UCL – Architecture & Climat
The Team
The Architecture et Climat research team is part of the UCL LOCI Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering and Urban Planning.
Architecture et Climat : a team of individuals on a mission
“The Architecture et Climat team supports sustainable development by advancing and disseminating architecture-specific scientific knowledge that focuses on the physical aspects of the building process and habitation. It puts the relationship between humans and their (ecological, social and economic) environment at the centre of all its work and factors in all spatial and temporal scales.”
Achievements and projects over four key areas (A non-exhaustive list representative of our activities over the last three years, with projects completed or in progress).
- Constructive systems and resources
Different tasks are grouped together in this key area, such as the BBSM project under discussion here, together with projects on: decentralised plot management in urban areas (Walloon Region); characterising the behaviour and performance of straw walls; and the environmental optimisation of a prefabricated and modular building system for a school.
- Energy and indoor climate
The various research projects in this key area include: creating, maintaining and continually updating the Energie + online encyclopaedia (1,800,000 visits a year!); the qualitative and quantitative analysis of 150 low-energy houses; validating a method for the in situ characterisation of the actual dynamic response of buildings; designing prototype walls with phase-change materials in order to store and re-use energy inputs; real-condition characterising of in-exfiltration flows in buildings at air escape paths; etc.
- Perception of the built environment
Several projects are addressed in this key area, such as: validating glare indicators in natural lighting; developing an algorithm for managing SmartNode intelligent lighting (the mesopic model); and devising contrast and coloured harmony indicators in an indoor environment.
- Cross-cutting projects
The three key areas above are clearly not entirely separate, and may be tackled in complementary fashion thanks to the development of several cross-cutting projects, such as: piloting a demonstration project for a sustainable neighbourhood in a real estate development in LLN; devising a help guide for sustainable renovation in schools; and energy renovation in pre-war heritage buildings in Walloon.
Participants in the BBSM project
The architecture and climate research team at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) is behind the FEDER-BBSM project. The team was keen to bring together several partners with complementary areas of expertise to address the challenges faced by the project in a comprehensive manner. Architecture and climate has the role of BBSM project coordinator, as well as being responsible for several work packages (WPs): WP1 on best practice; WP2 on analysing repositories and flows of building stock material in Brussels (metabolism and urban mining); and WP3 and WP4, which deal with existing and potential channels. In addition, architecture and climate — with the help and support of other partners — will be responsible for the outcomes and implications of the project on regional scale, as well for developing the resource management tool for the construction industry in the RBC.