Front Matter Free

This volume is the fruit of labor of the many experts who compiled the chapters. We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers who enhanced the quality. The support from the AIP Publishing team, especially Lauren Schultz, Dr. Benjamin Johnson, and Martine Felton, was instrumental. The editors are most grateful to the love of their families and, above all, the grace from above.

Albert Einstein asserted, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” This is the opportune time to capitalize on Sustainable Engineering Technologies and Architectures in our efforts to realize a better future. This volume aims to enlighten minds with the latest sustainable engineering, architectures, and living. The reader will become acquainted with Clean Air, Clean Water, Clear Conscience in Chap. 1. To put this in perspective, more than seven million people die annually because of a lack of clean air and clean water. Putting the deaths aside, about one-third of the world's population does not have safe water, and over 90% lives in areas with air quality that does not meet WHO guidelines. Bafflingly, these iniquities pale in comparison to the non-contaminating carbon dioxide. Whatever happened to having a clear conscience?

With a continuous increase in the global urban population, the way we do things in the city must change. Ween puts Sustainable Engineering Technologies and Architectures, along with their politics, on the shoulders of Sustainable Urbanization in Chap. 2. She calls for a paradigm shift from our obsession with perpetual growth to contentment as an essential need for everyone. “The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed,” said Mahatma Gandhi. If we who have abundance are not content with what we have, there is no hope to initiate the first goal of the United Nations: no poverty. Neither are we qualified to mention the second goal: zero hunger.

Have you ever thought that there are more than seven billion elevator journeys going up and down tall buildings every day? As such, greening these journeys is an integral element of Sustainable Engineering Technologies and Architectures. Al-Kodmany illuminates us with numerous promising greening technologies for these ever-taller man-made structures in Chap. 3, Tall Buildings and Elevators: New Sustainable Design. With elevators utilizing up to 40% of a building's energy during peak hours, progress in this front is consequential.

What about tomorrow's buildings that today's architects are envisioning? Do they facilitate sustainability or hinder it? Estévez not only confronts us with these questions in Chap. 4, Sustainable Nature-Inspired Architecture, but also spells out the answers. He proclaims Antoni Gaudí's idea of integrating architectural structures with their natural surroundings. This includes the use of the most common local materials. Learning from nature, creating architectures to be part of their natural surroundings, and living in harmony with nature is the sustainable future.

Let us not forget that 71% of the Earth's surface is marine environment, and oceans sustain more lifeforms than land, while playing a critical role in regulating the climate. In Chap. 5, Enhancing Marine Biodiversity with Artificial Structures, Chou enlightens us on capitalizing artificial structures to enrich marine biodiversity. Anthropogenic structures include artificial reefs, jetties, piers, and pontoons, all of which can be viewed as beautified novel habitats for a wide variety of species. Healthy marine environment, healthy land.

What are sustainable means to feed a growing population? What about widespread implementation of smart agricultural techniques? Khan and Adnan provide us with the details of these innovative technologies in Chap. 6, Application of Technology for Achieving Sustainable Agriculture. Remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicles, machine vision, automatic instruments, and other new technologies are conveyed. Proper utilization of these leading-edge technologies can produce ecologically friendly crops that are healthy, while increasing crop yields and reducing costs.

Leonardo da Vinci declared, “Water is the driving force of all nature.” For that reason, sustainable agricultural intensification requires optimal irrigation methods and strategies. The key is to obtain more crop per drop, and the way to accomplish this is spelled out by Dirwai et al. in Chap. 7, Sustainable Irrigation Technologies for the Future – More crop per drop. It is interesting to note that many current irrigation technologies improve water use efficiency, but only at the cost of energy use. The way forward is to adopt a systematic water-energy-food nexus approach to avoid unintended trade-offs.

Growing fuel to power the blooming transportation sector plays an important a role in sustaining tomorrow. Balo and Sua present “Analysis of the Ecodiesel Characteristics with a Vegetable-based Oil Ester for the Transportation Sector” in Chap. 8. They analyze vegetable-source oil esters such as cottonseed, rapeseed, safflower, soybean, sunflower, tallow, and palm in terms of the essential parameters as an energy source, including energy safety and security. The waste from palm oil processing provides a considerable energy content, thus palm emerges as a winner from their rigorous, quantitative, and multi-criteria analysis.

The most appropriate renewable energy sources are a function of multiple factors. One size does not fit all, even within European nations. Gökgöz and Erkul tackle this challenge in Chap. 9, A Comparative Energy Efficiency Analysis for the Renewable Energy Technologies. They scrutinize renewable energy efficiencies of 33 European countries based on empirical data spanning 2015 to 2019. The more industrialized region of Europe is efficient in terms of renewable energy implementation and usage. There is significant room to help the lagging nations to pull up their socks.

Poullikkas hits the nail on the head by pointing out the intensive exploitation of energy resources for the sake of boosting living standards in Chap. 10, Toward Hydrogen Economy – The Energy Transition of Cyprus. To transit from a carbon economy to a hydrogen economy is part of a comprehensive long-term sustainable energy strategy for Cyprus. This can only be realized by overturning the current wasteful and dead-end development model and embracing green technologies and energy-efficient policies. Proper planning can maximize Cyprus's energy potential, making it a producer state and a hub interconnecting Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Whether they are tied to climate change or not, the number of natural disasters has been increasing in recent years. Therefore, when we devise and practice sustainability, we must include disaster prevention and management. In Chap. 11, Mahmat et al. discuss “Emergency Vehicle Routing Problem for Post-Disaster Management.” Effective rescues required the victims to be reached within the minimum time. They develop and test their model using data from Elâzığ, Turkey, which include six hospitals and multiple ambulance types.

The volume concludes with a disclosure on affordable multi-scale, self-sufficient bioelectricity systems incorporated within the architectures for everyday urban living, in Chap. 12 by Jaafari et al., Employing Spirulina platensis in Photosynthetic Microbial Fuel Cell for Domestic and Urban Bio-electricity Generation Through a Diffusion-Limited Aggregation Pattern. “Self-sufficient Bioelectricity Systems in Architecture.” The self-sufficient bioelectricity system is a photosynthetic microbial fuel cell that utilizes a prominent superfood, Spirulina platensis, to generate electricity. A beautiful 3D-printed, least-resistance pattern based on a form-finding generative process is described that optimizes the fuel cell architecture.

Yomna K. Abdullah

iBAG-UIC Barcelona, Institute for Biodigital Architecture & Genetics, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya,

Immaculada 22, Barcelona 08017, SpainFaculty of Applied Arts, Helwan University, 5 Ahmad Zewail Street, Doki, Giza, Egypt

Adnan Adnan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sarhad University of Science and IT, Peshawar 25000, Pakistan

Kheir M. Al-Kodmany

College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, University of Chicago at Illinois, CUPPA Hall, 412 S. Peoria St., Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA

Abd Al Qader Jaafari

Master in Biodigital Architecture, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Immaculada 22, Barcelona 08017, Spain

Figen Balo

Department of Industrial Engineering, Firat University, Elazig 23119, Turkey

Loke Ming Chou

Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Tinashe L. Dirwai

Department of Soil-, Crop-, and Climate Sciences, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9301, South Africa

Bioresources Engineering Programme, School of Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 3209, South Africa

Ercem Erkul

Hacettepe University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative, Science, Department of Social Work, Beytepe, Ankara 06800, Turkey

Alberto T. Estévez

Department of Architecture, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Immaculada 22, Barcelona 08017, Spain

iBAG-UIC Barcelona, Institute for Biodigital Architecture & Genetics, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Immaculada 22, Barcelona 08017, Spain

Fazıl Gökgöz

Department of Management, Quantitative Methods Division, Faculty of Political Sciences, Cebeci, Ankara 06600, Turkey

Sikandar Khan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, 31261 Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi

Center for Transformative Agricultural and Food Systems, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 3209, South Africa

Zeliha Mahmat

Industrial Engineer, Elazığ 23100, Turkey

Andreas Poullikkas

Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority, P.O. Box 24936, 1305 Nicosia, Cyprus

Graham T. Reader

Turbulence & Energy Laboratory, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4, Canada

Victoria Roznowski

Master in Biodigital Architecture, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Immaculada 22, Barcelona 08017, Spain

Aidan Senzanje

Bioresources Engineering Programme, School of Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 3209, South Africa

Lutfu S. Sua

Department of Management and Marketing, Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70813, USA

Camilla Ween

Director, Goldstein Ween Architects, Unit 56 15-17 Ingate Place, London SW8 3NS, United Kingdom