Designing Transformation: Negotiating Solar and Green Strategies for the Sustainable Densification of Urban Neighbourhoods

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

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Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This study in engaging students in a real world project is interesting and offers insights not just for solutions to wicked problems but also scholarship of teaching and learning. A number of questions arise that will assist the reader in understanding the project and process better:

1. Were the 'experts' from the city planning and design or were experts from ecology, engineering (PV, facade, etc) involved as well?
2. Student names have been revealed. Has permission been sought from the students to use their names and also designs?
3. The project discusses social considerations as well. However, it appears that the social considerations were linked to the environmental impact such as thermal comfort, rather than psychological impacts such as exposure to greenery, increase of social interactions as a result of transparent facades, etc.
4. The role of post occupancy or some form of follow up to ensure that the designs actually supported the environmental and social outcomes are not discussed. Performance is critical to ensure the 'right' design solutions are offered. 
5. In terms of climate change, it does not appear that adaptation and resilience issues were discussed at all? What about flooding, heat waves, etc- how does it impact the design. Were such scenarios discussed/flagged and if so, what implications do they have on the designs?
6. Would bringing in students who are studying engineering and other related disciplines such as landscape, urban planning, or even bringing in building physicists have assisted in some of the observations made such as inability to undertake calculations to work out the solar yield?
7. Figure 1 is a unclear. Text is slightly faded and why is interdisciplinary shortened when others are not?
8. The paper needs a good edit. 

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Reviewer 3 Report

The paper presents a research-driven design project based on the integration of BiPV systems and greenery solution in the retrofit of post war housing. The study is real used through the work of the students. This is explicated only in the conclusions, where the aims and the approach of the paper is clear. It is suggested to explicate this also in the methodology to clearing better the scope of the paper. Also, it is better to emphasize the educational role of the study. As it contains only qualitative data, it could be not scientific for the engineering point of view. Explicate better educational role of the course, an restructured a bit the methodology (not the paper as the division in pre-design, design and post-design is clear). In the introduction, it is better to compare your study with the results of similar studies real used through a similar design-driven approach from the educational activity on solar and green system in energy and environmental retrofit. For example, the paper https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10090159 has a similar approach on similar building. You can compare the result from a German and Italian point of view. Also, the references are poor. Appendix A and B could be inserted as a part of the paper. Conclusion must be revised totally to insert the main outcomes of the research.

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

• The quality of your modified version has been significantly improved. However, from your section 3.3 to Section 4， a more detailed comparative analysis should be provided，which is from the post-design phase to your final conclusion.  Thus, the conclusion is drawn which concepts or comprehensive concepts are the best design concepts.

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Reviewer 2 Report

The paper needs a good edit. This needs to be checked carefully. For instance, the spelling of 'intergovernmental' needs to be checked.  Also, sentences such as

'Therefore, a research by design approach is applied, similar to the design-driven didactic approach utilised in [17] to identify innovative design solutions, but without direct interactions with the inhabitants' is not appropriate. 

The sentence may be changed to:

'Therefore, a research by design approach is applied, similar to the design-driven didactic approach utilised by Lucchi and Delera [17] 
to identify innovative design solutions, but without direct interactions with the inhabitants' makes more sense. 

Please also check where periods are placed at the end of the sentence, especially where references have been used at the end of the sentence. 

Has independent ethics permission be received for this study?

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for considering my suggestions 

Author Response

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