According to a press release, the building sector accounts for about 40% of the global primary energy consumption. Energy savings can be achieved in the building sector by improving the building's dynamic energy performance in terms of sustainable construction management in the urban-based built environments (referred to as an "Urban Organism"). This study implements the concept of "dynamic approach" to reflect the unexpected changes in the climate and energy environments as well as in the energy policies and technologies. Research in this area is very significant for the future of the building, energy, and environmental industries around the world. However, there is a lack of studies from the perspective of the dynamic approach and the system integration, and thus, this study is designed to fill the research gap. This study highlights the state-of-the-art in the major phases for a building's dynamic energy performance (i.e., monitoring, diagnosing, and retrofitting phases), focusing on the operation and maintenance phase. This study covers a wide range of research works and provides various illustrative examples of the monitoring, diagnosing, and retrofitting of a building's dynamic energy performance. Finally, this study proposes the specific future developments and challenges by phase and suggests the future direction of system integration for the development of a carbon-integrated management system as a large complex system. It is expected that researchers and practitioners can understand and adopt the holistic approach in the monitoring, diagnosing, and retrofitting of a building's dynamic energy performance under the new paradigm of an "Urban Organism". (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.