The building sector is a major contribution to the total final energy consumption all over the world. Implementing energy-efficient technologies and strategies is considered one effective method to significantly reduce the energy consumption of buildings. With increased awareness of environmental concerns and rising energy costs, the Passive House Buildings are rapidly spreading in response to the increasing demand for energy efficient buildings. The Passive House (PH) standard offers a cost-effective approach to minimize the energy demand of buildings in line with the global principle of sustainability. By significantly decreasing energy consumption, Passive Houses provide affordable comfort. The present study provides a succinct overview of Passive House buildings’ fundamental design principles and state of the art on passive house buildings analysis in terms of energy performance.
The building and construction industry has been identified as a major contributor to global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to use sustainable building materials. Hempcrete has been recognized as an eco-friendly material that reduces waste and minimizes natural resources and energy use. While it possesses several benefits, including good structural properties, its porous structure limits, its mechanical performance, and water retention, thereby reducing its applicability as a building material. Nevertheless, it can still be used in construction projects where its limitations are not a hindrance. Although, hemp may not provide as much structural strength as previously thought, it exhibits similar properties to fiberglass. This paper provides an overview of the potential opportunities and challenges associated with Hempcrete as a building material based on secondary sources. The paper also identifies areas in Hempcrete research that require further investigation to expand its usage in construction.
Bridge maintenance work represents one of the main activities dedicated to the maintenance and repair of roads in operation. It plays a primary role within the activities undertaken by public administrators. Periodic maintenance work are large-scale works that are executed with a certain specific periodicity. They are planned in advance and aim to partially or fully compensate for the degradation and wear of the road infrastructure. This article aims to briefly present the periodic maintenance works designed to bring the bridge located on the Romanian national road DN 28 at km 6+957 to an optimal state of normal operation. The structure in question was built in 1963, with a total length of 236.90 meters. It consists of two metal I-type girders, continuous next to the piles, arranged at an interaxial distance of 7.10 meters. Before the execution of periodic maintenance works, the reinforced concrete decking, which supports the carriageway and sidewalks, rested directly on the upped soles of the stringers and main girders, without any intermediate element to ensure cooperation. The planned periodic maintenance works aim to bring the structure to normal parameters necessary for safe exploitation and also to increase the comfort of traffic by increasing the total width of the entire structure, including the pedestrian sidewalks. This modification of the constructive parameters is based on calculation of strength and stability, taking into account the new operating time provided to the structure by the execution of periodic maintenance works.
The ventilated facade is an external building envelope system, installed dry, in new constructions or on buildings undergoing renovation. This system is mounted outside the building, with a space in front of its perimeter wall. Its main role is to influence the heat exchange between the inside and outside of the building, with advantages over heat losses. A modern material used in ventilated facades is Corian, a composite material patented by DuPont in 1967, composed of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate (ATH) derived from bauxite ore. Its main use is for the finishing layer on the ventilated facades of buildings, and it requires knowledge of how it behaves under the action of temperature variations. This article presents the laboratory results recorded to assess the material’s disturbed state under freeze-thaw cycles.
In the conditions of the ever-increasing demands of the users and the continuously rising price of fossil fuels, today, the operational energy demand of buildings has become hardly bearable. In the context of global sustainability requirements, it is proposed to build constructions whose energy consumption is as low as possible or almost equal to zero, both new and existing buildings. This fact is of particular importance because buildings consume 40% of total energy and are responsible for 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. In the European Union, 80% of the energy used by households represents heating, cooling and domestic hot water. Achieving climate neutrality by 2050 requires deep renovation of existing buildings to enhance energy efficiency, reduce fossil fuel dependence, and increase renewable resource use.
This paper explores how temporary architecture can foster trust, collaboration, and social cohesion through participatory design and symbolic communication. Based on action research methodology, symbolic interactionism, and play theory, the research examines how spatial practices can support identity-building, in an empathetic community. The paper brings an empirical example, a project carried out near School nr. 7 in Timișoara during Timișoara Cultural Capital 2023. The study engaged community members in all the phases of the project, determining a collaborative model. Empirical findings highlight the link between emotional attachment, symbolic communication, and social representation. By framing “The Other Architecture” as both a method and a metaphor, the paper offers a model for inclusive, therapeutic urban interventions that amplify marginalized voices and rebuild social bonds.
This paper investigates the role of Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) in the preservation and spatial enhancement of built heritage within cultural-historical settings. Using the Bubanj Memorial Park in Niš, Serbia, as an illustrative example, the research explores how ecological elements can be integrated into heritage conservation to support sustainable development, reinforce place identity, and revitalize neglected memorial landscapes. UGI is positioned as a collaborative and multidisciplinary tool that connects environmental and cultural values. Through conceptual design guidelines rooted in ecological planning and heritage interpretation, the study shows how green systems contribute to the transmission of collective memory and encourage public trust in the urban environment. The findings advocate for a dynamic approach to heritage, treating it as an active component of contemporary urban life. By bridging architecture, landscape, and memory, the paper highlights the potential of UGI to foster inclusiveness, community engagement, and long-term care for shared cultural assets.
The ever whelming evolution humanity and its consequent metamorphosing aesthetics translates into a landscape of fragments which, at times, lack articulating resorts meant to ease their intervention in the existent context and even meant to contribute to the sense of cultural convergence through time. The apparent fractures of our environment constitute a direct reflection of the scarcity of introspection and profound understanding of the context. Early years of education in architecture are crucial to students’ in their endeavor of assembling a geometrical, experiential and semantic repertoire of architecture. This paper presents a method of mending the fractures of the built landscape through education, implemented in the 2nd year students’ summer practice, which has, as a study object, Romanian architecture, tradition and culture. The method, entitled architecture beyond measure, has, as main objective, the exercise of a measuring survey of an architecture object, representative to traditional and cultural values. Until 2019, the practice had been traditionally carried out in the Village Museums of the country. In recent years, the practice encompassed the experience of surveying places which bear less of a museum character and bring their user into the equation of study and survey. Results have thus been reaching new forms of understanding, expressing and engaging tradition into the contemporary discourse.
This paper addresses the conference theme “Convergence. Architecture as a Framework for Collaboration and Trust” by examining how post-industrial legacy shapes relations between people, place and history. Inherited structures and spatial patterns strengthen identity and support regeneration grounded in local experience. In a town shaped by two centuries of coal mining, architecture embodies labor, resilience and belonging. Material presence conveys symbolic depth, while memory and everyday practices sustain continuity in landscapes of change. Living in Anina, together with its industrial landmarks, creates opportunities for reconnection and participation. Industrial heritage provides a framework for collaboration and trust, enabling residents, civic groups, and institutions to converge around shared values and explore new directions. Through community involvement and sustained care for place, environments once defined by work evolve into spaces for reinterpretation across past, present and future. Industrial heritage thus emerges as an active identity resource, capable of guiding participatory regeneration, inspiring collective action and preserving cultural meaning.
The conference theme invites reflection on how architecture schools shape the host city and, conversely, are shaped by it. This paper presents a critical analysis of how student-led initiatives can act as catalysts for alternative forms of learning, rooted in collaboration, trust, and a strong commitment to transforming ideas into action. The case study focuses on the NGO Tomorrow’s Architects and two of its core projects: INFOARH and REconnect. The research methodology combines a critical analysis of the NGO’s activity report with direct observation and autoethnographic reflection.
Trust in the built environment grows not only from good design but also from people’s ability to understand and influence how spaces are made. This paper explores how architectural education for non-architects can become a foundation for building trust and collaboration between professionals and communities. It examines three types of initiatives: school programs, public festivals, and community workshops, showing how each makes design processes visible and accessible. These are interpreted through a four-step framework: demystification, visibility, involvement, and reflexivity. This paper argues that trust emerges when architectural language is opened and communities are invited to participate, not just be consulted. To strengthen empirical grounding, the study discusses outcomes such as children’s increased spatial awareness, public dialogue around professional choices, and tangible results in workshops. The analysis is complemented with insights from international contexts. By offering both a theoretical framework and practical recommendations, this paper positions architectural education as civic literacy: a pathway toward becoming trustworthy in the eyes of communities.
Ensuring indoor environmental comfort parameters in relation to indoor air quality requirements necessitates the identification of methods that allow for the development of tools to validate the natural ventilation efficiency in relation to factors that can influence system performance. Analysing the historical evolution of natural ventilation, it is observed that the main identified natural physical phenomena by researchers and design specialists in the field are primarily based on the natural forces that generate the exchange of air between the constructed interior environment and the natural exterior environment. The difference in air pressure on either side of the envelope can be generated by two natural factors, either independently or cumulatively, through the action of the wind and temperature difference.
Cultural sustainability raises numerous issues for architects, who are challenged to find solutions for preserving and enhancing architectural heritage, the natural setting, and cultural identity. An important issue in maintaining cultural identity is the relationship between new developments and architectural heritage, which should preserve meanings transmitted over time, by generations. On the one hand, this requires respect for the traditions and the existing built environment. On the other hand, new developments should address the needs and values of modern society and find ways to connect the heritage to modern life. Architectural heritage has an as-yet untapped potential for integrating the cultural and social dimensions of sustainability. Based on case studies, this article analyses three ways in which the cultural and social values of historical heritage can be preserved, enhanced, and enriched by new architectural developments.
In a world of constant change and dematerialization, we naturally explore elements within our proximity. By latching onto this premise, this article regards the storefront, an element of design which has immensely surpassed borders of simple product presentations by evolving into a new experience, one which is connected to the environment and based on social needs. Similar to how the architectural space projects senses onto us, providing a personal and spiritual journey with everything surrounding us, the storefront hooks itself onto this journey and becomes an extension which adds a captivating note to this manufactured universe.
In recent years, cultural and creative industries have expanded significantly and have come to occupy rapidly a central position in the European economy. Yet, despite this economic prominence and its cultural influence that flows from it, many specialists within these sectors—artists, architects, interior designers, or fashion entrepreneurs—still struggle to achieve sustainable business development and financial stability. A sizeable portion of that challenge arises from an inclination to place the process of the creative act and experimental innovation ahead of disciplined, intentional business planning. Because creative output is complex and market appetite can shift suddenly, practitioners need, alongside professional hard skills, also solid commercial and business acumen. This article affirms that architects, interior designers, and creatives stand to gain sustainability from systematic training, a need that the aBC Business Modelling was consciously designed to address. Grounded in academic inquiry, real-world entrepreneurial practice, and experiential learning exercises, the toolbox was designed to offer a step-by-step framework, from value to customer, financial activities, and operations, with the final goal of running daily operations with clarity and priority, based on their vision.
Having to deal with an emerging phenomenon in terms of housing, the questions that this study would try to observe critically and answer, are addressed on various levels. In connection to the conference, the central question of this work focuses on the built environment and the relations that arise from it: how can participatory design redefine residential buildings from a sustainability standpoint?
This paper explores how the deformations of the „ideal” architectural objects as an aesthetic act and its reflection in contemporary architecture. As architecture is always seeking direct solutions, it often leads to a general or „ideal” object. But placed in a specific context, it experiences a series of adaptations, deforming its ideal state. Thus, the object enters a stage of „scholarly” play of volumes, obtaining variety, irregularity, and intricacy. This aesthetic act was explored as early as the 18th century, by the theory of the picturesque, through which the universal-objective judgment was questioned, emphasizing the object’s particularity. Containing the aesthetic act of deformation, the picturesque gives the framework for aesthetically accepting unforeseen incidents. Regarding the design process, it merges architectural rigor with the free spirit of spontaneity. In this sense, through the picturesque aesthetic, the act of deformity recurs in architectural works, by accepting and redeem the unforeseen of life.
In the context of the second digital turn, as it is defined by Mario Carpo in his book The Second Digital Turn, Design beyond Intelligence, the architectural graphical representation suffers a fundamental transformation: the digital tools aren’t anymore only passive tools used for execution, but active cognitive mediums which directly participate in the process of thinking and designing. These new mediums offer the possibility to generate new architectural forms and spaces that don’t derivate anymore from a unique or canonical model, but from variational and iterrational dynamic systems. Thus, the traditional relationship between the original and its copy, in which the double is a faithful reproduction or a translation of a fixed prototype, is destabilized. In the digital logic, the “double” becomes autonomous, it becomes a variation, a unique instance of production.
We now live in the “Anthropocene” era, which makes us think that this is how it has always been, and that human domination is the only way we can inhabit our planet. We usually refer to green architecture as a small patch of grass in front of our ten-story concrete buildings or as planting a few trees in a public space. In reality, our design approaches are human-centric and integrate nature in a purely visual way, still very empty of natural behavior, that I believe could offer immense ecological and social benefits. My key question is: Why do humans design only for themselves on a planet inhabited by many other species, especially in the face of a severe ecological crisis? And why don’t humans use nature in a comprehensive way to enhance their way of living? Interspecies design is a new collaborative approach in the architectural field that aims to use all the knowledge currently available to us, to design smarter solutions for both animals and humans, taking all species into equal consideration.
