Enormous development of technology over the past two centuries has been associated with a considerable drawdown of non-renewable raw materials and an increase in the amount of harmful emissions. Thus, building direction in the field of construction implies a significant implementation of sustainability. The preference for environmentally friendly technology solutions is the right way to meet the sustainability trend. The main aim of this study was to analyze and verify selected construction systems of buildings designed for agricultural primary production in terms of their environmental impacts. The supporting construction systems of the comparative design variants was designed from a variety of material bases (concrete, steel, and wood). To evaluate environmental construction systems, the LCA methodology in mode “Cradle to Gate” was used. Parameters of sustainability related to the environmental impact were analyzed. These results could be a useful tool for the evaluation and comparison to an appropriate choice of the design option for an industrial building designed for agricultural primary production in terms of environmental impact.

Sustainability of cities is currently a much-debated topic. The trend in Central Europe we witness nowadays is that people are going back from the impersonal and restrictive conditions of tower blocks to the more natural and relaxed conditions of family houses. New approaches to urbanization in the context of the sustainability of cities can be characterized by their use of innovative technologies and energetically efficient and ecologically acceptable construction materials. Companies have substantially responded to this trend, meeting the demand by offering a wide range of solutions. Alongside the traditional and long-established construction materials (brick, concrete), including wood, companies are introducing modern, innovative, and viable construction alternatives. Modern methods of construction (MMC), to which modern houses based on wood belong, promote the idea and application of environmentally and energetically efficient constructions. Just as the construction process itself significantly contributes to the depletion of natural resources, the production of construction materials contributes to significant environmental pollution and greenhouse emissions (particularly CO₂). Sustainability assessments of construction projects increasingly involve the use of methodologies which assess sustainability criteria throughout a product’s Life-cycle. For our analysis of suburban housing clusters designed to serve as family houses, we chose an actual family house construction completed using a modern construction system based on wood. For the sake of comparing the modern construction method, we created an alternative model of a construction based on a traditional masonry construction system. The main objective of this contribution is to analyze selected variants of constructions in terms of environmental and economic sustainability characteristics, as part of a broader assessment of permanent sustainability, by applying the life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life-cycle cost (LCC) methodologies within specified assessment boundaries. A partial objective of this contribution is to point towards the ways of applying the LCA and LCC assessment methodologies, such as in the decision-making processes involved in alternative investment strategies for the construction of urban clusters in the context of sustainability.

Recent developments in the construction industry have brought more efficient and sustainable technologies, technological procedures, and materials. An example of this are modern methods of construction, which offer larger production volumes with a higher quality and shorter procurement time. The goal of those methods is to improve construction sustainability through quality improvement, customer satisfaction, shortened construction time, and reduced environmental impact. The main goal of this research is to demonstrate, by means of theoretical assumptions, surveys, and analyses, the sustainability of modern methods of construction based on wood. The work focuses on identifying the user criteria for construction sustainability. Selected user criteria of construction sustainability are applied in a socio-economic survey whose purpose is to determine how users perceive the efficiency of selected construction systems. We evaluate certain user parameters in the context of sustainability by relying on the users of buildings (family houses) which have already been built and compare the results with declared design parameters.

Temperature and humidity are essential factors in analyzing a building’s thermal performance. This research presents the differences in field measurements of vernacular houses in coastal and mountain areas in Indonesia. Field measurements were taken for five consecutive days in four vernacular houses. The variables were measured at the beginning and at the peak of the rainy season. Analysis included a combination of graphic and descriptive methods. The research results show that the location difference between coast and mountain results in a relatively high difference in temperature (43.6%). The outdoor temperature in the mountain area is lower than that of the coastal area. The outdoor humidity of the mountain area is 0.69% higher than that of the coastal area. In the tropical coastal area, the outdoor temperature of the exposed-brick house is 0.94% lower than that of the coastal wooden house. The outdoor air humidity of the brick house is 0.89% higher than that of the coastal wooden house. In the tropical mountain area, the outdoor temperature of the exposed-stone house is 2.47% lower than that of the wooden house. The outdoor air humidity of the stone house is 0.4% lower than that of the wooden house. The outdoor conditions affect the indoor conditions of the respective houses. These microclimatic differences are influenced by micro-environmental factors, such as the density of surrounding buildings, amount of vegetation, and shading. The research shows that height difference is the most dominant factor influencing outdoor microclimate. Regional microclimate becomes the basis for determining the most suitable envelope materials in different areas. The innovative contribution of the work is, among other benefits, the identification of factors that influence the wellbeing of the buildings’ users in the researched geographical area and the analysis of the interaction of the external and internal environment of buildings. From the above facts, it follows that the results of this work can contribute to the development of prediction models to determine the type of cover, material, shape, and load-bearing elements needed to create comfortable and energy-efficient buildings.