ABSTRACT A planning permit is required before starting any construction. It involves a comprehensive review by authorities to ensure compliance with planning and building regulations. In Saudi Arabia, this process plays a crucial role in regulating urban development – the urban population is growing, with consequent increased demand for housing and a rise in planning permit applications. This places significant pressure on municipal authorities to process applications, currently a relatively slow process owing to inefficiencies in traditional workflows and the labour-intensive nature of the review process. Work is underway to improve the situation, as part of Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’, which includes objectives for digital transformation and efficient governance. This study investigates these new developments and compares the new approaches with those from several European countries, to understand similarities and differences, and in particular, identify best practices and commonalities for future processes and systems development. Document analysis and semi-structured interviews are combined to determine procedural structures, stakeholder roles and business rules, which are then embedded into an established framework to facilitate comparison. The results provide a systematic, comparable description of the planning permit process of Saudi Arabia, and derive lessons learned from the comparison on process organization and digitalization.

ABSTRACT This study aims to explore how architectural design characteristics of railway station waiting areas affect traveller preferences, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the overall tourism experience. Through a discrete choice experiment involving 250 participants at Gorgan Railway Station, various digital design scenarios were evaluated. The analysis revealed that features such as the presence of greenery and large windows were most strongly preferred, followed by light-coloured walls and ceilings, orthogonal spatial layouts, flat skylights, shiny flooring, sociopetal seating arrangements and cold lighting. These design elements contribute to creating more welcoming, comfortable and attractive station environments. Emotional responses and demographic factors were also assessed, showing a secondary but notable effect on preferences. The findings highlight the necessity of prioritizing specific architectural features to significantly improve traveller satisfaction and the quality of railway station spaces.‏

ABSTRACT The hospital ward environment impacts patients’ physical and mental well-being. This study aimed to investigate the impact of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) (thermal, acoustic, luminous and indoor air quality (IAQ)) on psychological restoration and to explore the mediating role of environmental perceptions. A field survey was conducted in the spring with 418 patients across four departments in a large general hospital in Hefei, China. The survey employed environmental measurements and a questionnaire that included the Hospital Indoor Restoration Scale (HIRS). The results showed that thermal, acoustic and IAQ perception significantly influenced psychological restoration and served as significant mediators, with IAQ perception exhibiting the most substantial effect. IAQ perception was positively correlated with psychological restoration across all departments. Acoustic perception exhibited a powerful effect among gastroenterology and cardiology patients, whereas thermal perception impacted only cardiology patients. Moreover, self-rated indoor restoration quality was positively associated with IAQ perception and psychological restoration. This study provides a basis for creating an environment conducive to patient restoration.

ABSTRACT The conservation of architectural heritage increasingly focuses on modern functional demands. However, while some existing evaluation frameworks incorporate aspects such as social value, many still emphasize structural preservation and aesthetic restoration, often underrepresenting user-centred sustainability. This study designed a template based on focus group interviews with 16 experts and a literature review. A survey involving 425 residents was conducted to evaluate the functional adaptability of heritage buildings. The findings revealed notable gaps between perceived importance and actual performance. Indicators like Ease of Maintenance and Accessible Design were rated as highly important but performed poorly, while Structural Safety and Fire Safety Systems showed strong performance but lower perceived importance. The results indicate a shift in stakeholder priorities, with operational relevance and inclusivity now outweighing traditional safety concerns. By aligning historical preservation with modern usability, the proposed framework promotes sustainable and inclusive heritage adaptation. It offers actionable insights to integrate stakeholder perspectives into evaluations and inform policy and conservation practices.

ABSTRACT Achieving climate-neutral building construction requires a comprehensive understanding of the climate impact of all relevant building elements, including geotechnical works. However, research on life cycle assessment (LCA) of geotechnical works in building construction remains limited. This study conducted a ‘cradle-to-handover’ LCA of geotechnical works for a 36-storey office building situated on soft clay in Sweden. Using project-specific data and the European Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method v3.1 in SimaPro v9.6.0.1, the geotechnical works (modules A1–A5) contributed a climate impact of 121.1 kg CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) per square metre (m2) of gross floor area (GFA). This accounts for approximately 23.9% of the total climate impact during the construction stage, assuming the superstructure meets the proposed national-level limit value of 385 kg CO2eq/m2 GFA in Sweden. The three main contributors to the total climate impact of the geotechnical works were steel piles (64.9%), concrete piles (22.3%) and sheet pile walls (9.9%). The results highlight the need to incorporate geotechnical works into decarbonization strategies for building construction, particularly in challenging soil conditions. Furthermore, the study underscores the importance of fostering more effective communication among stakeholders to drive sustainability efforts throughout the building construction stage.

ABSTRACT As the construction industry is progressively adopting circular economy principles, there is an increased interest in prolonging the service lives of buildings by designing them to be adaptable. This is particularly relevant for timber buildings, as extended-use phases promote prolonged carbon storage and sustainable forestry. Applying the concept of Design for Structural Adaptation (DfSA) to load-bearing timber may grant such benefits, yet it is uncertain whether there are motivations for stakeholders to apply the concept on an industrial scale. In particular, the economic implications of implementing DfSA for timber are currently unclear. This study addresses this uncertainty by investigating the economic feasibility of applying DfSA to a theoretical multi-residential cross-laminated timber building in Sweden. A model for comparative cost–benefit analysis was developed and applied to two alternatives: a business-as-usual building and one designed for structural adaptation. A sensitivity analysis was performed to explore the factors determining the economic feasibility of DfSA, and a best- and worst-case scenario was developed. The results showed that a low investment cost for DfSA is the most crucial factor in determining its economic feasibility.

ABSTRACT This paper reviews a Sensor-Based Demand-Controlled Ventilation (SBDCV) system which seeks to provide fresh air for breathing and to dilute and exhaust pollutants and odours. Previous studies have demonstrated that the constant pressure system increases ventilation extract and inflow based on relative humidity levels and/or presence detection and works on the assumption that the level of ventilation provided is sufficient to control the concentration of all indoor air pollutants, including those that are not occupant generated. This paper presents the results obtained from monitoring the indoor air quality of eight dwellings that had undergone a fabric-first deep energy retrofit and had an SBDCV system installed. It is demonstrated that while the large-scale deep energy retrofit of dwellings will result in consistent temperatures and an appropriate range of humidities, the SBDCV system is insufficient to ensure the removal of all occupancy and non-occupancy related pollutants and an alternative approach that addresses this shortcoming is required. The findings demonstrate that the use of SBDCV in deep energy retrofit could have significant health and wellbeing impacts for occupants. The findings have implications for the policy framework, particularly in the context of large-scale retrofit targets, grant aid supports and the requirement for healthy homes.

ABSTRACT With rapid technological evolution, Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) have improved energy and water consumption visibility and provided the ability to rapidly detect energy and water waste. However, their integration with facilities management has had little attention from researchers. This study explores the design and optimization of technical information flows between automated data analysis systems and human facilities management systems in a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) case study. Semi-structured interviews were used to support the co-design of an intervention, based on the systematic integration of EMIS into existing facilities management systems. When the intervention was deployed, longstanding and previously unidentified issues were quickly highlighted and resolved, leading to significant savings. The study concludes that integrating EMIS and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) can enhance the efficiency of middle-out actors in reducing energy and water waste in facilities management. While near-real-time feedback and other technological solutions are effective, the findings highlight the importance of communicating technical information clearly through appropriate channels, as well as middle role challenges such as limited resources, high workloads, and insufficient senior management backing. As facilities management adapts to and integrates new technologies, its full potential can be realized through effective communication and feedback mechanisms.

ABSTRACT The physical work environment can impact workers’ productivity, job satisfaction, health, and well-being. Workplace design has become a key strategic resource for many organizations and is also highly relevant to universities. The field of workplace design is expanding, but research focusing specifically on workplace design for academic staff is limited. This systematic literature review maps the current literature on workplace design for academic staff and analyses it according to a theoretical framework of office productivity, examining components of both the physical and behavioural environments. The review identified 32 relevant studies. This literature review examines various types of office designs and identifies several features that need particular attention. The results show that the most positive outcomes of more open office designs were increased interaction and more informal meetings, while the most negative outcomes were lack of privacy and noise disturbances. The workplace should facilitate both collaborative and individual work. While there is no universal solution to this issue, finding the right balance between the two is crucial, as it significantly impacts productivity, well-being and job satisfaction.

ABSTRACT The built environment and various ongoing crises, e.g. climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and declining well-being due to the pandemic, are interconnected. Resilience of the built environment has become increasingly important and construction professionals have a focal role in promoting it. This paper investigates the opportunities that professionals possess to introduce key aspects of resilience in building projects in their everyday practice in Finland. Six targeted focus group interviews for Finnish city planners, housing specialists, housing developers, housing architects, public building and landscape architects, and sustainability specialists were organized, encompassing 32 different professionals. A crisis preparedness checklist was developed and used as a concretization of resilience. Findings show that (1) currently all Finnish built environment professionals, except housing architects, are able to integrate some aspects of resilience in their current work; (2) aspects of resilience should be introduced to building projects and processes in their early stages; (3) all key aspects of resilience cannot be introduced by one profession; (4) interdisciplinary committee work and resulting information products by the Finnish Building Information Foundation provide a feasible opportunity for collaboration and integration of resilience to Finnish building projects and processes. This study highlights the need for dynamic built environment professionals’ engagement.