As the term “smart city” gains wider and wider currency, there is still confusion about what a smart city is, especially since several similar terms are often used interchangeably. This paper aims to clarify the meaning of the word “smart” in the context of cities through an approach based on an in-depth literature review of relevant studies as well as official documents of international institutions. It also identifies the main dimensions and elements characterizing a smart city. The different metrics of urban smartness are reviewed to show the need for a shared definition of what constitutes a smart city, what are its features, and how it performs in comparison to traditional cities. Furthermore, performance measures and initiatives in a few smart cities are identified.

Smart Cities: Definitions, Dimensions, Performance, and Initiatives

Green building is one of measures been put forward to mitigate significant impacts of the building stock on the environment, society and economy. However, there is lack of a systematic review of this large number of studies that is critical for the future endeavor. The last decades have witnessed rapid growing number of studies on green building. This paper reports a critical review of the existing body of knowledge of researches related to green building. The common research themes and methodology were identified. These common themes are the definition and scope of green building; quantification of benefits of green buildings compared to conventional buildings; and various approaches to achieve green buildings. It is found that the existing studies played predominately focus on the environmental aspect of green building. Other dimensions of sustainability of green building, especially the social sustainability is largely overlooked. Future research opportunities were identified such as effects of climatic conditions on the effectiveness of green building assessment tools, validation of real performance of green buildings, unique demands of specific population, and future proofing.

Green building research–current status and future agenda: A review

State-of-the-art analysis of the environmental benefits of green roofs

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and its effect on occupant well-being and comfort is an important area of study. This paper presents a state of the art study through extensive review of the literature, by establishing links between IEQs and occupant well-being and comfort. A range of issues such as sick building syndrome, indoor air quality thermal comfort, visual comfort and acoustic comfort are considered in this paper. The complexity of the relationship between occupant comfort and well-being parameters with IEQ are further exacerbated due to relationships that these parameters have with each other as well. Based on the review of literature in these areas it is established that design of buildings needs to consider occupant well-being parameters right at the beginning. Some good practices in all these different areas have also been highlighted and documented in this paper. The knowledge established as part of this paper would be helpful for researchers, designer, engineers and facilities maintenance engineers. This paper will also be of great benefit to researchers who endeavour to undertake research in this area and could act as a good starting point for them.

Impact of indoor environmental quality on occupant well-being and comfort: A review of the literature

https://zavit.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Jaffal-et-al.-2011-green-roofs-energy.pdf

A comprehensive study of the impact of green roofs on building energy performance

This study targets to elucidate the essence of sustainability in green building design implementations. In this regard, the study draws attention to the sustainable energy performances of green buildings to identify the influential parameters based upon the contemporary successful accomplishments. The study elaborates on the contemporary trends and applications of green building design and the respective impacts on sustainable developments. As a result, the analytical review confirms that the sustainable energy performance of green buildings has been transformed to a sensible and practical resolution to alleviate the CO2 emissions and diminish the building sector energy consumption. In addition, with view to the current challenges and barriers, the study concludes that; it is still crucial to identify and develop efficient energy solutions associated with green buildings for addressing the future energy demands. Likewise, the findings highlight that the sustainable energy performances associated with integrated technologies and renewable energy systems are still intertwined with significant challenges related to the fundamental parameters of cost, maintenance, and operation. In conclusion, the contemplations of the research findings are recommended to be taken into consideration by architects, engineers and developers for the development of future eco-cities with an explicit viewpoint towards developing greener and smarter built environments.

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Sustainable energy performances of green buildings: a review of current theories, implementations and challenges

It is noticed that intelligent buildings are aimed to consider social, environmental and economic values beside a substantial focus to the automated technological attributes. Due to many promising green building initiatives, the accelerated level of interests towards the applications of information technology and advanced control techniques in architecture design has been observed. With a viewpoint to the sustainable development of future cities, attributing the eventual impacts of climate change, various interrelated green building design approaches have been implemented. This study aims to elucidate the significant advancements of intelligent building design as a key constituent of eco-city development for creating greener and effective built environments. Current effort in this study is also geared toward considerable and practical implementations that were carried out in order to create buildings with zero energy consumption. Emphasis is placed upon reviewing the recent theories, attempts, implementations, and challenges towards the development of zero energy intelligent buildings (ZEIB). The findings inferred from the theoretical analysis confirm that the significant contribution of ZEIB concept will end up for the sustainable development of future eco-cities. Review Article British Journal of Environment & Climate Change, 2(4): 339-367, 2012 340

The concept of zero energy intelligent buildings (ZEIB): a review of sustainable development for future cities.

Smart homes have been predominantly pointed as one of the key constituents of intelligent environments. These are residential units substantially integrated with a communicating network of sensors and intelligentsystems based on the application of new design initiatives and creative technologies. This studyprovides a holistic overview on the essence of smart homes besides demonstrating their current status,benefits and future directions. The study reveals that smart homes embrace significant potentials towardsachieving comfort, security, independent lifestyle and enhanced quality of life. Findings urge the necessityto focus on further exploration of the social and environmental benefits derived from the application ofcreative technologies in smart homes. The study concludes that smart homes play a fundamental role inshaping the future cities. Finally, the study identifies a research gap indicating that there has been lessconsideration towards linking the fundamental potentials of smart homes to the overall performanceand key indicators of smart cities.

Mahdiar GhaffarianHoseini

Papers

Sustainable energy performances of green buildings: a review of current theories, implementations and challenges

The concept of zero energy intelligent buildings (ZEIB): a review of sustainable development for future cities.

The Essence of Smart Homes: Application of Intelligent Technologies towards Smarter Urban Future