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The aim of this study is to extend the rationale and comprehensive understanding in respect of the notion of functionality and beauty in the smart skin buildings. Smart skin in buildings plays a key role in improving building functionality, and the future lies in the use of innovative smart skin strategies. The methodology focused on the objectivity and subjectivity of human perception to assess the aesthetic value of a building's smart skin. A theoretical analysis has been conducted based on the results of the investigation model and fortified by comparing the results with the findings obtained through the opinions of experts based in AHP methodology. The study demonstrates that there is a relation between both the aesthetic value and the functionality of the smart skin of a building. The findings revealed the difference in the aesthetic evaluation between the subjective functionality and the objective functionality of the building skin. The findings contribute useful evidence for the promotion of our understanding regarding the aesthetic value of the smart skin of a building, based on its functionality.

The smart open house provides optimal adaptability using sensing, operating, information, and communications technology, in conjunction with open building in-filled components, to perceive user needs and environmental changes, and thereby meet the needs for sustainability and a healthy living environment. These needs are particularly pressing in view of the aged society that will emerge in Taiwan after 2020. Based on the smart open house hypothesis, this study proposes using agent-based smart skins in a smart open house, where an agent-based smart skin is embedded in a lifetime home (or ageless home) with an open system construction. The agent-based smart skin operating mechanism employs fuzzy logic inference and neuro-fuzzy learning to process environmental information from sensing devices and drive skin elements, achieving adaptive action, meeting residents' lifetime use needs, and offering a user experience-oriented smart care capability.

The future construction site will be pervasive, context aware and embedded with intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to explore and define the concept of the digital skin of the future smart construction site.

The paper provides a systematic and hierarchical classification of 114 articles from both industry and academia on the digital skin concept and evaluates them. The hierarchical classification is based on application areas relevant to construction, such as augmented reality, building information model-based visualisation, labour tracking, supply chain tracking, safety management, mobile equipment tracking and schedule and progress monitoring. Evaluations of the research papers were conducted based on three pillars: validation of technological feasibility, onsite application and user acceptance testing.

Technologies learned about in the literature review enabled the envisaging of the pervasive construction site of the future. The paper presents scenarios for the future context-aware construction site, including the construction worker, construction procurement management and future real-time safety management systems.

Based on the gaps identified by the review in the body of knowledge and on a broader analysis of technology diffusion, the paper highlights the research challenges to be overcome in the advent of digital skin. The paper recommends that researchers follow a coherent process for smart technology design, development and implementation in order to achieve this vision for the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the real estate academic literature by defining the essence of real estate in smart urban environments. Space has traditionally been a silent component of real estate. Smart technologies powered by Ubi-comp are turning space into an active part of real estate, which represents a paradigm shift for commercial real estate. This shift requires new concepts and tools to analyse and model real estate in smart cities.

The paper defines the notions of smart space and smart real estate. Several concepts and tools are formulated, starting with a model of space users in smart cities, called the Cyber-Dasein inspired by Heidegger’s existential phenomenology of space.

The paper then analyses smart space’s attributes and proposes several metrics for commercial real estate in smart environments. After introducing three regression models for constructing a price index of smart real estate, the paper concludes by advocating that commercial real estate take an active role in the current debate about smart cities.

The paper does not provide any empirical analysis of smart real estate.

Smart environments offer real estate a unique opportunity to set up methodologies, concepts and tools for new properties in new cities. Now is the time to think carefully about the impact smart technologies will have on commercial properties before other stakeholders (in particular smart cities vendors and multinational technology giants) have fully modelled smart space and its nexus with smart real estate.

This paper is the first paper to provide a conceptual framework for the analysis of commercial real estate in smart cities.

This study aims to present an architectural application of 4D-printed climate-adaptive kinetic architecture and parametric façade design.

This work investigates experimental prototyping of a reversibly self-shaping façade, by integrating the parametric design approach, smart material and 4D-printing techniques. Thermo-responsive building skin modules of two-way shape memory composite (TWSMC) was designed and fabricated, combining the shape memory alloy fibers (SMFs) and 3D-printed shape memory polymer matrices (SMPMs). For geometry design, deformation of the TWSMC was simulated with a dimension-reduced mathematical model, and an optimal arrangement of three different types of TWSMC modules were designed and fabricated into a physical scale model.

Model-based experiments show robust workability and formal reversibility of the developed façade. Potential utility of this module for adaptive building design and construction is discussed based on the results. Findings help better understand the shape memory phenomena and presented design-inclusive technology will benefit architectural communities of smart climate-adaptive building.

Two-way reversibility of 4D-printed composites is a topic of active research in material science but has not been clearly addressed in the practical context of architectural design, due to technical barriers. This research is the first architectural presentation of the whole design procedure, simulation and fabrication of the 4D-printed and parametrically movable façade.

This study aims to provide information on how to monitor the temperature setting of a heating device in order to implement a heating unit successfully in the smart clothing by observing voluntary heating behavior of wearers.

Subjects wearing base layers and additional clothing were asked to turn on and off the switch when wanted in the cold environmental chamber. Tolerable range of skin temperature (TST) depending on the location of body was obtained by observing the temperature at the time when the heating device was turned on and off during a rest–running–rest protocol.

The TST was 32.8–49.4 °C and decreased to 31.3–37.6 °C around abdomen and back waist, respectively. Changes in the wearers' voluntary control behavior were observed depending on the individual's level of cold-sensitivity and activity level of rest and running. TST was 35.8–49.4 °C (Rest 1: rest before exercise), 40.0–42.0 °C (Running) and 35.3–43.2 °C (Rest 2: rest after exercise) for cold-sensitive group, whereas it was 32.8–36.2 °C (Running) and 34.4–45.7 °C (Rest 2: rest after exercise) for cold-insensitive group.

In this study, results with detailed body locations and wearer's thermal sensitivity provide practical references for the implementation of a heating device to the comfortable multilayered smart clothing.

Examines the seventeenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the fifthteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the fourteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.