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Service members of the US Department of Defense (DoD) have alarmingly high rates of depression, anxiety, probable stress disorders and suicidality, all of which are negative health conditions exacerbated by various external stressors. High-stress work conditions – to include shift work, hazardous territories, high-stakes mission sets and generally disconnected sites – require a work environment that facilitates, rather than inhibits, stress reduction and mental well-being. This paper aims to present “salutogenic design” as an innovative approach: Salutogenic design offers demonstrated architectural solutions that improve health and well-being.

This paper describes salutogenic design strategies beginning with the need for such an approach, the call to action to implement strategic and tactical solutions and the challenges and financial impacts of such a broad and innovative strategy to improve workplace health, well-being and performance in the DoD and beyond. Examples of these strategies, via biophilic design solutions, are presented in the central Table 1 as an easy-to-reference tool and supported by the voluminous literature as referenced, in part, through this research paper.

Salutogenic design strategies offer innovative, financially viable solutions to help mitigate stress and improve workforce well-being while maintaining the highest level of building security requirements in access-controlled spaces and disconnected sites, such as military installations and government compounds.

Issues of mental and physical health are complex and multi-faceted, and they require complex and multi-faceted solutions. Salutogenic design is presented as one facet of that solution: a tangible solution to an often-intangible issue. Further, as a novel approach to address a critical DoD issue, Table 1 bridges the common gap between high-concept design theory and practical construction-application solutions, with positive value to the health, performance, quality-of-life and well-being of service members.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to approach the DoD’s imperative to reduce service members’ mental stress with “salutogenic design.”

This study aims to examine the concept of innovative technologies and identify their impacts on the environmental sustainability of commercial properties in South Africa. This slow adoption is attributed to South Africa’s energy building regulation, SANS 204, which does not promote energy-conscious commercial property development. Furthermore, it was observed that buildings waste significant amounts of energy as electrical appliances are left on when they are not in use, which can be prevented using innovative technologies.

The researchers attempted to evaluate the impact of innovative technologies through an overarching constructivist mixed-method paradigm. The research was conducted using a multi-case study approach on green buildings which had innovative technologies installed. The data collection took the form of online, semi-structured interviews, where thematic analysis was used to identify emergent themes from the qualitative data, and descriptive statistics was used to evaluate the quantitative data.

It was found that implementing innovative technologies to reduce the energy consumption of commercial buildings could achieve energy savings of up to 23%. Moreover, a commercial building’s carbon footprint can be reduced to 152CO2/m2 and further decreased to 142CO2/m2 through the adoption of a Photovoltaics plant. The study further found that innovative technologies improved employee productivity and promoted green learning and practices.

This research demonstrated the positive impact innovative technologies have on energy reduction and the sustainability of commercial properties. Hence, facility managers should engage innovative technologies when planning a commercial development or refurbishment.

The purpose of the study is to consolidate a set of indicators for assessing design and construction phase strategies for reducing operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. They will also estimate the quantity of operational GHG emission and its associated reduction over assessment period.

Five steps framework adopted include defining the purpose of the indicators and selection of candidate indicators. Others are defining the criteria for indicator selection, selecting and defining the proposed indicators. Relevancy, measurability, prevalence, preference, feasibility and adaptability of the indicator were the criteria used for selecting the indicators.

The study consolidated public transport accessibility, sustainable parking space, green vehicle priority, proximity to amenities and alternative modes as indicators for design and construction phase strategies. Transportation accounting and carbon footprint (CFP) and their associated reduction are indicators for operational GHG emission while plan and policy is an indicator for policymakers and stakeholders.

The study shows that providing correct indicators for assessing direct and indirect GHG emission with easy to obtain data is essential for assessment of built environment. Stakeholder can use the indicators in developing new rating systems and researchers as an additional knowledge. Policy makers and stakeholders can use the study in monitoring and rewarding the sustainability and activities of building related industries and organisations.

The study was conducted at the Center for Energy and Industrial Environmental Studies (CEIES) Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia and utilises existing rating systems and tools, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and GHG protocol reports and guides and several other standards, which are open for research.

This study investigates the barriers and drivers of using green methods and technologies (GMTs) in supportive educational buildings (SEBs) in South Africa, and assesses their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals. While there has been extensive literature on green building technologies, there is limited research on the barriers and drivers of using GMT in SEBs, as well as their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals.

This study adopts an interpretivist approach with an ontological basis, using an overarching case study of a SEB at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Semistructured interviews were conducted with executive UCT management, and a field survey of a UCT supportive education building was performed.

At UCT, multiple GMTs have been installed across various buildings to enhance monitoring and management of water and energy consumption. Moreover, initiatives to positively influence student behavior, such as water and energy-saving campaigns around UCT premises, have been introduced. The findings further indicate that UCT has recently emphasized the implementation of GMTs, resulting in improved resource efficiency, CE practices and progress toward achieving net-zero carbon targets for supportive education buildings and the university as a whole.

This research highlights the positive impact of GMTs on a SEB’s CE and net-zero carbon operations. As a result, facility managers should consider incorporating GMTs when planning the development or refurbishment of SEBs.

This study aims to examine the challenges for green retrofitting implementation in existing residential buildings to lower the running cost and achieve a better energy-efficient system.

This study adopted a qualitative approach by interviewing conveniently selected 16 construction professionals, made up of architects, quantity surveyors and engineers. Data received were analysed using the content analysis method.

The findings revealed that the main barriers to incorporating green retrofitting in the existing residential buildings as the nature of the existing structures, limited knowledge, not being a priority and high costs involved in the process. Moreover, other factors influencing property developers’ decision to apply energy-efficient principles in a residential home include cost (initial capital and maintenance), level of knowledge, nature of the climate in the area, local legislation, more independence and increasing the property’s market value and environmental aspect.

This study is limited to South Africa; thus, the literature available was limited.

People’s perceptions, either wrong or correct, affect their ability to make an informed decision to adopt green retrofitting principles, thereby denying them the opportunity to reap the associated benefits. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the construction industry stakeholders and government to increase educational opportunities for property owners on the importance of green retrofitting.

This study provides the occupants with the possible barriers and problem areas with implementing these principles. They will thus make an informed decision when implementing sustainable design methods.

The construction sector is increasingly engaged to explore the potential application of building information modelling (BIM) for the sustainability of the buildings. BIM can be applied conjugated to certification methods to evaluate the sustainability of the buildings, and it is known as building sustainability assessment (BSA). This article aims to explore applications of BIM in the sustainability analysis of buildings, including five types of BSA.

A literature review from 2009 to 2020 considering a combination of search terms related to BIM and BSA complemented the analysis. The bibliometric analysis indicates an increase in the number of publications on this topic of study in the last five years. A peak occurred in 2015 and 2020, with 51 and 66 publications, respectively.

The results showed that BIM contributes to achieving part of the sustainability requirements from BSA, especially quantitative requirements that are related to material and resources. However, a complete analysis between BIM and BSA is still a challenge since part of BSA's have a lack information in their requirements and BIM softwares present interoperability problems that difficult an integrated analysis to extract information directly from the software to attend BSA's requirements.

The results contribute to analysing the evolution of studies about BIM and to understand the limitation in the applicability with sustainability rating systems. Future directions of research indicate the necessity to improve the use of BIM in the sustainability analysis of the buildings, but with a good perspective regarding the application of BIM in material and resources requirements, and waste management in construction sites.

In responding to global issues of creating sustainable development, the Indonesian government has enacted regulations (i.e. Ministry of Public Works and Housing No. 05/PRT/M/2015) on the implementation of sustainable construction in infrastructure project execution. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the means of implementing sustainable principles in the execution of infrastructure projects in Indonesia by the main construction service providers and their partners. A lesson-learned is presented as a source of knowledge to underpin the extensive implementation of sustainable principles in the construction of infrastructure projects leading to an integrated approach in creating a sustainable infrastructure that fulfills the requirements of sustainable development.

The method used is questionnaire surveys with Indonesian construction practitioners who are working on building construction, road and bridge construction, water facilities construction and house and settlement construction.

From the results, the practices of sustainability principles by construction service providers in infrastructure project execution are imperative from the project procurement phase. The evaluation continues to the phase of construction project execution, which reveals the inconsiderable performance of sustainability indicators due to current constraints on the implementation of sustainability principles.

This research looks into the existing gaps between sustainable construction principles and their practical implementation in Indonesian infrastructure projects. This will foster a holistic approach in the practice of undertaking sustainable procurement processes, thus reinforcing project management techniques in the phase of sustainable construction project execution. This also strengthens the interrelated roles and responsibilities of project stakeholders by taking into account principles of safety, balance and the harmony of infrastructure and the environment.

Decisions taken during the early design of adaptive façades involving kinetic, active and responsive envelope for complex commercial buildings have a substantial effect on inclusive building functioning and the comfort level of inhabitants. This study aims to present the application of an analytic network process (ANP) model indicating the order of priority for high performance criteria that must be taken into account in the assessment of the performance of adaptive façade systems for complex commercial buildings.

The nominal group technique (NGT) stimulating and refining group judgments are used to find and categorize relevant high performance attributes of the adaptive façade systems and their relative pair-wise significance scores. An ANP model is applied to prioritize these high performance objectives and criteria for the adaptive façade systems.

Embodied energy and CO₂ emission, sustainability, energy saving, daylight and operation maintenance were as the most likely and crucial high performance criteria. The criteria and the weights presented in this study could be used as guidelines for evaluating the performance of adaptive façade systems for commercial buildings in planning and design phases.

This research primarily provides the required actions and evaluations for design managers in accomplishing a high performance adaptive façade system, with the support of an ANP method. Before beginning the adaptive façade system of a building design process, the design manager must determine the significance of each of these attributes as high performance primacies will affect the results all through the entire design process.

In this research, a relatively innovative, systematic and practical approach is proposed to sustain the decision-making procedure for evaluation of the high performance criteria of adaptive façade systems in complex commercial buildings.

This research presents the development of a Building Passport for Sustainable Conservation (BPSC) as a questionnaire with a set of 23 core indicators, for a baseline assessment of heritage buildings. The aim of this tool is to identify priorities for future interventions, by recognising the contributions of heritage buildings to sustainability that should be preserved and the fragilities that need to be improved.

The BPSC uses a selection of core indicators for sustainability observable on heritage buildings. It was applied to four different case studies of modern heritage in the Netherlands, to verify its applicability and limitations.

The results suggest that this tool has the potential to contribute to an expedite assessment, reaching consensual evaluations of priorities for sustainable conservation, while reducing the time and cost of the process, contributing to support informed redesign decisions.

Recently, existing building sustainability assessment (BSA) tools have been adapted and new BSA tools developed for heritage buildings. Some tools target existing buildings, but seldom cover cultural significance and heritage values. Others target the after-redesign situations – aiming at assessing how sustainable the redesign is. Often BSA tools are complex and time-consuming, with extensive indicators and data requirements. The BPSC developed in this research covers the main aspects of sustainability and related heritage values, in a simpler tool for a baseline assessment.

To address requirements and specifications of construction project, academics need to build a project classification model. In recent years, project success concept, particularly on large-scale construction projects, has been a controversial issue, especially in developing countries. Hence, in this paper, after introducing a sustainable success index (SSI), a novel method called “rough set approach” had been adopted to induce decision rules and to classify construction projects. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

At first, 20 effective success factors and 15 success criteria based on three pillars of sustainability of economy, society and environment had been categorized. The research data used for analysis had been collected from 26 large-scale construction projects in Iran and five other countries. After collecting data collection, observations had been analyzed and 51 decision rules were generated, and the projects were classified. Eventually, in order to evaluate the performance of the generated rules, confusion matrix was applied, and the model was validated.

The results of the present study show that rough set theory (RST) can be an effective and valuable tool for building expert systems. Practical applications of these results along with limitations and future research are described.

Perhaps for the first time, in the present study, a number of large-scale construction projects are classified based on SSI. Applying RST for building rule-based system and classifying projects in construction project area are novel attempts undertaken in this paper. The rules induced in this study can be applied to develop a sustainable success prediction model in the future studies.