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IBG Presentations

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Our past presentations can be found in the list below. These sessions are arranged by the Intelligent Buildings Group Committee and feature special guests to present on a variety of topics. 

To suggest an idea for a future presentation, either speak to the Committee members at the next meeting or email [email protected]. 

Past Presentations

Past Presentations in Detail

1st International Online Conference on Buildings IOCBD 2023

S2. Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate,

25 October 2023.

Prof. Dr. Derek Clements-Croome & Dr. Yangang Xing, 

The first International Online Conference of Buildings with a focus on, “Advances in building structures, materials, repair/renovation, energy, environment, systems, architecture, urban planning, and construction management”, will be held from 24–26 October 2023. The main purpose of the conference is to promote the use of the recent advances in all building-related issues, address challenging problems, share the latest scientific innovations, and shape the future of building-related technologies and processes.

The first International Online Conference of Buildings

Dr. Daniel Sanchez-Garcia, Wed, 24 May 2023 15:00 - 16:00 BST

The ASHRAE Standard 55 and the European standard EN 16798-1 states that the adaptive comfort model is only applicable to naturally ventilated spaces. However, recent studies provided evidence that people apparently adapt to a broader range of indoor temperatures, regardless of the technology delivering the indoor climate. Therefore, it’s not wrong to think that it’s possible to use setpoint temperatures based on adaptive comfort models (i.e. adaptive setpoint temperatures). In order to implement this concept to building energy simulations, a Python package named "accim" has been developed, which allows the user to carry out the full process: the transformation of the IDFs from PMV-based to adaptive setpoint temperatures, the simulation of the IDFs with the existing EPWs, and finally the analysis of the simulation results.

Speaker: Daniel is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University Carlos III of Madrid. His work and research experience in the discipline of Architectural engineering has helped him to develop skills and expertise in thermal comfort, energy efficiency and climate change. Besides, he is the author and maintainer of the Python package named "accim", winner of the CIBSE Building Simulation Awards 2022.

11 May 2023 17:00 - 18:00

This is the first of a series of webinars on “Vernacular Intelligence” co-organised by CIBSE Heritage Retrofit Group and CIBSE Intelligent Building Group. A key aim of this series is to explore the complexity of vernacular buildings and how it can help to develop ZERO Carbon and SUSTAINABLE solutions for the future.

The topic of this webinar is “Vernacular Intelligence: Natural materials for traditional buildings” The presenters panel include Dr Yangang Xing, Soki Rhee-Duverne and Dr Valentina Marincioni, the joint presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

  • Dr Yangang Xing, Natural materials for traditional buildings – a brief overview
  • Soki Rhee-Duverne, Assessing moisture risks: a case study of Bolsover
  • Dr Valentina Marincioni, Condensation control: from principles to practices

 

17 March 2023 (4-5pm)

Summary:
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), sensor technologies, communication technologies, hardware and embedded systems have helped to support design and implementation of complex solutions. These solutions, of products, play a key role in novel services and business models. These there is a strong link between pure engineering R&D and innovations that help our societies to prosper. In this talk we will look into complex solutions consisting of robotics systems that collaborate with each other, orchestrated by humans in the context of large European projects. Recently AI has been used in building designs, however, the question is if this approach is novel and powerful enough to change the way architects and designers work.

Presenter: Dr. Baran Cürüklü
Since 2015, he has been an active researcher in multi-agent systems, which collaboratively, and together with humans solve complex problem. Baran has also as workpackage leaders in several European projects designed, planned, and orchestrated demonstrations at the technology readiness level (TRL) 4-6. These research lines assume: orchestration of complex missions involving autonomous robotic systems; population-based search (Evolutionary algorithms); intelligent and adaptive agent architectures; human-system interaction.

Organizers:
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL
The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group
CIB W098 –Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

10 March 2023 (4-5pm)

The talk focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (aspects of the built environment and the link between ESG and asset management for infrastructure and real estate asset owners.

Presenter: Dr. Ioanna Papanikolaou
Dr Ioanna brings extensive experience in supporting asset-intensive organisations to create an innovation ecosystem, introduce new technologies and transform their organisation to respond to changing environments Ioanna spent her early career working with Costain as a site engineer where she worked across major capital project delivery, with projects including the Thames Tideway Tunnel, National Grid Power Tunnels and MAC 7 for Highways Agency (now National Highways). Ioanna then worked as the Group R&D Manager for Costain, where she was responsible for an extensive research programme with over 20 PhD students and over 5 m in collaborative R&D funding.

Organizers
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL
The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group
CIB W098 Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

24 Feb 2023 (4-5pm)

The lecture is based on experimental research conducted at Loughborough University looking at how maintaining water quality in heating systems can contribute to improved energy use and system longevity. Corrosion is an unavoidable issue in HVAC systems and could lead to significant financial losses due to plant failures and constant repair. The lecture explores that corroded water can increase the energy performance of the pump by up to 80% if not been treated. The lecture also presents how infrared thermography can be employed to detect system failures and potential clogging at an early stage thus allowing for system optimisation.

Presenter:
Amr Suliman’s work looks into the impact of mechanical filtration and its capability in restoring the performance of hydronic systems. Amr also utilises infrared thermography to diagnose the performance of HVAC systems by highlighting and anticipating blockages and system failure. Amr is a member of ASHRAE UK board and sits in a number of technical committees.

Organizers:
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group
CIB W098 – Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

20 January 2023 (4-5pm)

Lecture Summary: Building and urban environmental simulation tools have a history of more than 60 years. This lecture will explain the need for these tools and their strengths and weaknesses, and they should not be used to mimic reality as such. Performance gaps between simulations and actual environments need to be understood as a step towards the creation of net zero buildings that offer habitable and healthy environments. This lecture will also show examples of how Building and Urban performance tools were used as architectural design drivers.

Presenter Neveen Hamza will look at architecture as an interface between healthy and sustainable indoor and outdoor environments. She is currently interested in the impact of the built environments on memory and well-being. She has over 100 publications linking building and urban performance modeling to architectural design and environmental psychology in and around buildings.

Thu, Sep 7, 2023, 10:00 AM - 5:30 PM 

Derek Clements-Croome, Yangang Xing, Mathew Marson, Steven Hipwell, Daniel Floyd, Peter Shearman, David Gregory, Karen Warner Gordon Pringle, Ian Vickers, Stephen Wreford, Smart Buildings and Sustainability CIBSE Session, 7 Sept 23 Birmingham

Smart and sustainable Buildings Forum

 

Prof. Derek Clements Croome, Nature Based Solutions for Intelligent Building

Mina Hasman, Urban Sequioa

Dr. Clare Bowman, Importance of Biophilic Design & Green Infrastructure

Dr. Yangang Xing, Biophilic Intelligent Buildings

30 March 2023 (2-3 pm)

Presenter: Prof Baabak Ashuri
Since 2015, Dr. Ashuri specializes in Risk Management, Quantitative Methods, Data Analytics, Project Finance, Innovative Project Delivery, Alternative Contracting Methods (ACM), and Cost and Schedule Risk Analysis, all of which are critical to this research.
Dr. Ashuri has 203 publications in these fields, including 65 refereed journal articles, 90 peer-reviewed conference papers, 45 research reports and guidebooks, 1 co-edited book, and 2 referred book chapters. Dr. Ashuri has great expertise in assisting transportation agencies in implementing risk management and alternative project delivery selection guides. Dr. Ashuri is the developer of CRAFT©, Comprehensive Risk Assessment for Transportation, the risk analysis software developed for the Office of Program Delivery at the Georgia Department of Transportation. GDOT project managers use this software to rigorously identify, assess and mitigate risks throughout various phases of plan development process for highway projects.
Dr. Ashuri also developed the “Next-Gen Design-Build (DB) Assessment tool” – an automated software system specifically developed to assess the cost-effectiveness of selecting DB for a GDOT highway project. This research project received the 2013 AASHTO High Value Research “Sweet Sixteen” Award. Dr. Ashuri received many awards including the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) (Thomas Fitch Rowland paper award) and the DB Institute of America (DBIA) (Distinguished Leadership – Faculty). Dr. Ashuri is also a member of key technical committees in FHWA and Transportation Research Board (TRB).

Organizers
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group
CIB W098 – Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

15 March 2023 (2-3pm)

Presentation slides & Solskin

Building façades have a great influence on how much heat must be supplied to or removed from buildings in order to maintain a comfortable indoor environment.

Adaptive façades can dynamically adapt to these ever-changing environmental conditions, often supported by a control system. One example of such a façade is the adaptive solar façade (ASF) developed by the Architecture and Building Systems (A/S) group at ETH Zurich. A prototype of this façade was developed and realised as part of the HiLo unit in NEST, a research and innovation building in Dübendorf, Switzerland.

This webinar will provide an overview of the ASF development and give first insights into the performance of the ASF implementation in HiLo in the first year of operation.

Presenters:

Prof Dr Arno Schlueter - Professor of Architecture and Building Systems (A/S) at the Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA), ETH Zurich.

Dr Esther Borkowski - Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems (A/S) at ETH Zurich.

Dr Bratislav Svetozarevic - Bratislav is CEO of the ETH spin-off Solskin, which is developing the adaptive solar façade developed at the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems at ETH into a market-ready product. He began developing Solskin as part of his PhD in 2014 and is the inventor of the soft robotic actuator that enables Solskin to operate in harsh weather conditions with minimal energy consumption. As a researcher at Empa and previously at ETH Zurich, Bratislav is familiar with the full range of Solskin's capabilities and extends them with state-of-the-art building automation algorithms. He has been building and leading the Solskin team since 2019.

3 March 2023 (4-5pm)

Summary:
Famous for its unique geographic location between desert and sea, Qatar has a significant desert climate and extremely hot weather conditions with strong solar irradiance, high temperature, humidity, and sandstorms. The local weather has some significance of representing a unique desert and coastline climate, which attracts a lot of research interests in various fields such as building efficiency, health, urban environment, and renewable energy. Especially, research on building energy systems, including Solar PV integration, control, and optimization for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), and energy storage is key for this region. In this talk, the Qatar case study on energy management and optimization control for building energy systems will be presented, including energy management studies on a 500kW/500kWh hybrid PV-storage system for a sustainable building demo; condition monitoring and reliability studies on the key element-battery energy storage system; HVAC Cooling challenges under Qatar's hot weather conditions.

Presenter: Dr Zhaohui Cen
Dr. Zhaohui brings to his role over 15 years of experience in the field of intelligent automation, condition monitoring and fault diagnostics for industrial systems including UAVs/Spacecrafts and Lithium lion battery storage systems, as well as Robotics and Autonomous systems for Solar PV applications. Prior to joining TII, he was Scientist at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute(QEERI), and Project head of Robotics and Autonomous systems. He has held academic and research positions in China, UK, Qatar, and UAE.

Organizers:
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group
CIB W098 – Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

27 January 2023 (4-5pm)

Lecture Summary: This presentation demonstrates, through a chronology of examples, the development of smart buildings in the 2010-20s. As the financial cost and complexity of sensors and cloud computing reduced, smart buildings became increasingly prevalent. Initially, sustainability was the primary focus with the use of HVAC analytics and advanced metering in the early 2010s. The middle of the decade saw an economic transformation of the commercial office sector and the driver for creating a smart building was concerned with delivering flexible yet quantifiably used space. Driven by society’s emphasis on health, wellbeing and productivity, smart buildings pivoted their focus towards the end of the 2020s. This research has evidenced that smart buildings use data to improve performance in sustainability, in space usage or for human- centric outcomes.

Presenter Dr Matthew Marson: Matthew was named the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Young Engineer of the Year 2022 and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Young Visionary 2016 for his contributions to the global Smart Building industry. He now sits on the Institution’s Strategy Committee. As a recognised thought leader, Marson is a keynote speaker at international industry events related to emerging technology, net-zero design and places at the building and city scales.

10 January 2023

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The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment suggested that one way to regenerate the negative environmental impact of the built environment could be to create new developments or redesign existing buildings and communities so that they provide or support ecosystem services. This seminar introduces indoor nature-based solutions – biomimetic design, biophilic design, and bio-synergistic design - to develop regenerative features in buildings to support or provide ecosystem services and improve the health for humans and ecosystems as a whole. The overarching design principle is “Communities like forests; buildings like forest ecosystems”. Regenerative buildings reconnect humans and nature to revitalize communities, natural resources, and people's wellbeing. “Reduce to Zero” and “Carbon Removal” are not enough to save the planet, the planet must have the capacity of regeneration for the co-existence of humans and the natural environment and the survival of future generations. 

Presentations Archive

Matthew Marson,  October 10. 2022

About this event

Technologies for buildings have now reached a maturity that they’re no longer the purview of the innovation function alone. They’re now being put to work to help organisations actively solve their part in societal issues: be that the race to net zero carbon, equity and inclusion in the workplace or solving the challenges of hybrid working.

We will be joined by our speaker Dr Matthew Marson:

Dr Matthew Marson is an experienced Smart Buildings leader, working at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and the built environment. Having founded WSP’s Smart Places practice and grown Accenture’s offering in this field, Matthew led a €100m business across various asset types and geographies. Marson was named as the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Young Engineer of the Year 2022 and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Young Visionary 2016 for his contributions to the global Smart Buildings industry. As a recognised thought leader, Matthew is a keynote speaker at international industry events related to emerging technology, net zero design and places at the building and city scales. He was an author in the Encyclopaedia of Sustainable Technologies and a published writer in a variety of journals, earning a doctorate in Smart Buildings.

Chaired by Dr Yangang Xing, Chair of CIBSE Intelligent Building Group

Wed, 14 Sept 2022, Online

Why are we so busy tinkering with it in one way or the other as if some alien species has landed in between us and we want to explore it or rather want to reassure our very own selves that we are the most intelligent ones on the earth? This webinar aims to explore AI as an architecture — through historical, theoretical and critical perspectives — while keeping a distance from the computational experimentations under way. Exploring AI as in autonomous artefacts, technologically rendered media environments, and as in anthropomorphised formats, this webinar will look into the ways AI is creeping into or acting as the architecture of our cities, towns, districts, homes or even as our very own selves.

Anicee Bauer, 19 May 2022

By now, it is more than clear that our current societal systems does not offer the right long-term solutions for global or local problems. We have to make essential changes in how we approach and do things. This webinar focuses on the role that physical design can play in contributing to such a more sustainable future and a world of “equilibrium”. However, designing and constructing buildings within a circular approach is only one part of the game, because design has a far greater potential than we generally realize and utilize. Not only is it able to initiate behavioral changes, it is also capable to help bring about a shift in awareness, the driving force of human behavior. And only by also addressing our way of thinking and our mind-set, is lasting sustainable behavior change possible. The design of a physical environment can do its part by influencing how we feel and how we behave, which in turn influences how we design. In the webinar five design strategies will be presented on how to create sustainable habitats that help elicit and support sustainable habits.

Wednesday 2 December 2020, Online.

In 2009 Birmingham City University (BCU) embarked on a development scheme to deliver an 'intelligent campus'. This webinar discussed the experience of co-ordinating the delivery of ‘intelligence’ into BCU’s new and refurbished campuses, featuring Steve Hipwell, Associate Director of IT Programme Management and Matt Majedi, Chief Technical Architect.

Wednesday 4 November 2020, Online.

The pandemic has accelerated and intensified the need to rethink how we plan, design and manage buildings whether new or old ones. Infection risk is an important part of health and wellbeing besides the urgency to meet the demands of climate change.
Speakers: Konkana Khaund (Frost & Sullivan, Americas), Phil Obayda (Skidmore Owings and Merrill) Rethinking Traditional Attitudes to Planning and Design, and Neil Pennell (Land Securities) Overcoming Barriers and Opportunities.

Wed, 1 July 2020. Online.

  • Setting the 4th Industrial Revolution in Context - Philip Ross (Unwired Group)
  • The Relevance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to the Built Environment- Matthew Marson (WSP)
  • Platform Economy & Digital Twin - James Kinch (Crowd Things)
  • Project Example: First-of-a-kind 4IR city - Kristina Goncharov (WSP)

Gary Middlehurst Wed, 29 June 2022

Satisfying the fundamental demands for real estate investment requires us to respond to the ever changing demands of the amorphic workplace environment. Intelligent Buildings certainly have a role to play in addressing these demands, however, we need to firstly address the functional boundary of the modern workplace, and then perhaps consider the workplace as an ecological system requiring multiple hosts. The recent pandemic experience for example is now fundamentally impacting future workplace considerations, and our buildings are adjusting to react to this critical requirement. ESG is also a new real estate dynamic we are seeking to adapt, the multiple stakeholder requirements, whether investors, landlords, developers or operators are presenting even more new challenges.

This webinar will seek to highlight and address some of the current challenges we face as a real estate industry, but also impart some of the practical issues we must accept may remain as future challenges. We will also seek to stimulate debate particularly around the impact the real estate industry poses on the environment despite net zero considerations.

Speaker:

Gary Middlehurst is Engineering Director for Brookfield Properties in the UK and is responsible for developing intelligent operations across a London real estate portfolio of over 4m Sq.ft of high-end commercial real estate. A Chartered Electrical Engineer with an engineering Doctorate, and MSc in Intelligent Buildings from the University of Reading, Gary specialises in the design, construction and the operation of intelligent buildings. Gary has over 35-yrs within the real estate industry, but is currently focussing in the area of building analytics and how such platforms can drive sustainable solutions to improve the operational efficiency of intelligent buildings.

Associate Professor Dr. Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini 

08-June-2022 at 8.00 pm BST

Posted inEvents News Webinars

Future of Intelligent Buildings from the End Users’ Lens

June 5, 2022
Future of Intelligent Buildings from the End Users’ Lens

About this event

Date: 08-June-2022 at 8.00 pm BST

By CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group & CIB W098 Commission on Intelligent and Responsive Buildings

Speaker: Associate Professor Dr. Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Event Chair: Dr Yangang Xing, Nottingham Trent University

Summary:

What do we really know about the future of our cities or the so-called smart cities? What are the key lessons learnt from the current city-wide challenges at global scales such as the current pandemic? Smart cities are beyond AI, 5G and digital twins. What is the role of intelligent buildings in this context?

There is no doubt our future (intelligent) buildings should be designed, developed and maintained based on highly data-driven platforms in order to become smarter in the sense of being context-aware, adaptable and more responsive. Intelligent buildings were expected to offer a new building design paradigm through embedded intelligence leading to attainment of optimized functions of a building in real time.

This embedded smartness in our future built environments, from city to neighbourhood and building scales, is not primarily restricted to the environmental dimensions anymore as recent literature clearly highlights the transition to user-oriented implementations. This allows the academicians and professionals to draw more attention to the ultimate and ever-changing requirements of end users. Hence, from green and sustainability agendas to digital, smart and health-related visions, the focal point for our future-oriented implementations should be based on user-centred design and technological approaches.

In 2016, we stated that intelligent buildings should be treated as a dynamic and evolutionary entities rather than static and fixed ones. Also, we stressed that intelligent buildings are evolving and will continue to change.

Bio:Amir is an Associate Professor in Architecture & Urban Microclimate and the Director of Postgraduate & Doctoral studies at the School of Future Environments, AUT. He is an architectural designer and an urban thinker with over 12 years of academic and professional experience in New Zealand, Canada and Malaysia. His research primarily concentrates on the future of buildings and urban areas from the lens of sustainable/intelligent/healthy design. He has extensively published in most of the top-ranked journals of his domain with the current total citations of 4000+.

Friday 2 July 2021, Online.

Nature-based solutions for city climate resilience and emissions sequestration, their impact on citizens and the urban environment, microclimate and buildings and implications for sustainable, resilient urban planning, building design and retrofit.

Wednesday 25 November 2020, Online.

Digital sociologist Lisa Talia Moretti (Ministry of Justice), and Phil Harvey (Senior Cloud Solution Architect for Data & AI at Microsoft) discussed how we navigate the potential pathways of intelligent buildings, their identities and control. The session was moderated by Mina Hasman, Sustainability Lead at SOM Europe.

Wednesday 7 October 2020, Online.

Health and wellbeing in the workplace has become an increasingly important issue in recent years as we realise the impact it can make on productivity and indirectly the costs to national health services. The pandemic COVID 19 just emphasises this fact even more.

- Nicola Gillen, Director Occupier Business at Cushman & Wakefield, What are the unanswered questions?

- Nigel Oseland, Workplace Consultant, Lessons from Studies and Research in Psychology

- Piers MacNaughton , View and Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, How the office affects employee health and performance

- Valerie Mace, University of the Arts, What are the research priorities for sensory design of the workplace?

Wed, 10 June 2020. Online.

  • Evidence About the Value of Biophilic Design - Joyce Chan Schoof 
  • Stress Recovery in the Workplace - Ankita Dwivedi
  • Putney High School for Girls: Case Study of a Biophilic Classroom - Clare Bowman
  • Biophilia Examples Worldwide - Alexander Bond

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