IDENTIFYING THE IMPACT OF BUILDING CHARACTERISTICS ON INDOOR OVERHEATING: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

In recent years, indoor overheating in urban areas has become a significant phenomenon due to global warming and more frequent extreme heat events. Building characteristics are a decisive factor in identifying the indoor thermal resilience of buildings. The aim of this paper is to systematically review and analyze the impact of various building characteristics such as ventilation, envelope material, building age on indoor overheating, and to identify the knowledge gaps in our understanding of overheating in buildings. Through systematic literature review, 55 papers published between 2015-2023 were selected, and analyzed in terms of descriptive and qualitative approaches. Four building characteristics themes, which are building envelopes, ventilation, shading systems, and architectural & environmental attributes, were identified to reveal the various strengths, opportunities, and limitations of building characteristics. Then, gap analysis was provided concluding with recommendations and future research directions for mitigating overheating gleaned from a review of the current state of the research. Results revealed that although there are multiple strategies for reducing indoor overheating during extreme heat events, different design characteristics in different combinations need to be tested in various locations and climate conditions, particularly for future excessive heat events, to quantify their costs and benefits. At present, a holistic approach for identifying the building characteristics and their impact on indoor overheating does not exist. Moreover, more comprehensive research is needed to understand the impact of building characteristics in different urban environments in real-scale case studies. The study contributes to the understanding of the challenges and the research gap of existing literature regarding the impact of building characteristics on indoor overheating.