The building sector is currently facing challenges in balancing decarbonization and occupant well-being. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a key player that addresses these challenges, providing digital intelligence across the entire life cycle of buildings. This paper introduces a scoping review, employing the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, to map 112 peer-reviewed publications from 2015 to March 2025. Based on the review, the applications of AI were categorized into three stages of the buildings’ life cycle: generative design, construction informatics, and operations using digital twins. The results of the review indicated the benefit of employing AI in the building design, construction, and operation phases. In the design stage, generative models could accelerate creative iteration, reduce simulation time, and optimize energy performance. In construction, computer-vision pipelines such as YOLOv5 decrease site-inspection labor by as much as 120 hours per month, while increasing accuracy sixfold compared to baseline approaches. Reinforcement-learning systems reduce idle crane energy consumption even more. In operation, AI-enabled digital twins achieve a median of 13% HVAC energy savings, enhancing predictive control, as well as improving indoor environmental quality and reducing mechanical downtime through predictive maintenance. Despite these advantages, some significant risks of using AI, such as privacy violations, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and algorithmic bias, remain understudied; less than 10% of the reviewed studies assessed either fairness or explainability in the AI use. This review proposes a four-pillar strategy for responsible AI deployment by ensuring: 1) life-cycle data continuity, 2) open benchmark datasets, 3) privacy-preserving edge analytics, and 4) government-supported "AI sandboxes". The results show that the use of AI can lead to smart buildings; however, for widespread and equitable implementation, strong governance, enhanced human-AI collaboration, and workforce development are essential.

By 2050, over two-thirds of the world's population is projected to live in urban areas, intensifying myriad interconnected global challenges that cities must urgently address. We simultaneously consider the critical needs for affordable housing in urban areas, combatting energy precarity and structuring energy independence, and creating a more livable environment by augmenting tree canopy. With this project we focus on three vectors: a) implementing additional and complementary sources of energy within existing housing complexes, b) focusing on small-scale built-environment wind turbines and c) investigating the intersection of the natural and the built environment by integrating microforests in the urban realm. This paper reports on the work undertaken by our interdisciplinary research group, of a case study on three large affordable housing towers on the northern edge of Cambridge, Massachusetts. We ask: What if, rather than relying on known and commercially developed renewable sources (solar panels), one would shift to provide additional and new sources of renewable energy? What if, by imagining a slow and steady transformation of open spaces, one could envision a more ecologically performant open space? By showing simulations, maps, GIS data, and hypothetical strategies to slowly and continuously act upon existing housing projects, the paper envisions a future in which a continuous reconfiguration, adaptation, and change can transform the urban scene towards a more equitable access to energy and housing. This experimental approach is intent on developing guidelines for adaptive reuse scenarios in more holistic ways, culminating in a kit of parts to communicate the findings of the project and demonstrate the possibilities of improving the built environment with a more expanded view of its intersection with the natural environment.

Gypsum is one of the most commonly used materials to date and is prevalent in architectural acoustics. This research includes a catalog of acoustic-based designs and fabrication strategies for unique gypsum wallboard surface finishes that can be incorporated into typical methods of construction. It explores the material properties of wallboard in folded configurations to enhance their sound scattering properties while also investigating physical material strategies for fabrication. It presents the resulting suitable geometries that satisfy acoustic and manufacturing goals. Overall, it focuses on an opportunistic research agenda centered around acoustic performance-driven design for alternative wallboard configurations and outlines the demonstrated workflow from modeling and digital simulation to full-scale prototyping as a way to build practical research applicable to the current building industry.