Smart Building Skins for Urban Heat Island Mitigation: A Review

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has detrimental impacts on building cooling demand, public and ecological health, and climate change. Because UHIs are caused by the concentration of construction materials that absorb and retain heat, buildings in urban areas present challenges and opportunities to mitigate them. Specifically, innovative building skin solutions, such as those covered with smart materials (SMs) that respond to environmental stimuli with their dynamic time and temperature-dependent behaviors, have significant potential to reduce the UHI effect. This research provides a review of the state-of-the-art applications of SMs in building skins for urban heat island mitigation (UHIM). It highlights the knowledge gaps and opportunities for future research with an extensive literature review and in-depth analysis. This research classifies the application of skin-integrated smart materials (SISMs) for UHIM into five main groups that included thermal, light, air pollution, humidity and ventilation control, and energy generation, and highlights their challenges and prospects.