Environment & Building

Grounded in architectural science and interdisciplinary research, this cluster focuses on advancing knowledge to plan, design, operate, and manage our built environment. This is to ensure that not only will buildings contribute positively to the environment, they will also improve the quality of life for children to grow well, for adults to work well, and for older people to age well.

Increasing occurrence of weather extremes and urbanisation have put pressures on resource availability and the quality of our living environment. Building designs are being affected by these as much as having significant roles to improve quality of life without having to take away natural resources. Existing frameworks and strategies have focused on minimizing energy use and subsequent carbon emissions from building operation, and, to a lesser extent, from building construction activities, but only start to address the relationships between the environment, buildings, energy and other resources, and people’s health and wellbeing.

Our research

Our researchers in this cluster are working on a range of research relating to the environment and buildings, including:

• Mitigation and adaptation to extreme weather conditions in the building and urban scale and the city
• Low to zero energy and carbon building design
• Indoor and outdoor thermal comfort
• All-age friendly urban and building design
• Remote sensing, urban modelling and spatial data science
• Building performance simulation and building monitoring.

Learn more about our experts