The pursuit of climate neutrality requires global systemic actions involving the use of solutions aimed at reducing emissions. Changes must be introduced in all sectors affecting climate change, namely power engineering and district heating, construction, transport, and industry, as well as agriculture and forestry. Analyzing the structure of final energy consumption in the EU by sector, it can be stated that households account for 27% of the total energy consumption. Comprehensive actions are needed to increase the energy efficiency of buildings. The aim of this paper was to indicate aspects of improving energy efficiency in buildings and their equipment, taking into account the striving for climate neutrality. Analyzed possibilities and conditions of using various solutions of energy-efficient systems aimed at increasing energy resilience and security and preventing environmental degradation. Particular attention was paid to construction and material solutions, as well as installation solutions, which increased the accumulation and energy efficiency of the building. These activities are closely related to the conditions and dynamics of the heat exchange process in the applied solutions and are also related to the factors influencing thermal comfort and energy consumption in buildings. Due to the growing popularity of modern information technologies and artificial intelligence in energy management in recent years, this article reviews the latest research in this area. One of the directions of future research indicated by scientists is autonomous building control in real time, adapting to the momentary needs of users. The analysis of the possibilities of using modern energy efficiency solutions in buildings conducted in this work may be useful for optimizing heat and energy management models and models of society’s consumption as an element of energy transformation towards climate neutrality and counteracting the deepening of energy poverty.

Old towns in spatial structures of historic towns are the areas which – same as centuries before – serve as the town centres. This is almost invariably true about small towns especially, as the inner town district is more frequently the site where a town was originally located and is often the manifestation of its historic identity. However, functional and spatial problems of many small historic towns arise from the above trend, mostly because of the frequently high density of buildings in the oldest part of a town. The intricate nature of elements creating the structure of a town's historic centre often calls for certain steps to be taken, which will ensure better exposure of an old town complex against the backdrop of the town's other areas. Numerous problems need to be solved, not only spatial but also economic and social ones. A town is a living organism, inhabited by people. The key to tackling these issues successfully lies in the creation of such revitalisation programmes that will improve the quality of space and help achieve the sustainable development of inner-town areas in historic towns. The historic centres in the medieval towns of Warmia, a region rich in history and situated in north-eastern Poland, can serve as an example and has been investigated in the following study. All the towns in Warmia located in the Middle Ages, except the capital of the region Olsztyn, can be classified as small urban developments. This group of eleven towns is dominated by the ones whose territorial coverage has not changed considerably since the location and the population ranges from a few thousand to less than twenty thousand. To this day, the historic quarters of these towns have remained the central ones in each town, and their urban structures to a various extent reveal the features characteristic for the period when they were created. The differences are due to the war damage the towns suffered at the end of World War Two and because of the different ways in which they were reconstructed afterwards. In consequence, some elements of the original town master plans have been lost. Revitalisation is an approach whose aim is to improve the quality of space and the ability of inner town areas to function. Revitalisation goes beyond the purely spatial factors, and involves broadly understood economic and social considerations. The conclusions drawn from this research pertain to benefits of using the revitalisation method in planning a sustainable development of urban structures. The development and implementation of revitalisation programmes is a very complex process that takes many years and requires an integrated and interdisciplinary team effort. This method allows us to preserve the identity of historic town areas while enabling them to play functions in the contemporary life of a town.

Wydawnictwo SIGMA-NOT wydaje czasopisma fachowe informuj?ce swoich czytelnik?w o najnowszych osi?gni?ciach naukowych i nowoczesnych rozwi?zaniach technicznych w Polsce i na ?wiecie, popularyzuje problemy techniczne oraz poszerza wiedz? i kultur? techniczn?.

Public spaces in many cities of podlaskie province (Poland) were modernized after 2004 (the moment Poland entered EU). Some squares have already been modernized while the others are still waiting to be revitalized. The changes are made in many aspects. One of the most aspects of those modernizations is the exposition of the actual and new symbolization of the space and buildings. The aim of this work is to design the forms and themes of the new buildings, which are now used to build the symbolical programme of the squares in the cities of Podlasie. In that sense they built one of the cultural characteristics of our era. The studies were made in the context of historical conditions. The historical section was presented to approach the placing the symbolical contents in the spaces of the markets in the Podlasie cities. 40 towns were taken into account. The theme of the symbolical content was systematized typical for the objects placed in the markets space in different historical eras. The forms were defined of the present symbolical contents in the following groups: architectonical buildings (the town halls, modern buildings) little architecture (the sculptures, the fountains). Those topic groups and the content were presented and introduced into the market spaces of a group of the cities. The formal groups were set up: the sculptures, the statues, the little architecture, individually designed fountains, content architectonical furniture) and the trace the reminiscence of the historical architecture (e.g. the painting on the tiles on the square). The contents are associated with the history of those cities/towns, the person who set them up and the most important personalities in the history, the fiction characters, building the identity of the town.