Changing energy consumption behavior is a promising strategy to enhance household energy efficiency and to reduce carbon emission. Understanding the role of psychological and demographic factors in the context of energy-conservation behaviors is critical to promote energy-saving behaviors in buildings. This study first proposes a theoretical framework built on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Based on the collected survey data from 207 families (553 residents) in three communities in Xi’an, a typical city in northwest China, the research examines how three standard TPB predictors, namely attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, as well as their interactive effects and three socio-demographic factors (i.e., house ownership, education and household income) influence building occupants’ energy-saving intention at home. Through structural equation modeling and keyword analysis, this study reveals that two interaction terms, namely attitude and subjective norms, as well as attitude and perceived behavior control, significantly influence building occupants’ energy-saving intention. Furthermore, this study implies that household income may positively associate with occupants’ energy-saving intention. The model in this study would be conducive to architects and property managers to mitigate severe building energy overuse problem in design and operation stages. Based on a qualitative analysis, the study then discusses the limitations of the study and further research direction. The results of this study would be conducive to building designers and operators to develop customized architectural or informatic interventions and to mitigate the severe energy overuse problem in the residential sector in northwest China.

Energy consumption in buildings depends on several physical factors, including its physical characteristics, various building services systems/appliances used, and the outdoor environment. However, the occupants’ behavior that determines and regulates the building energy conservation also plays a critical role in the buildings’ energy performance. Compared to physical factors, there are relatively fewer studies on occupants’ behavior. This paper reports a systematic review analysis on occupant behavior and different modeling approaches using the Scopus and Science Direct databases. The comprehensive review study focuses on the current understanding of occupant behavior, existing behavior modeling approaches and their limitations, and key influential parameters on building energy conservation. Finally, the study identifies six significant research gaps for future development: occupant-centered space layout deployment; occupant behavior must be understood in the context of developing or low-income economies; there are higher numbers of quantitative occupant behavior studies than qualitative; the extensive use of survey or secondary data and the lack of real data used in model validation; behavior studies are required for diverse categories building; building information modeling (BIM) integration with existing occupant behavior modeling/simulation. These checklists of the gaps are beneficial for researchers to accomplish the future research in the built environment.

A complete sustainable-performance analysis that takes into consideration the whole of the triple bottom line of sustainability is necessary when one needs to balance social, economic, and environmental impacts in an optimal cost-effective design based fundamentally on sustainability performance objectives. This study introduces a methodology that can translate seismic building damage into clearly quantifiable social, economic, and environmental impacts, which can be used when selecting repair methods appropriate for various states of building damage and for the local economic and environmental situation. The authors also propose a lifecycle-assessment framework with which one can evaluate the costs and benefits associated with a seismic design over the lifecycle of a building. Two case studies are presented. The first case assesses the sustainability performance of a single RC building under seismic risk. The second case, taking into account the uncertainty associated with seismic events, compris...