Publications related to Built environment

Embodied Carbon Premium for Cantilevers

David Michael Volpe Ruggiero, Paola Costanza Miglietta

This study addresses the critical need for sustainable architectural designs within the context of climate change and the significant role the built environment plays in greenhouse gas emissions. The focus of this paper is on understanding the influence of ...

2024

Renaturation of urban rivers as a climate adaptation strategy Case study in Geneva, Switzerland

Sophie Lufkin, Emmanuel Rey

In a global context marked by the urgency of climate change, tangible actions towards the ecological transition are top priorities for the built environment. This paper presents the results of the “Maillages fertiles” research project, which seizes the opp ...

Wrocław University of Science and Technology Publishing House2024

Urban boundary-layer flows in complex terrain: Dynamic interactions during a hot and dry summer season in Phoenix, Arizona

Aldo Brandi

Anthropogenic modification of natural landscapes to urban environments impacts land-atmosphere interactions in the boundary layer. Ample research has demonstrated the effect of such landscape transitions on development of the urban heat island (UHI), but c ...

Wiley2024

Gaping Absenses. Where is Helvécia?

Denise Bertschi

Denise Bertschi, Gaping Absenses. Where is Helvécia?, in: Denise Bertschi, Nitin Bathla, Julien Lafontaine Carboni, Unearthing Traces. Dismantling the imperialist entanglement of archives and the Built Environment, EPLF Press (Feb. 2023) ...

EPFL Press2023

Territory Subject: Designing Human-Environment Interactions in Cities and Territories

Paola Viganò, Sylvie Tram Nguyen, Qinyi Zhang

A brief critique of the evolution of ecological perspectives surrounding the current environmental crises in the age of climate age and Anthropogenic impacts is highlighted across the inter-disciplinary fields of landscape, urbanism, and ecology. First, re ...

Springer Cham2023

Commoning the touristic city. Urban pedestrian routes and the ambiguous politics of exploration

Luca Giovanni Pattaroni

This chapter explores touristic infrastructures as politics of ambiance, paying attention to the way they enable urban environment and engage pedestrians to experience cities critically. This issue will be documented through an ethnographic study of two to ...

Routledge2023

Architectures de l'(in)hospitalité. Urbanité, spatialité et matérialité des politiques d'accueil à Bruxelles

Marie Hannah Florence Trossat

While migration is intrinsically linked to the arrival to the city, the city is also shaped by migration. It is an in-between space, between "territory" and "home", the border and shelter. However, "urban" hospitality remains a concept that needs to be exp ...

EPFL2023

Environmental determinants of access to shared sanitation in informal settlements: a cross-sectional study in Abidjan and Nairobi

Jérôme Chenal, Vitor Pessoa Colombo, Jürg Utzinger

Background Universal access to basic sanitation remains a global challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Efforts are underway to improve access to sanitation in informal settlements, often through shared facilities. However, access to ...

2023

Autodigit-RAD: Towards an automation of the radon’s concentration dataflow in a new and innovative building

Sergi Aguacil Moreno, Sebastian Duque Mahecha

Radon is a noble, natural, and radioactive gas coming mainly from the ground which might accumulate indoors and lead each year to 200-300 deaths from lung cancer in Switzerland. A brand new and innovative living lab will be built as of 2023 in Fribourg (Sw ...

2023

Relating health benefits of water, sanitation, and hygiene services with the context of urban informal settlements: lessons from Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya

Vitor Pessoa Colombo

This thesis is inscribed in the recent efforts to reconnect urban planning and public health. It focused on the context of sub-Saharan African cities, for they offer invaluable lessons regarding environmental health determinants and potential solutions to ...

EPFL2023

Rethinking walkability: Exploring the relationship between urban form and neighborhood social cohesion

Andrew James Sonta

Recent research has investigated the importance of both walkable urban design and social cohesion. Social cohesion has been shown to have broad social and health benefits, and scholars have hypothesized that walkable urban design can influence cohesion, th ...

2023

Towards Efficient Gas Leak Detection in Built Environments: Data-Driven Plume Modeling for Gas Sensing Robots

Alcherio Martinoli, Chiara Ercolani, Wanting Jin, Faezeh Rahbar

The deployment of robots for Gas Source Lo- calization (GSL) tasks in hazardous scenarios significantly reduces the risk to humans and animals. Gas sensing using mobile robots focuses primarily on simplified scenarios, due to the complexity of gas dispersi ...

2023

Urban sustainability assessment through spatial lenses: turning the spotlight on the local neighbourhood unit

Melissa Pang

With global environmental change and quality of life issues at the forefront of international discussions today, urban development strategies and policies are often framed around various sustainability or liveability goals. Regardless of the sustainability ...

EPFL2023

Participation citoyenne et numérique. Les civic tech : de nouveaux dispositifs pour planifier le territoire ?

Armelle Loreline Hausser

Civic technologies emerged a few years ago as tools to create new dynamics in the management and governance of urban planning, as well as renewing participatory democracy. In territories where the collision of different scales complicates the understanding ...

EPFL2023

Lessons Learned from Data-Driven Building Control Experiments: Contrasting Gaussian Process-based MPC, Bilevel DeePC, and Deep Reinforcement Learning

Colin Neil Jones, Loris Di Natale, Jicheng Shi, Emilio Maddalena, Yingzhao Lian

This manuscript offers the perspective of experimentalists on a number of modern data-driven techniques: model predictive control relying on Gaussian processes, adaptive data-driven control based on behavioral theory, and deep reinforcement learning. These ...

2023

Geographic clusters of objectively measured physical activity and the characteristics of their built environment in a Swiss urban area

Stéphane Joost, Marco André Vieira Ruas, Idris Guessous, Cédric Gubelmann

Introduction ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2022

China’s extended urbanization driven by the 'consumption city' in the context of financialized ecological civilization

Florence Graezer Bideau, Thierry Marcel Theurillat

This article seeks to address current debates on ongoing China’s urban development and makes a theoretical proposal that links financialization and ecological civilization through the perspective of the increasing role of consumption in today’s transition ...

2022

Spatial Layout Optimization. Guideline: Analysis

Yves Pedrazzini, Lesslie Astrid Herrera Quiroz

The main objective of this project is to generate guidance for settlement planning on the optimisation of spatial designs in terms of: zoning, densification/decongestion, morphology of the built environment and strategic planning of public open space. Simi ...

EPFL LASUR and GTH UNCHR2022

Intensification of sub-daily rainfall extremes in a low-rise urban area

Gabriele Manoli

Short-duration extreme rainfall events are the main trigger of flash and pluvial floods in cities. Depending on the local climate zone and urban fabric that affect meteorological variables such as air temperature, humidity, and aerosol concentration, the b ...

2022

“El Pórtico de los Huéspedes”: Exploring other ways of building at the Open City in Valparaiso, Chile

Patricia Guaita, Raffael Baur

This chapter examines the pedagogical approach of the Valparaiso School of Architecture and Design (Valparaiso), its position within the Chilean academic landscape and the current collaboration with the Open City Research Platform. Since 2014, this collabo ...

Routledge2022