Publications related to Robustness Assessment Methodology for the Evaluation of Building Performance with a view to Climate Uncertainties

Spatial Modeling for Building Design Evaluation: from Visual Landscape Quality Assessment to Devaluation Risk Estimation

Zoning reform is a crucial tool for cities to adapt to contemporary challenges. However, its implementation remains challenging. Property owners, with a vested interest in the value of their neighborhoods, are sensitive to local developments and the potent ...

EPFL2024

Electrical and Optical Manifestations of Flat Band Physics in Van der Waals Materials

Gabriele Pasquale

The scientific progress is significantly transforming contemporary society with the introduction and widespread application of technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Despite their profound impact, these technologies necessitate en ...

EPFL2024

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

Climate risk assessment of buildings: An analysis of operating emissions of commercial offices in Australia

Arianna Brambilla

Building climate risk assessment involves benchmarking a building's energy use intensity against decarbonisation pathways to mitigate the impacts on climate change. Various climate risk assessment tools and frameworks are used for commercial buildings in d ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

The impacts of decarbonization pathways on Sustainable Development Goals in the European Union

Marc Vielle, Sigit Pria Perdana

Climate action to achieve the Paris Agreement should respect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Here, we use an integrated assessment modelling framework comprising nine climate policy models and quantify the impacts of decarbonisation pathw ...

2024

An explorative method to support design decisions based on carbon constraints and daylight sufficiency needs

Nazanin Rezaei Oghazi

The global construction industry contributes to 37% of carbon emissions associated to both building operations and construction. To help achieve the net-zero targets set by 2050, it is mandated to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. As we ...

EPFL2024

Quantifying the Unknown: Data-Driven Approaches and Applications in Energy Systems

Paul Scharnhorst

In light of the challenges posed by climate change and the goals of the Paris Agreement, electricity generation is shifting to a more renewable and decentralized pattern, while the operation of systems like buildings is increasingly electrified. This calls ...

EPFL2024

Using automated design appraisal to model building-specific devaluation risk due to land-use change

Adam Robert Swietek

Uncertainty of spillover effects – including property devaluation - from proposed land-use change elicits opposition to local development. This hinders cities’ ability to implement land-use policy aimed at housing affordability and environmental sustainabi ...

2024

Building ventilation and outdoor air pollution: Implications for health, comfort and energy

Evangelos Belias

As humans spend most of their time indoors, indoor air quality (IAQ) significantly impacts their health. In parallel, building ventilation consumes significant energy, contributing to climate change. However, the relationships between the building ventilat ...

EPFL2023

A modelling framework for modern heritage buildings energy simulation

Franz Graf, Giulia Marino, Giuseppe Galbiati

The latest European polices highlight the urgent need to rehabilitate the existing building stock, responsible for 40 % of the EU's total energy consumption. In this process, a key role is played by thermal simulations, assessing the effective energy perfo ...

Elsevier2023

Assessment of Monitoring Strategies for Inhalation Exposure and Occupancy in Office Environments

Seoyeon Yun

Given people's significant time spent indoors, ensuring good indoor air quality (IAQ) is essential because it significantly influences occupants' health and productivity. Office buildings consume about 50% of commercial building energy and 18% of total bui ...

EPFL2023

Preserving suspended structures with light façades (1960-1980). Architectural study and retrofitting proposals

Giuseppe Galbiati

Nowadays, the energy efficiency of the existing building stock is internationally accepted as a topical issue. Energy retrofitting is encouraged, improving the thermal performances of buildings, but often altering the historical image of our cities. Attent ...

EPFL2023

Influence of future climate scenarios on the sizing of Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) installations. Case study of a new research-center building in Switzerland

Sergi Aguacil Moreno

This paper analyzes the findings obtained when applying a multi-criteria performance-based method for sizing a BIPV installation considering different weather files, representing historical data (TMY; typical meteorological year) and prospective data (thre ...

2023

Endogenous Energy Efficiency Improvement in Housing and Cement Sectors in Switzerland

Sergey Arzoyan

The reduction of energy consumption in the residential building stock and cement industry is a substantial component of the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050. Therefore, it is vital to identify the potential for EEI in these two sectors. In this study, a new meth ...

EPFL2023

OccuVAE: Integrating unsupervised occupancy inference in data-driven energy modeling for human-centric operation

Andrew James Sonta, Yufei Zhang

Data-driven building energy modeling is an emerging solution to facilitate the implementation of energy-flexible buildings. However, its black-box nature hinders interpretation, including with respect to human-building interaction. This drawback may bring ...

Association for Computing Machinery2023

Efficacy of temporal and spatial abstraction for training accurate machine learning models: A case study in smart thermostats

Rachid Guerraoui, Omid Ardakanian, Alexandre David Olivier Maurer

Smart thermostats are increasingly popular in homes and buildings as they improve occupant comfort, lower energy use in heating and cooling systems, and reduce utility bills by automatically adjusting room temperature according to measurements of their bui ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2023

Wind, Hail, and Climate Extremes: Modelling and Attribution Studies for Environmental Data

Ophélia Mireille Anna Miralles

This thesis presents work at the junction of statistics and climate science. We first provide methodology for use by climate scientists when performing fast event attribution using extreme value theory, and then describe two interdisciplinary projects in c ...

EPFL2023

Risk of incorrect choices due to uncertainty in BPS evaluations of conceptual-stage neighbourhood-scale building designs

Marilyne Andersen, Luisa Pastore, Minu Agarwal

At the conceptual stage, building performance simulation (BPS) based evaluations are being increasingly used for tasks such as ranking of competing massing design proposals. However, such conceptual stage evaluations suffer from information deficiency in b ...

2023

Taking a step back from glass towers facades to make them compatible with the 2050 targets

Bernard Paule, Sergi Aguacil Moreno

Skyscrapers or glass towers are an extremely common model throughout the world. In the current context of climate change and resource depletion, we need to develop new postures towards these objects, especially for existing buildings that are becoming obso ...

2023

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

Sebastian Duque Mahecha, Sergi Aguacil Moreno

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