With the continuous implementation of a plan for reconstruction of “Beautiful Countryside” in China, the rural environment and appearance of rural houses have been significantly improved. However, those houses in cold areas of China have great trouble with indoor temperature and heating-related energy consumption. After investigating the current situation of the layout, building envelope, indoor temperature, and energy consumption of the rural houses renovated by the plan of “Beautiful Countryside” in Shandong Province, this paper puts forward the improvement measures of raising indoor temperature and reducing energy consumption. On this basis, a typical rural house was selected, and DesignBuilder was utilized to simulate the effects before and after the application of different renovation measures for this house. The results show that the main way to raise indoor temperature and reduce energy consumption is to improve the thermal insulation performance of the building envelope, including renovation of the roof, exterior walls, doors and windows, and attached sunspace. In addition, combined with the achievements of “Beautiful Countryside” reconstruction, this paper shall propose specific renovation practices which are suitable for different rural houses. Based on the level of economic development in rural areas, it also puts forward some feasible renovation paths for different rural areas, and further provides references for other areas to carry out relevant work in the future.

The advent and application of biophilic architecture bring numerous environmental, economic, and energy-efficiency benefits, playing a crucial role in advancing low-carbon, energy-saving, healthy, comfortable, and sustainable development within the construction industry. Thanks to its many advantages—such as aesthetic enhancement, improved microclimates, and negative carbon potential—biophilic architecture has been widely adopted in building design, particularly as a response to the escalating environmental crisis. Integrating plants with various architectural forms can optimize building performance, especially by reducing operational energy consumption. This study uses knowledge mapping tools like CiteSpace 6.1.R3 and VOSviewer 1.6.19 to analyze 2309 research papers from the Web of Science (WoS) published over the past decade on the topic of “energy efficiency in biophilic architecture”. It conducts visual analyses of publication trends, collaborative networks, and key themes. The research categorizes plant–architecture integration methods, focusing on three primary areas: green roofs, vertical green systems, and green photovoltaic systems. Additionally, it reviews the ways in which biophilic architecture contributes to energy savings, the research methodologies employed, energy-saving rates, and the factors influencing these outcomes. Finally, a SWOT framework is constructed to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential threats of biophilic architecture, as well as its future development prospects. The findings indicate that integrating plants with building roofs is an effective energy-saving strategy, achieving energy savings of up to 70%. Furthermore, combining biophilic elements with photovoltaic systems can enhance the efficiency of solar energy generation. This study offers valuable insights for architects and researchers in designing more energy-efficient and sustainable buildings.

With the acceleration of urbanization in China, high density has become a significant feature of urban development. Although high-density development provides convenience, it also results in numerous environmental and climatic problems, such as the urban heat island effect, haze and extreme weather. These issues have reduced the comfort levels of the urban outdoor environment, led to increased energy consumption and had serious impacts on social development and the lives of residents. Improving the comfort of the outdoor urban environment is vital, especially in the current tendency for high-density urban developments. This paper focuses on a typical urban district in Shanghai, where we have gathered ambient meteorological data and human thermal sensation votes during spring and summer through monitoring and questionnaire research. Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between thermal sensation votes and comfort indexes (PET, UTCI). The findings indicated that the neutral PET during spring and summer was 22.30 °C and 24.55 °C, respectively, whilst the neutral UTCI was 18.75 °C and 26 °C, respectively, with the neutral temperature in summer being significantly higher than that in spring. Upon comparing the evaluation indices, it was found that the correlation between the UTCI and average thermal sensation votes was stronger; thus, the UTCI better represents people’s thermal sensation in the Shanghai area. Finally, regression analysis demonstrated that the acceptable PET range for 90% of cases during both seasons in Shanghai is between 25.0 °C and 32.1 °C, and the UTCI range is between 24.2 °C and 27.7 °C. This study presents theoretical criteria for evaluating environmental thermal comfort, laying the foundation for practical paths to optimize urban design for climate responsiveness in high-density urban areas.

In recent years, due to the advantages of high construction efficiency and less environmental pollution, prefabricated housing has been of increasing interest and vigorously promoted. However at present, most prefabricated houses simply pursue an increase in assembly rate, and the floor plan design still continues to follow the traditional design method of housing, which does not meet the requirements of industrialization and cannot achieve the goal of product diversification. This paper puts forward a method for floor plan designs of prefabricated houses whose core is building plane module libraries. The modules in module libraries all conform to standardized and refined designs. A new residential floor plan can be obtained by selecting and recombining modules in module libraries. The richer the module library, the more diverse the results will be under the same combinatorial logic, which can greatly improve design efficiency. In addition, this paper probes the method of creation and applications of plane module libraries in detail, so as to provide a new idea for floor plan designs of prefabricated houses. This research is of great significance for improving the efficiency of floor plan design of prefabricated housing and realizing goals of standardization and diversification of prefabricated housing development.

Owing to the advantages of high construction efficiency, prefabricated residential buildings have been of increasing interest in recent years. Against the background of global heating, designing low-carbon facades for prefabricated residential buildings has become a focus. The main challenge for this research is in designing windows for prefabricated residential buildings that can lead to the best performance in carbon emissions. The purpose of this paper is to summarize window design advice for prefabricated residential building facades with low-carbon goals. This paper adopts the single control variable research method. Building energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions under different conditions comprise the primary data used in the study. In the process of achieving the research aim, this study firstly extracts the window design elements of prefabricated residential facades. Secondly, objective function formulas are established and a basic model is built for obtaining data. Thirdly, data results are analyzed and window design advice is put forward under the condition of a low-carbon goal. This paper discusses that the optimal window-to-wall ratio (WWR) with a low-carbon orientation is around 0.15, and compares it innovatively with the optimal WWR under an energy-saving orientation at around 0.38. The research results of this paper can deepen the understanding of architectural low-carbon design and play a guiding role for architects.

High-density building environments and fast-paced working conditions in cities pose health challenges for office workers. Office-type pocket parks assume the social responsibility of providing restorative environments for office workers, and the soundscape is an essential element of such environments. However, there is limited research on soundscape restoration in office-type pocket parks. Therefore, this study focused on soundscape restoration in office-type pocket parks. First, on-site investigations explored the spatial characteristics of 55 office-type pocket parks while analysing the soundscape features of 12 representative parks. Notably, significant correlations emerged among the perceptual parameters of the soundscape. Subsequently, three dimensions were extracted through an experimental study on the restoration levels of soundscape elements in office-based pocket parks: attractiveness, coordination, and disengagement. Finally, this study explored the impact of spatial enclosures and interface characteristics on soundscape restoration levels. This revealed that the restorative effect of negative sounds, such as traffic, air-conditioning, and speech, is significantly negatively correlated with spatial enclosure. Therefore, the greater the enclosure, the lower the restorative effect of the soundscape. Birdsongs significantly enhance the attractiveness of grey spaces, whereas small fountain sounds are most coordinated in blue spaces. This study provides a reference for the design of soundscapes in pocket parks to build healthy, restorative urban environments.