Disasters, whether natural or man-made, pose inevitable global challenges. Events such as COVID-19, earthquakes, extreme climatic conditions, and conflicts underscore the urgent demand for effective temporary housing solutions. These temporary housing units (THUs) serve as an aid in assisting displaced people to rebuild their lives as the recovery process unfolds. However, numerous temporary housing units present environmental, economic, and social issues that hinder their sustainability. This paper investigates the underlying causes of these issues, defines the essential requirements that temporary housing units must meet, and proposes an initial design to fulfill these requirements. The methodology comprises three key phases: case study analysis, requirement identification, and the integration of these requirements into the design process. The main findings highlight that the construction of sustainable temporary housing units necessitates a meticulous consideration of various parameters to achieve a balanced equilibrium between economic, social, and environmental impacts. Possible future research directions are emphasized, including the use of digital tools and BIM models to promote the adoption of circular economy practices and the validation of the design solution through value analysis. Possible improvements in the user’s well-being are also taken into consideration.

One of the main objectives of contemporary society and international research is to improve the physical and psychological health and well-being of the population, especially within the urban space. An effective approach to address this complex issue must necessarily be trans-disciplinary, and must be framed in the broader perspective of the Science of Sustainability, in particular the Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development, as a frame of reference. The study shows the first results of research, in terms of methodology and qualitative analysis, with the following objectives—identification of the criteria for intervention for a healthy city design, with particular attention to the psychological, architectural, and construction aspects, and an initial verification of these criteria, through a case study consisting of a section of the city’s waterfront, in the city of Livorno. This case study has enabled, both, the definition of an innovative design and implementation of solutions, for the correct use, accessibility, and management of spaces. It provides the first evaluation of a possible digital analyses of a waterfront, before and after intervention; and highlights the potential and the critical aspects of the process of recovery and re-appropriation of an urban space, for a new social life, within it.

There is an ever increasing interest in identifying the links between architecture and public health and in how urban design can positively influence the latter. The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development represents an innovative research area as a recent contribution to sustainability science and its trans-disciplinary configuration. The research topic deals with the importance and the centrality of the user-centered approach in the observation of the relationships among mankind, technological systems, and built environments, for projects that guarantee the conditions of physical, mental, and social well-being. Starting from the plurality of different disciplinary sectors, from anthropometry and sociology to psychology, “human experience” and user’s expectations are explored, understood, and systematized. The analysis of the relationship between health and urban design has allowed researchers to identify design strategies to improve the level of urban livability. The city of Pisa is the case study; mobility within the city is redefined through various levels of the use of space so that paths and areas of inclusion and socialization are re-valued, while new scenarios for some urban spaces open up. In this perspective, the design strategies synthetically follow two main directions: the re-appropriation of these places by the citizens and, at the same time, the promotion of their well-being from both a physical and psychological point of view.

Climate change patterns and expected extreme weather conditions drive urban design practices toward more effective adaptation strategies for the built environment. Biskra City, one of the largest urban areas in the Algerian Sahara territory, has suffered from unprecedented extreme weather patterns, specifically during the summer. This paper examined outdoor thermal comfort in the arid climates of Biskra, Algeria, during summer extreme conditions by investigating the impact of the height-to-width (H/W) ratio aspect and the north–south (N-S) and east–west (E-W) street orientations on pedestrian thermal comfort with the parameterization of external building envelopes using brick, concrete, adobe, and limestone materials. This study was conducted with ENVI-met 5.1.1 software, based on 24 parametric scenarios, to identify the most effective composition for outdoor thermal stress mitigation using the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) thermal index. Across all scenarios, the PET index values fluctuated between PETmin = 32.2 °C and PETmax = 60.6 °C at different hours. The coupling between the H/W ratio and street orientation as geometry factors and building envelope characteristics reveals six distinct categories of building materials, each with an impact on outdoor thermal comfort: (1) high cooling (60–100%), (2) medium cooling (40–60%), (3) low cooling (<40%), (4) high heating (60–100%), (5) medium heating (40–60%), and (6) low heating material (<40%). Therefore, in the N-S orientation, limestone walls can provide a cooling efficiency range from 85% to 100% throughout deep and shallow canyons. Contrary to this, brick walls can cause a heat retention range varying from 70% to 93% within the same canyons. When considering extreme summer conditions in arid climates, the results show that the most effective bioclimatic passive strategy that could be achieved is the E-W orientation, within H/W < 1, characterized by a high albedo building material.

Green roofs and green and living walls are increasingly seen in cities, because they are an important strategy that addresses some key urban environmental issues and allows the achievement of different benefits. Among these, the most relevant ones are reduction of the “Urban Heat Island” effect, of rainfall contributions to the sewer system, of environmental impact and energy saving, and retention of harmful substance. The study aims to analyze different systems of greenery systems integrated (GSI), green roofs (GR), and green and living walls (GW-LW), as a possible retrofit technique of the envelope of heritage buildings and especially their applications in the context of historic cities in Italy, pointing out positive and negative aspects. Particularly, it pays attention to the green retrofitting of buildings and to the technical problems related to the installation of systems, since at the moment there are already several studies that show the environmental and microclimatic benefits of the integration of vegetation in architecture. This study tries to highlight the series of design procedures necessary both in the preliminary phase and then in the executive phase to relate the GSI to the existing building envelopes. The GR, from the results of the simulations conducted, demonstrate a greater simplicity in their construction, with improvements also from the point of view of the working loads on the existing structures, since the interventions are performed more easily than those on the facade. The study highlights the architectural needs that are not always considered such as the increase in the thickness of the roof and the related need to raise its edges, changing the perspective of the building. On the other hand, the GW and the LW show some complexity in their construction because they must deal with facades often rich in decorative elements and where openings affect the assemblage and connection works such as the tinsmiths of the intrados of the openings. It must be taken into consideration the necessity of having to drill masonry, often inhomogeneous, to connect fixings and the problems of stability this entails must be carefully analyzed.

This study investigates the thermal performance of the ventilated mask wall used in the low-income neo-vernacular dwellings designed by André Ravéreau to cope with the warm desert climate conditions of M’zab Valley, Ghardaia, in southern Algeria. This device is a ventilated façade provided with an opaque external massive cladding. It is designed to be particularly efficient in hot climates, functioning simultaneously as a brise-soleil and a ventilated façade, compared with conventional façade systems. Based on a typical experiment conducted during the summertime (12–14 August), a residential unit in Sidi Abbaz selected as a case study was modeled and calibrated using EnergyPlus (v8.4) software, and then a dynamic simulation was performed in order to assess the efficiency of the ventilated mask wall as a cooling strategy. By means of the validated thermal model, various alternatives for the façade materials were investigated, and the thermal behavior of the current ventilated mask wall was compared with a 45 cm thick limestone façade wall, and a 30 cm thick hollow clay brick wall under the same conditions. Countless benefits were achieved by the application of the mask wall system, including a stable and less fluctuant inner surface temperature, and a reduction in the incoming summer heat flux. The improvements performed, in particular the time lag of 12 h and the related decrement factor of 0.28 indicate the effectiveness of this wall system, which enabled radiant temperature drops of more than 10 °C, and an air temperature decrease of about 6 °C, during the summer sunniest hours. The results demonstrate that this solution is suitable for buildings design applications to meet the objective of low-energy demand in warm desert climates.