. The experts agreed that using the proposed approach can lead to better fire rescue route planning. The proposed BIM-based ontology model could be extended to accommodate additional needs for hospital fire scenes, in the hopes of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of firefighters’ rescue operations in such important facilities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities)
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14 pages, 1098 KiB  
Article
Strategies for Adopting Building Information Modeling (BIM) in Sustainable Building Projects—A Case of Malaysia
by Bilal Manzoor, Idris Othman, Syed Shujaa Safdar Gardezi and Ehsan Harirchian
Buildings 2021, 11(6), 249; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11060249 - 10 Jun 2021
Cited by 43 | Viewed by 7703
Abstract
In terms of sustainable growth, Malaysia’s construction industry faces significant challenges, such as construction costs and lack of awareness. To meet these challenges, it is essential to integrate building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable development. As a result, this study aimed to establish [...] Read more.
In terms of sustainable growth, Malaysia’s construction industry faces significant challenges, such as construction costs and lack of awareness. To meet these challenges, it is essential to integrate building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable development. As a result, this study aimed to establish strategies for adopting BIM in sustainable building projects. A systematic literature review was performed to classify the strategies to accomplish this aim, followed by a questionnaire survey of 129 construction project stakeholders. Mean score and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted to explore the detailed influence of BIM adoption strategies in sustainable building projects. The results revealed that “workshops, lectures, and conference events are used to enhance public awareness” and “better information on the costs and benefits of sustainable materials” and “strengthened sustainable development” were the most essential strategies to boost sustainable growth in building projects. Furthermore, EFA was conducted to undertake the group analysis, namely, to identify the standardization-related strategy, economic-related strategy, awareness-related strategy, and environment-related strategy. This study paves the way for future scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to investigate the limitations of future studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities)
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27 pages, 9125 KiB  
Article
Spatial Analysis, Interactive Visualisation and GIS-Based Dashboard for Monitoring Spatio-Temporal Changes of Hotspots of Bushfires over 100 Years in New South Wales, Australia
by Michael Visner, Sara Shirowzhan and Chris Pettit
Buildings 2021, 11(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11020037 - 23 Jan 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6304
Abstract
The 2019–2020 bushfire season is estimated to be one of the worst fire seasons on record in Australia, especially in New South Wales (NSW). The devastating fire season ignited a heated public debate on whether prescribed burning is an effective tool for preventing [...] Read more.
The 2019–2020 bushfire season is estimated to be one of the worst fire seasons on record in Australia, especially in New South Wales (NSW). The devastating fire season ignited a heated public debate on whether prescribed burning is an effective tool for preventing bushfires, and how the extent of bushfires has been changing over time. The objective of this study is to answer these questions, and more specifically to identify how bushfire patterns have changed in the last 100 years in NSW. To do so, we conducted a spatio-temporal analysis on prescribed burns and bushfires using a 100-year dataset of bushfires. More specifically, three research questions were developed, with each one of them addressed differently. First, generalised linear modelling was applied to assess the changes in fire patterns. Second, a correlation analysis was conducted to examine whether prescribed burns are an effective tool for reducing bushfire risk. Third, a spatio-temporal analysis was applied to the bushfire location data to explore spatio-temporal clusters of high and low values for bushfires, known as hotspots and coldspots, respectively. The study found that the frequency of bushfires has increased over time; however, it did not identify a significant trend of change in their size. Based on the results of this study for the relationship between prescribed burns and bushfires, it seems impossible to determine whether prescribed burns effectively reduce bushfire risk. Thus, further analysis with a larger amount of data is required in the future. The results of the spatio-temporal analysis showed that cold spots are propagated around metropolitan areas such as Sydney, while hotspots are concentrated in rural areas such as the North Coast and South Coast regions of NSW. The analysis found four statistical areas that have become new bushfire frequency hotspots in the 2019–2020 bushfire season. These areas combined have about 40,000 residents and at least 13,000 built dwellings. We suggest that further analysis is needed in the field to determine if there is a pattern of movement of bushfire towards metropolitan areas. To make the results of this research accessible to the public, an online interactive GIS-based dashboard was developed. The insight gained from the spatial and temporal analyses in this research is crucial to making smarter decisions on allocating resources and developing preventive or mitigating strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities)
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Review

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23 pages, 1362 KiB  
Review
A Critical Appraisal of PV-Systems’ Performance
by Zainab Usman, Joseph Tah, Henry Abanda and Charles Nche
Buildings 2020, 10(11), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10110192 - 23 Oct 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 3871
Abstract
Climate change and global warming have triggered a global increase in the use of renewable energy for various purposes. In recent years, the photovoltaic (PV)-system has become one of the most popular renewable energy technologies that captures solar energy for different applications. Despite [...] Read more.
Climate change and global warming have triggered a global increase in the use of renewable energy for various purposes. In recent years, the photovoltaic (PV)-system has become one of the most popular renewable energy technologies that captures solar energy for different applications. Despite its popularity, its adoption is still facing enormous challenges, especially in developing countries. Experience from research and practice has revealed that installed PV-systems significantly underperform. This has been one of the major barriers to PV-system adoption, yet it has received very little attention. The poor performance of installed PV-systems means they do not generate the required electric energy output they have been designed to produce. Performance assessment parameters such as performance yields and performance ratio (PR) help to provide mathematical accounts of the expected energy output of PV-systems. Many reasons have been advanced for the disparity in the performance of PV-systems. This study aims to analyze the factors that affect the performance of installed PV-systems, such as geographical location, solar irradiance, dust, and shading. Other factors such as multiplicity of PV-system components in the market and the complexity of the permutations of these components, their types, efficiencies, and their different performance indicators are poorly understood, thus making it difficult to optimize the efficiency of the system as a whole. Furthermore, mathematical computations are presented to prove that the different design methods often used for the design of PV-systems lead to results with significant differences due to different assumptions often made early on. The methods for the design of PV-systems are critically appraised. There is a paucity of literature about the different methods of designing PV-systems, their disparities, and the outcomes of each method. The rationale behind this review is to analyze the variations in designs and offer far-reaching recommendations for future studies so that researchers can come up with more standardized design approaches. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Information Modelling, Semantic Web and Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities)
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