Research Pathways
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Fionn Stevenson (independent scholar) explains key moments in her architectural career that shifted from practice to research. A driving curiosity in how people actually use buildings and how buildings perform led to research on post-occupancy evaluation and efforts to mainstream this process and knowledge more widely.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Philomena M. Bluyssen (Delft University of Technology) reflects on her research career which explored how indoor environmental quality (IEQ) impacts on human health and wellbeing. Her pioneering work asked what is needed to go beyond the mainly comfort-based guidelines based on effect modelling of single dose-response relationships? Her work led to the development of a more comprehensive research model for IEQ, accounting for integrated effects of all stressors and different preferences and needs of occupants in different scenarios and situations, based on situation modelling.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Research paths rarely follow a linear route and although some arrive at their PhD journey with very clear research questions, often these radically shift along the way. In Marialena Nikolopoulou’s (University of Kent) case, the focus on outdoor thermal comfort came almost by serendipity and thematic constraints. The questions underpinning her research led to new understandings of the human dimensions of thermal comfort in urban microclimates.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Richard de Dear (University of Sydney and Tsinghua University) explains the key moments in his research career that challenged existing notions of thermal comfort and helped to develop the evidence base for an alternative approach “adaptive comfort” which led to its wider acceptance in policy and practice.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Mat Santamouris (University of New South Wales) reflects on a research journey explaining how an early fascination with solar energy and building physics evolved into research on urban overheating, cool materials, and city-scale heat mitigation. The social imperative for research to address now is: Who is most exposed to extreme heat, and what can science do to protect them?
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Lawrence J. Vale (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) explains how his research thinking has evolved over time to consider how politics and design interact at different scales ranging from architectural design to urban design. These ideas have coalesced into new insights that design and politics are co-constitutive and also have significance for designers, planners and the public. A critical question for interrogating any proposal is: who benefits and who loses from development?
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Geographer and climatologist Gerald Mills (University College Dublin) reflects on a long research career investigating urban climate. He considers how the field has evolved from measuring and modelling to understanding the influence of the local context (local buildings and urban context) and its impact on indoor temperatures in adjoining buildings and outdoor conditions. A key aspect is linking urban climate knowledge to building design and urban planning.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Carlo Ratti (Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT) reflects on the work of the Senseable City Lab. Its pioneering research in understanding how people actually use cities and how urban environments could respond dynamically can enhance capacity and the lived experiences.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Andreas Wagner (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) explains his career in building performance as a journey from building technology and building science to a much broader, transdisciplinary approach involving understanding inhabitants' perceptions, practices, agency and interactions with the built environment.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Engineer Cath Noakes (University of Leeds) reflects on motivations that led to a career researching building ventilation and airborne infection. She considers how the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in our built environment that will influence future research, policy and practice.
Over 40 years SBSE has raised environmental awareness and capabilities.
Bruce Haglund (University of Idaho) reflects on the creation of the Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE) and its unique ethos of sharing amongst academics and supporting students. Understanding the importance of excellence in teaching building science, this group has been critical for improving its teaching and spreading environmental knowledge worldwide.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Architect Yasmeen Lari (Heritage Foundation of Pakistan) reflects on her journey that led her from corporate architecture to working for climate disaster relief in Pakistan. She highlights some of the challenges in designing low-cost, low-carbon buildings for the most vulnerable and provides advice for architects and early career researchers on creating impact for communities at-risk. Interview and text by Rihab Khalid (University of Cambridge).
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen (Aalborg University) reflects on the key drivers in her research career moving from engineering to work as a social scientist to understand inhabitants' energy consumption. Situated for many years within a governmental research institute dedicated to applied research, she highlights the challenges that researchers face for influencing public policy.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Polly Hudson (Alan Turing Institute) explains how her curiosity about planning knowledge and local community engagement led to new ways to capture and represent 2D, 3D and 4D spatial data about building stocks and urban form. New challenges arise for creating dynamic urban models and platforms: promoting public participation and understanding, use as a planning tool, combining diverse data sources, and simulating the behaviour of building stocks over time.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Robyn Pender (about to retire from Historic England) reflects on a career spanning physics to building conservation, and along the way rediscovers a forgotten approach to thermal comfort: the use of wall hangings. These are effective strategies for today but also raise important questions about how we measure and think about thermal comfort.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Thomas Lützkendorf (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) considers his research focus on environmental performance assessment: life cycle analysis of buildings - a significant topic in the climate emergency. Maintaining focus, depth, long-term commitment and continuity in research are vital ingredients. In addition, an accompanying responsibility is to translate scientific findings into accessible advice, guidance and practices for end-users.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Rev Michael A. Humphreys (Emeritus: Regent's Park College, University of Oxford) explains how a new approach to thermal comfort - adaptive comfort - was formulated in the 1970s and met with initial disbelief. It took perseverance and signficant investment of time outside of work to assemble and analyse sufficient data which then persuaded relevant line managers. The journey of how adaptive comfort became mainstream over the next 20+ years includes the creation of a network of like-minded researchers and their influence on national and international standards.
RESEARCH PATHWAY: personal reflections on a career in research
Raymond J. Cole (University of British Columbia) offers a candid reflection on his 50-plus-year career from earlier technically framed research on 'green' building and building environmental performance to more expansive later research that positioned buildings within larger socio-ecological systems. Lessons and insights are offered regarding the relationship between research and practice and the potential benefits gained from building bridges across disciplines.
RESEARCH LEGACY: personal reflections on a career in research
Kaixun Sha (Shandong Jianzhu University) reflects on a research career to 'green' the built environment in China. Key insights explain why sustainability in China depends upon much more than technology: the institutional environment and willingness, international knowledge exchange and cooperation, making practical trade-offs, and harnessing professionalism to ensure appropriate governance and outcomes.
RESEARCH LEGACY: personal reflections on a career in research
Louis Hellman - cartoonist, satirist and architect - reflects on a long career chronicling the architecture profession and its foibles. His research into the occupants' perspective, architectural practice and the drivers that influence the built environment resulted in a powerful, insightful critique of the built environment and a moral compass to the architectural profession.
Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content
Reuse of cast-in-place concrete: overcoming industry barriers
M Romann & M Bastien-Masse
Timing matters: life cycle embodied GHG emissions of circular building strategies
A Wöhler, L Rosado, H Abu Ghaida, H Wallbaum & A Hollberg
Scaling up retrofit: regional challenges and opportunities for MMC
H Dörr, P Späth & I Goñi
Design as communicative activity: implications for sustainability assessment software
T Säwén, A Sasic Kalagasidis & A Hollberg
Indoor temperature and office work performance in a temperate climate
T Kramer & S Schiavon
Moving homes and energy poverty: residents’ concerns, capabilities and responses
M Jalas, J Rinkinen, S Numminen & E Valkealahti
Reference study for biogenic carbon storage in the residential building stock
O Iliescu, I Talvitie, A Amiri & S Junnila
Building space heating and cooling in NDCs 4.0 [briefing note]
T P Lützkendorf
Building component reuse as sociomaterial interaction: lessons from precast concrete
J Uusikartano, L Alkki & V Capitani
Validating national reuse indicators from regional demolition data: a Swedish example
F Ericsson, K Mjörnell & U Janson
Climate change risk and decision-making [editorial]
S Foxell & I Cooper
Technologies of reconstruction [editorial]
P Tombesi
Urban form metrics for building occupancy modelling: applications and impacts
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Retrofit realism: affordable low-carbon policies for existing homes [briefing note]
N Eyre & R Khosla
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Latest Commentaries
Two Key Messages for COP31
Space Heating & Cooling in NDCs 4.0: Nationally Determined Constributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. NDCs embody each country's efforts to reduce their emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. So it is essential to include the building stock (particularly space heating and cooling) in the next NDCs.
Realistic Retrofit: Residential buildings are major users of energy and emitters of CO2. What constitutes realistic retrofit? Affordable, practical low-carbon policies for homes are described for both the Global North and Global South.
Thomas Lützkendorf and Nick Eyre send their messages to COP31: prioritise the building stock in NDCs and implement policies for practical retrofit. Watch their videos - for links to the videos click on "More" below:
Practitioners’ Views of POE
Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is widely valued but weakly embedded in practice. Ant Marsh, Kate van Someren, Lara Clarke and Tom Randall (Arup Building Performance and Commissioning Services) explain the findings from a survey and focus groups with UK construction industry practitioners. They identified fragmented responsibility, split commercial incentives and a persistent fear of “bad news”. Making POE routine requires a shift from producing reports to a focus on improving outcomes by owning and acting on learning.