Sustainable building Research Group


The research group Sustainable building works with concepts, tools and strategies to enhance the sustainability performance of construction materials, building products, buildings as well as entire cities. The research is related to ecological and economic life cycle assessment of construction materials, buildings and infrastructures, sustainability assessment tools for buildings, social-cultural and climate adapted design concepts as well as energy and material resource based building stock modeling and its visualization.

Latest News

Sanjay has successfully defended his PhD
On 29th November, Sanjay Somanath successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Instruments of Inquiry for Urban Social Sustainability: Activity-Based Urban Accessibility Modelling in Neighbourhood Planning,”. In his thesis, Sanjay explored questions such as, “How can urban practitioners incorporate residents’ perspectives into neighbourhood planning?
Last updated on Dec 3, 2024 2 min read
Project
Sanjay has successfully defended his PhD
Interview with Sanjay before his PhD Defence
On 15th November, Sanjay Somanath was interviewed by Catharina Björk about his research and PhD life. Sanjay is set to defend his PhD thesis, titled “Instruments of Inquiry for Urban Social Sustainability: Activity-Based Urban Accessibility Modelling in Neighbourhood Planning,” on 29th November.
Last updated on Nov 18, 2024 1 min read
Project
Interview with Sanjay before his PhD Defence
Xinyue has defended her licentiate thesis
On June 10th, Xinyue Wang presented at her Licentiate seminar defending her thesis entitled ‘Towards Machine Learning Application in Early-Stage Building Energy Optimization’. Her thesis discusses how to develop a machine learning building energy prediction model to substitute the traditional simulation engines in early stage optimization workflow for higher efficiency.
Last updated on Jul 10, 2024 1 min read
Xinyue has defended her licentiate thesis
Presentation at IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2024 Conference
Denver, Colorado, May 22nd. Xinyue Wang presented at the IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2024 Conference, held May 20th through Thursday, May 23rd, 2024, in Denver, Colorado, United States. The conference’s theme is “Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation”.
Last updated on May 30, 2024 1 min read
Presentation at IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2024 Conference
Augmented Reality workshop at ACE405
Gothenburg, March 15th. On March 15th, an Augmented Reality (AR) tool workshop was held after the final critique of ACE405—Design and Performance Optimization in Architecture. This workshop is based on the collaboration between this course and DTCC to explore AR tools with building performance optimization.
Last updated on Apr 17, 2024 1 min read
Augmented Reality workshop at ACE405
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Projects

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All Life Cycle Energy Computational Sustainable design Sustainable Building Digital Twins Digital Tools Courses
Last updated on Oct 11, 2024 Project
Future Urban Resource Centers
Future Urban Resource Centers

The development of buildings is an immensely carbon- and resource-intensive process and circular economy strategies are key to decrease the environmental impacts of the construction industry. In developed economies, extensive volumes of construction materials are stocked in existing buildings and ought to be reclaimed.

Last updated on Oct 12, 2024 Teaching
ACE590 - Sustainability analytics and visualization

In this world of big data, basic data literacy is an increasingly valuable skill. This holds true in the field of sustainability, where extensive datasets are published across various sustainability topics. This course aims to give theoretical and practical knowledge in how to select, analyze, and interpret sustainability data and models, in basics of data management, and in how to extract valuable insights and build effective data-driven storytelling that inform decision-making processes. This course is tailored to the challenges pertaining to systems thinking and sustainability.

Last updated on Apr 18, 2024 Projects
EqualHouse
EqualHouse

EqualHouse aims to identify, analyse and tackle the most significant dimensions of housing inequality across Europe. Designed with both transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary elements, EqualHouse will provide housing policymakers and other key stakeholders with robust, evidence-based guidance on how to address these inequalities in a sustainable, inclusive and affordable way. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2023 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101132325. We are working within a consortium of 12 partners from around Europe.

Last updated on Oct 23, 2023
Exploring the material stock - urban form nexus for urban sustainability

As the built environment continuously grows, so does the accumulation of materials in buildings and infrastructures. This has dramatic environmental impacts: resource extraction and waste generation are ever-increasing, and the transformation of resources into buildings and infrastructures stands for 11% of global carbon emissions.

Jun 8, 2023 Teaching
ACE285 - Integrated sustainable building design – engineers
ACE285 - Integrated sustainable building design – engineers

The aim of the course is to equip students with the necessary skills and abilities to carry out design for sustainable building, integrating environmental, functional, technical, and aesthetical qualities in a design concept. Furthermore, they shall be able to cooperate over professional boundaries in the design processes. They are also expected to be able to formulate and communicate their main ideas and goals orally and in written form.

Last updated on Oct 11, 2024 Projects
CREATE
CREATE

Project Title: CREATE — Embedding advanced urban material stock methods within governance processes to enable circular economy and cities resilience Table of Contents Home/General About Create Work Package Structure Timeline Funding program Urban LivingLabs About LivingLabs Key components: Steps of LivingLabs Case Studies Fellow cities Partners News Project results/ Deliverables Overarching Goals Deliverables -- Home/General About Create CREATE project aims at supporting urban transformation processes towards the circular economy by making an inventory of the existing material stocks within urban construction, developing reliable scenarios for future expected material flows, and providing governance arrangements on how to approach the circular economy transition.

Last updated on Apr 11, 2022 Projects
Users’ impact on domestic energy consumption
Users’ impact on domestic energy consumption

The project aims to improve the understanding of the impact of users on domestic energy use by conducting a pilot study in the HSB Living Lab, and develop a methodology to study the impact of occupants’ physiological and behavioural responses on their home’s energy use.

Last updated on Sep 6, 2022 Projects
DecarbonAIte
DecarbonAIte

The DecarbonAIte project aims to extract data on building characteristics from public databases. Use this information to elaborate and reinforce urban digital twin models. Finally, through this platform, to propose optimal renovation measures. The system to be implemented targets various stakeholders, from building owners to policy makers.

Last updated on Jan 20, 2022 Projects
Holistic life cycle performance optimization
Holistic life cycle performance optimization

The main goal of the project is to mainstream holistic life cycle performance optimisation in early design stages of buildings to save energy and greenhouse gas emissions. All performance optimisation will follow a life cycle perspective.

Last updated on Sep 6, 2022 Projects
Urban modelling and planning tool for energy and invisible environmental factors using AI methods
Urban modelling and planning tool for energy and invisible environmental factors using AI methods

To plan, build or renovate cities, engineers and decision makers need tools and workflows that are compartmentalized and work ad-hoc without correlating different parameters. To tackle these problems and enable environmental assessment and policy analysis, this project aims to create an urban modeling planning tool for the energy demand of buildings and the invisible environmental factors of noise and wind. The project will . * provide a basis for scenario analysis of any urban area in Sweden. * use AI/ML to enrich existing models . * make the toolsets readily available, and. * enable improved visualization and communication or results.

Last updated on Sep 5, 2022 Projects
Architectural design variable assessment in multi-objective life cycle optimisation
Architectural design variable assessment in multi-objective life cycle optimisation

This project aims to identify the important architectural design variables in early design stage for life cycle optimisation by interacting with stakeholders who have major influence in early design stage.

Last updated on Jan 10, 2023 Teaching
Optimized early-stage life cycle assessment of buildings -Developing a tool enabling early-stage parametric life cycle assessment
Optimized early-stage life cycle assessment of buildings -Developing a tool enabling early-stage parametric life cycle assessment

Abstract In the early stages of a building project, there is low quantity and quality of data regarding building materials while the ability to influence the environmental impact is high. Easy ways of assessing environmental impact of materials in these stages can make a big difference and shift buildings’ contribution to global warming towards a more sustainable track.

Last updated on Jan 20, 2022 Projects
REDAP
REDAP

The aim of this project is to develop a Regional Energy Demand Analysis Portal (REDAP) together with the partner countries Austria, Ireland and Sweden based on local and regional Need-owners demands.

Last updated on Jan 20, 2022 Projects
WELL Neighbourhood
WELL Neighbourhood

This project is about developing digital tools to promote social sustainability in neighbourhood design

Last updated on Jul 6, 2023 Teaching
ACE405 - Design and performance optimization in architecture
ACE405 - Design and performance optimization in architecture

The aim of the course is to deepen the skills in using simulation tools for the integrated performance optimisation of an architectural design project. Performance criteria can include energy demand, daylight, thermal comfort, embodied carbon, amongst others. The students can choose to optimise an own design of a building or urban project that they developed in a previous course, or they can use the case study provided by the teachers. The design optimisation process will be based on and driven by knowledge gained using the simulation tools.

Last updated on Jul 6, 2023 Teaching
BOM250 - Life cycle engineering
BOM250 - Life cycle engineering

The master course aims to provide in-depth knowledge on the concepts of Life Cycle Engineering and sustainable design in the built environment.

Last updated on Mar 16, 2022 Projects
Digitalisation of social sustainability in neighbourhood design
Digitalisation of social sustainability in neighbourhood design

Digital tools for performance-assessment are commonly used to shorten the feedback loop in testing designs for buildings and neighbourhoods. However, these tools do not extend to the social dimension in the same way as the economic and environmental dimensions. The aim of this project is to develop a theoretical understanding of social sustainability at the neighbourhood planning level and propose a model for the development of digital tools.

Code Video
Last updated on Jan 20, 2022 Teaching
Sample of completed thesis
Sample of completed thesis

This project is about developing digital tools to promote social sustainability in neighbourhood design

Code Video
Last updated on Jan 20, 2022 Teaching
Sample of Offered thesis
Sample of Offered thesis

This project is about developing digital tools to promote social sustainability in neighbourhood design

Code Video
Last updated on Sep 6, 2022 Projects
SEsam
SEsam

SEsam : Sharing Economy sustainability assessment method to support the implementation of sharing economy initiatives at neighbourhood level. The aim of this project is to develop and apply a systemic method that quantifies the sustainability benefits of implementing different sharing economy initiatives in neighborhoods in cities.

Last updated on Apr 11, 2022 Projects
Energy performance and occupant satisfaction in green-certified office buildings
Energy performance and occupant satisfaction in green-certified office buildings

The project aims to reflect on green building design and operation and occupant satisfaction and experience in the “real world”; explore the potential causes from the detailed design parameters, necessary conditions in the building certification scheme and building operation and control.

Last updated on Apr 11, 2022 Projects
Occupant well-being and productivity in sustainable office buildings
Occupant well-being and productivity in sustainable office buildings

The project aims to develop advanced indoor environmental quality IEQ in sustainable office buildings promoting occupant comfort, health, and productivity by identifying key factors and revealing causal relations from evidence-based studies. A national dataset will be aggregated from the office buildings in Sweden by physical measurement and subjective survey.

Last updated on Mar 16, 2022 Projects
Powering the City
Powering the City

Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) offers renewable energy to be generated on-site and prevents additional sealing of natural ground, potentially replacing traditional building elements. The objective of the Powering the City module is to develop a holistic, multi-scale and interdisciplinary approach for assessing large scale deployment of BIPV in urban contexts under different climatic, socio-economic and architectural / urban conditions. The team will use Zurich and Singapore as exemplary and complementary case studies.

Last updated on Mar 15, 2022 Projects
Sustainable Bridges
Sustainable Bridges

This project aims at the full utilization of the benefits offered by stainless steel to have sustainable and “maintenance-free” road bridges which have competitive investment costs to that of their traditional carbon steel counterparts. It is believed that by the use of bridge girders with corrugated webs and stainless steel reinforcement and optimization of the material usage and production costs, a considerable reduction in the investment costs of a stainless-steel solution is attainable.

Last updated on Mar 15, 2022 Projects
Twinable
Twinable

A multiscale design interaction and visualization approach using mixed realities

building-performance Circularity conference digital tools Digital Twin DigitalTools dtcc Energy EU Indoor environmental quality LCA machine-learning Projects SustainableBuilding Teaching Teaching_Courses tools twinable Urban design visualisation