Tarek Hassan
Loughborough University, Civil and Building Engineering, Faculty Member
Today, in many European countries, research and higher education institutions have made steps to implement gender mainstreaming: integrating the gender issue in management processes, in staff and leadership development programmes and... more
Today, in many European countries, research and higher education institutions have made steps to implement gender mainstreaming: integrating the gender issue in management processes, in staff and leadership development programmes and assessment procedures. There are signs of concerted efforts to tackle persistent gender inequality, with varied levels of success. This paper will outline findings of a cross-national action research project that focuses on the implementation of gender equality plans (GEPs) in research and higher education institutions in order to examine how the interactions between researchers, gender equality practitioners and senior managers are socially-situated. A key theoretic lens is communities of practice (CoP), which underpins the analysis of the process of how people can work together to promote gender equality. The paper outlines the various methods used to promote CoP - the generation of knowledge, opportunities for establishing and maintaining relationships, and sharing experiences and expertise – illustrated with concrete examples. We found that through CoP we have identified gaps and common issues that form the basis for collaborative learning to develop better understandings of good practice in supporting GEP design and implementation.
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Countless efforts were conducted worldwide to obtain the BIM position of markets. Yet, a gap in the contemporary literature to comprehensively assess construction markets’ BIM adoption status (CMBAS) exists. A comprehensive assessment... more
Countless efforts were conducted worldwide to obtain the BIM position of markets. Yet, a gap in the contemporary literature to comprehensively assess construction markets’ BIM adoption status (CMBAS) exists. A comprehensive assessment will assist decisionmakers in making insightful decisions regarding the wide adoption of BIM in order to make appropriate strategic decisions. The authors designed a tool to detect the BIM adoption status of construction markets comprehensively to ensure a complete understanding of CMBAS when designing BIM initiatives. The tool was applied to Egypt as an example of a developing market and verified and validated through experts’ reviews. A comparative analysis was performed to benchmark the BIM status of this market throughout the years. Appropriate research methods, sampling techniques, and descriptive and inferential analyses were deployed. It was concluded that BIM professionals in Egypt can play an essential role in spreading BIM to the construction...
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The development of a cross-national approach to gender equality in higher education institutions: observations from a European project
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Within the frame of the recently launched EU project “Design4Energy” an attempt is being made to develop a design methodology that is able to create energy-efficient buildings within the context of their neighbourhoods. The work presented... more
Within the frame of the recently launched EU project “Design4Energy” an attempt is being made to develop a design methodology that is able to create energy-efficient buildings within the context of their neighbourhoods. The work presented in this paper is the first steps towards this goal. Two approaches are combined and used to capture usage scenarios and visionary scenarios as the building blocks of the methodology. Also presented is the conceptual view of the dedicated technology platform and an overall architecture with three layers: data and knowledge layer, service layer and interface/application layer.
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Smart Home controls are part of a Smart Home system and allow remote and automated control of heating systems. The key research question is: with the rapid advancement of new wireless and networked control products, which thermal... more
Smart Home controls are part of a Smart Home system and allow remote and automated control of heating systems. The key research question is: with the rapid advancement of new wireless and networked control products, which thermal modelling techniques are able to best make use of the real-time performance data arising from in-home sensors and predict the impact of using advanced controls to reduce energy demand and maximise comfort? As part of identifying suitable modelling approaches for Smart Homes, a lumped parameter model which builds on the work done by Bacher and Madsen (2011) using a data-driven “Grey box” model has been developed. The potential for using the measured data and the impacts of advanced controls for this modelling technique are discussed.
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This paper describes the development of a methodology to better support retrofit and maintenance for optimised energy consumption based on automated decision support. The process takes into account evolving technologies in material,... more
This paper describes the development of a methodology to better support retrofit and maintenance for optimised energy consumption based on automated decision support. The process takes into account evolving technologies in material, components and systems at building and neighbourhood levels to make optimised decisions for users and clients. The methodology builds on a retrofit and maintenance scenario then specification of the functional requirements, databases requirement and system architecture for the creation and operation of the decision support tool. Decision support tools have already been developed for architects and building designers to choose best building design options with retrofit and maintenance in mind. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the required data structures, databases and system architecture for advanced and easy decision making. The proposed method involves energy performance analyses of the proposed solutions and interactions with the use...
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This paper introduces a longitudinal study monitoring occupants’ window opening behaviour in a mixed-mode office building in Beijing, China, when natural ventilation is specifically used for controlling the building’s indoor thermal... more
This paper introduces a longitudinal study monitoring occupants’ window opening behaviour in a mixed-mode office building in Beijing, China, when natural ventilation is specifically used for controlling the building’s indoor thermal environment. Based on the field measured data, the influence of factors, including outdoor air temperature, outdoor PM2.5, indoor air temperature, time of day, occupancy and previous window state, on the observed state of windows is analysed. All of them are influential on occupants’ window opening behaviour in the case study building, and so they can be used to model occupants’ window opening behaviour in buildings in China to achieve a better consideration of occupant behaviour in dynamic building performance simulation.
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The construction industry is a project-based business bringing together many different organisations to complete a desired goal. The strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enabled the goal to be completed... more
The construction industry is a project-based business bringing together many different organisations to complete a desired goal. The strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enabled the goal to be completed more effectively. Two issues require addressing, the technology itself and the implementation factors of the technology. Such implementation factors should consider, among other factors, the legal and contractual issues associated with the use of ICT, training requirements and its effects on the organisational culture. To date the legal and contractual issues have not been extensively covered, and it is recognised that the technologies have not been properly covered by any recognised legal and contractual practices. This in turn is threatening to inhibit the growth and prosperity of the use of the technology on construction projects. This paper discusses these legal and contractual issues and describes methods and tools that can be used to enable the ...
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This paper describes development of a methodology to support better retrofit and maintenance with optimised energy consumption using evolving technologies in material, components and systems both at building and neighbourhood levels. It... more
This paper describes development of a methodology to support better retrofit and maintenance with optimised energy consumption using evolving technologies in material, components and systems both at building and neighbourhood levels. It is based on a retrofit and maintenance scenario focused on specification of the functional requirements, databases requirement and system architecture for the construction and operation of the decision support tool. Decision support (DS) tools have already been developed for architects and building designers to choose best building design options with retrofit and maintenance in mind. However, there is a lack of understanding of the required data structures, databases, definition of the functional requirements and the variety of the possible system architectures for this application. The proposed DS tool will support Facility Management (FM) to design their option on Building Information Model (BIM) file by making best retrofit and maintenance decisi...
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With the objective to develop a suitable database for the Design4Energy (D4E) workspace, the requirement identification of the component and energy system database started from the analysis of the existing database solutions. The... more
With the objective to develop a suitable database for the Design4Energy (D4E) workspace, the requirement identification of the component and energy system database started from the analysis of the existing database solutions. The classification, evaluation and analysis of the state of the art of the BIM and energy efficiency oriented database have inspired the requirement identification and also the approach, concept and functionalities design in T3.2. This document then identifies the major related stakeholders of the envisioned platform and project outputs. Taking into account the project objectives and the interests of the analysed stakeholders, this report brings the requirement for simulation outputs which could help the end users or architects to understand the energetic performance of their on-going design, IT requirements in architecture, data structure and interface, as well as the operation and maintenance issues. As another main focus of this document, components and ener...
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During discussions related to an ongoing research for the prospects of using dynamic scheduling concepts in construction industry in several forums, we received in many cases a similar question: What is dynamic scheduling? This is mainly... more
During discussions related to an ongoing research for the prospects of using dynamic scheduling concepts in construction industry in several forums, we received in many cases a similar question: What is dynamic scheduling? This is mainly because the dynamic scheduling topic is quite new in relation to construction field; despite of its wide applications in manufacturing and other industries. So, we thought of presenting a quick briefing about the dynamic scheduling’s concepts, approaches, strategies, policies, and applications.
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Confining the development of the project brief to a certain stage hinders the interaction between the client and the designer. In addition, it inhibits the incorporation of the influential internal and external factors that may affect the... more
Confining the development of the project brief to a certain stage hinders the interaction between the client and the designer. In addition, it inhibits the incorporation of the influential internal and external factors that may affect the project. In spite of the frequently adverse impact of change orders on project cost, time and quality, literature review and case studies showed that client organisations continue to use change orders to achieve their expectations and enhance their projects' performance principally because current construction management process instills an expectation that, change after a specified point is somehow outside the project brief rather than part of the ongoing development of that brief. This paper introduces the concept of dynamic brief development (DBD), a process that facilitates client satisfaction, meets the need to adapt to the brief developing factors for the benefit of the project and fulfils the desire to manage project change orders. In th...
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This paper describes a novel methodology to group building services into a single trunking system at minimal proximal distances between them. The study focused on solving the geometrical complexity encountered in conventional arrangements... more
This paper describes a novel methodology to group building services into a single trunking system at minimal proximal distances between them. The study focused on solving the geometrical complexity encountered in conventional arrangements of building services, while taking into account thermo-physical and electromagnetic interactions between services together with building regulations. The potential solution for delivery and distribution of building services in any number of directions is an ‘onion layers’ type of design, using novel mathematical manipulations based on manifolds of spherical and cylindrical geometries joined using Bezier surfaces. Computer-aided design iterations were undertaken for channelling six building services into a single unit including water, air, electricity and data. It consists of concentric cylindrical-spherical shells superimposed at few millimetres gaps (channels) for which physical prototypes were produced. Practical application: Successfully integra...
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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors that drive changes to the construction project brief and the background to those factors. The founding argument, that incorporating these changes is paramount for achieving client... more
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors that drive changes to the construction project brief and the background to those factors. The founding argument, that incorporating these changes is paramount for achieving client satisfaction, introduces the concept of dynamic brief development (DBP), which permits changes throughout the project life cycle. The understanding and attitude of the major construction project stakeholders towards DBP are investigated along with identifying the originators of brief development and the value and risk sources.Design/methodology/approachA threefold method was used comprising a comprehensive questionnaire survey followed by structured interviews. The results of these were further investigated though a brainstorming session with major construction project stakeholders. A total population of 266,434 units for the survey was identified, reduced to a random stratified sample of 530. The response rate was 49.2 per cent and the responses w...
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SUMMARY: Construction – and its significant impact on quality of life – has received considerable attention in recent years, however, there is little agreement on how to create an environment that will allow construction to move from a... more
SUMMARY: Construction – and its significant impact on quality of life – has received considerable attention in recent years, however, there is little agreement on how to create an environment that will allow construction to move from a supply-driven industry to a demand-driven industry focusing on delivering extra values such as sustainability, productivity, comfort, flexibility and energy and resource efficiency. Within this context, the Industrialised, Integrated and Intelligent Construction (I3CON) project aims to enable this transformation by bringing together industrialised production technologies, integrated processes and intelligent building systems. In order to achieve this, a key task is to identify and understand stakeholder requirements – what do clients, designers, contractors, end users and communities require from the buildings of the future? In this paper, a comprehensive requirement development methodology is described, by which the state-of-the-art stakeholder requi...
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Many of the obstacles to effective delivery of rail projects (in terms of cost, time and quality) can be traced back to poor collaboration across complex design teams and supply chains. As in any infrastructure delivery process, it is... more
Many of the obstacles to effective delivery of rail projects (in terms of cost, time and quality) can be traced back to poor collaboration across complex design teams and supply chains. As in any infrastructure delivery process, it is important to make decisions collaboratively at an early design stage. Advanced systems such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can facilitate collaboration during the decision-making process and boost work efficiencies. Such potential benefits are not realised because the roles of BIM and GIS in facilitating collaboration are not clearly understood or articulated. This paper aims to identify and articulate collaboration requirements during the design stage of rail projects. To achieve this, a mixed-method approach was employed to examine the issues that hinder collaboration in rail projects. An online questionnaire was designed to assess the state-of-art in BIM and GIS, followed by fifteen follow-up face to...
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This paper shows a process of developing a decision support tool to automatically generate building retrofit alternatives and rank them using energy performance analysis, user requirements, relevant benchmarks and regulations. Refinement... more
This paper shows a process of developing a decision support tool to automatically generate building retrofit alternatives and rank them using energy performance analysis, user requirements, relevant benchmarks and regulations. Refinement of the retrofit scenarios follows a set of steps from creation of a Building Information Model of a base-case representing the status of the building at the time of the analysis, then creation of combinations for the possible retrofit scenarios. TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) based multi criteria approach is adopted as it relies on identified best alternatives using selected criteria. Ranking of alternatives follows their relative closeness to the identified ideal alternative. Best options are graphically presented.
Occupant behaviour has an important role in both the environmental performance and energy performance of buildings, which has been thoroughly demonstrated in the past several decades. Based on a review work, some research gaps have been... more
Occupant behaviour has an important role in both the environmental performance and energy performance of buildings, which has been thoroughly demonstrated in the past several decades. Based on a review work, some research gaps have been identified in the area of occupants’ ventilation behaviour and to answer those gaps a field study was carried out in a student dormitory building in Beijing, China, over the period of one transitional season in 2015. The study monitored students’ ventilation behaviour dynamically with concurrent measurement of relevant influential factors that have been identified in existing studies carried out in conventional buildings. The analysis carried out in the study aimed to demonstrate the influence of those previously-identified factors in the case study building. The factors examined in the study included outdoor air temperature, indoor air temperature, occupant presence, and certain aspects relating to personal preferences. From the analysis, it was fou...
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The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as an enabler for energy efficiency is well understood, however there is no one agreed common methodology for assessing the impact of ICTs on energy efficiency. In order... more
The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as an enabler for energy efficiency is well understood, however there is no one agreed common methodology for assessing the impact of ICTs on energy efficiency. In order to promote legitimacy, transparency and real progress in the application of ICTs to improving energy efficiency there is a clear need for common ways of assessing energy performance based on a common understanding of commitments, targets and methodology. In this paper, common means for assessing the impact of ICTs on energy efficiency are reviewed and the approaches of organisations focused on the development of ICT impact assessment methodologies are discussed. Subsequently, a potentially useful means of qualitative impact assessment is suggested. The proposed methodology aims to leverage the heuristics of domain experts and is based on life cycle thinking coupled with elements of an adapted capability maturity model/framework. The SMARTT taxonomy ...
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The railway plays a significant role in human life by providing safe, reliable, costeffective services, which are environmental and drive economic growth. Significant decisions are taken at early stage of rail projects which need... more
The railway plays a significant role in human life by providing safe, reliable, costeffective services, which are environmental and drive economic growth. Significant decisions are taken at early stage of rail projects which need effective tools to avoid rework and save time, cost and increase work efficiency. Indeed, the continuous upgrading of this sector is needed to respond to technological advances, environmental change and increased customer demands. Integrating Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information systems (GIS) is promising since the scope of BIM usually does not extend beyond the footprint of the “building”; it does not provide geospatial data. Therefore, integrating BIM with GIS provides a complete picture of the project. However, this integration is challenging especially in rail projects as they are amongst the most complicated projects and numerous parties are involved in making important decisions. This paper reviews the literature regarding i...
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SUMMARY: This paper presents an e-engineering contracting system developed for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) by the EU funded e-HUBs project (“e-Engineering enabled by Holonomic and Universal Broker Services”, IST-2001-34031).... more
SUMMARY: This paper presents an e-engineering contracting system developed for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) by the EU funded e-HUBs project (“e-Engineering enabled by Holonomic and Universal Broker Services”, IST-2001-34031). As a dedicated service within the Business to Business (B2B) arena, the engineering e-Hub is designed to facilitate the outsourcing of engineering services. The project developed a transparent, online collaborative project preparation and contracting workspace to enforce process and knowledge modelling, sharing and configuration, online contracting, and trust building. It lowers the major barriers that prevent SMEs from entering e-Business.
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SUMMARY: Advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) should assist with the coordination of “virtual enterprises” – the type of arrangement often formed to execute large-scale engineering and construction projects.... more
SUMMARY: Advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) should assist with the coordination of “virtual enterprises” – the type of arrangement often formed to execute large-scale engineering and construction projects. However, a range of legal issues is emerging which threaten to reduce the benefits available from such technologies, in particular, the lack of a solid contractual basis to govern the electronic exchange of information. This paper presents a view on these issues, including the application of ICTs to construction and typical contractual relationships within the industry, before introducing the eLEGAL project. eLEGAL (IST-199920570) is a European cooperative research and development project, which is focusing on legal conditions and contracts regarding the use of ICT in project business. It aims to define a framework for specifying legal conditions and contracts to enable a legally admissible use of ICT in project business, leading to more trust and hence, ...
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The objective of the work reported in this paper was the development of an XML based standard which would enable project data, such as contacts, drawings, documentation, instructions and emails, to be transferred between collaborative... more
The objective of the work reported in this paper was the development of an XML based standard which would enable project data, such as contacts, drawings, documentation, instructions and emails, to be transferred between collaborative systems provided by different software vendors and used by construction organisations. The primary aim being to create a transfer mechanism which would allow project data transfer without modification of existing collaborative system deployed by vendors. This paper discusses the business and technological needs for such a transfer capability between collaborative systems, by examining the current use of these tools and related problems encountered by clients. It sets out the main components that underlie the majority of construction specific collaborative systems which forms the basis of the generic collaborative system model which has been developed, contrasting this with previous data exchange efforts. This paper shows how the XML Schema was develope...
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It is anticipated that the wider deployment of Smart Home systems will give building occupants improved control and automation capabilities over building conditions, services and equipment. These smart technologies will also provide... more
It is anticipated that the wider deployment of Smart Home systems will give building occupants improved control and automation capabilities over building conditions, services and equipment. These smart technologies will also provide numerous streams of data which could help to identify opportunities to reduce energy demand in homes. This paper explores this topic by focusing on data gathered from Smart Home systems, installed in a sample of five UK homes, which provide occupants with advanced zonal space heating control. Initial results suggest that Smart Home data can generate useful information to assist energy demand reduction; including the identification of excessive heat loss from specific rooms, periods of unoccupied heating, and heating system characteristics that lead to suboptimal heating patterns. Practical issues encountered during the field study highlight important social and contextual factors that can influence the quality of data recorded. These factors could potent...
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The advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has not been fully exploited by the construction industry despite of the great potential they offer particularly in the applications of eBusiness to construction. A... more
The advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has not been fully exploited by the construction industry despite of the great potential they offer particularly in the applications of eBusiness to construction. A major initiative by the European Commission to establish a Single Electronic European Market (SEEM) will provide a platform for such eBusiness on a pan European level. Legal issues represent one of the top concerns for the SEEM , which is high on the agenda of the EU policies and strategies. This paper summaries some of the key research findings of the SEEMseed EU project (Study, Evaluate, and Explore in the Domain of the Single Electronic European Market, URL1) in this area. It does not only present the legal requirements of the SEEM, more importantly, it also reveals the major legal barriers in the EU for the development of pan European eBusiness and information platforms such as the Single European Information Space in the future. The main addressees...
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Optimising energy consumption of new buildings (through design) and reducing energy consumption of existing buildings (using optimised retrofitting or maintenance) are important to achieving the global targets of energy saving and cutting... more
Optimising energy consumption of new buildings (through design) and reducing energy consumption of existing buildings (using optimised retrofitting or maintenance) are important to achieving the global targets of energy saving and cutting CO2 emissions of buildings. Many decision support tools have been developed for architects and building designers to choose the best building design options with retrofit and maintenance in mind. However, there is a lack of understanding of the required data structures and databases that would support design and enable Facility Management (FM) in making best decisions during retrofit and maintenance for improved energy efficiency (EE). To address these limitations a decision support tool based on Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) for architects, energy designers and for FM is being developed within an ongoing EU research project “Design4Energy”, to enable design for EE maintenance and retrofit and support the FM in the operation stage. In th...
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Business performance measurement, across industries, has significantly changed over the past two decades, integrating non-financial with financial measures. Moreover, the Egan and Latham reports have advocated performance improvement in... more
Business performance measurement, across industries, has significantly changed over the past two decades, integrating non-financial with financial measures. Moreover, the Egan and Latham reports have advocated performance improvement in the construction industry, with performance measurement being a key element. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically formulate a framework for measuring business performance in construction. The framework builds upon the well-established principles of the Balanced Scorecard and Business Excellence models. Formulation is based on integrating the criteria / perspectives of the founding frameworks into performance factors, and integrating the underlying logic. The formulation process is evaluated by comparing the proposed framework against the Balanced Scorecard, Excellence models, Total Quality Management frameworks in literature, and to the Performance Prism. The proposed framework is further adapted for construction companies and is shown to in...
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Very little is known about the role of women in construction research and the factors hindering the equal presence of men and women, despite wider research addressing women’s participation in science and engineering generally. This paper... more
Very little is known about the role of women in construction research and the factors hindering the equal presence of men and women, despite wider research addressing women’s participation in science and engineering generally. This paper reports on the development of the ‘WOMEN-CORE’ project, co-funded by the European Commission’s Research Directorate General under the Sixth EU Framework Programme (FP6). The project is focused on construction generally because of its important role in economic growth and also its male-dominated nature, with women only representing 10% of the UK construction workforce and 8% of the EU. WOMEN-CORE focuses specifically on construction research because of the sector’s poor performance in research and innovation and the cost of ‘non-quality’ as a proportion of total output. Furthermore, women’s growing role as decision-makers and buyers is not reflected by their input into construction innovation and creativity. The primary theme of the research is there...
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The UK Government’s flagship energy efficiency program, the Green Deal, provides retrofit advice for household occupants based on a technical house survey and an engineering modelling tool. Smart meter data provides an opportunity to give... more
The UK Government’s flagship energy efficiency program, the Green Deal, provides retrofit advice for household occupants based on a technical house survey and an engineering modelling tool. Smart meter data provides an opportunity to give bespoke advice to occupants based on the actual performance of their home and their own heating practices as well as visualisations of hourly and daily energy use. This work presents initial results from one component of a complex multidisciplinary research project which aims to use smart meter and smart home data to design and develop retrofit decision support concepts. Home visits involving creative design based research activities were carried out in five homes. Household occupants were presented with two types of energy use report; 1) a Green Deal advice report which includes suggested retrofit measures and annual energy consumption figures based on a steady state modelling approach and; 2) a personalised energy use report, based on smart meter...
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The performance gap between measured and predicted energy consumption in buildings is long established. This paper explores the reasons for the performance gap using data collected in ten UK homes. Predictions made by steady state energy... more
The performance gap between measured and predicted energy consumption in buildings is long established. This paper explores the reasons for the performance gap using data collected in ten UK homes. Predictions made by steady state energy models were compared to measured building performance data. Model inputs relating to external conditions and occupant practices were changed to align with measured data. The results show that the performance gap in individual homes is still significant after accounting for occupant practices and suggests that more work is required to develop techniques to estimate the thermal properties of the building fabric using measured data.
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Keith Ellis, Senior Researcher, Keith.A.Ellis@Intel.com Innovation Open Lab (Intel Labs Europe), Intel Ireland Ltd, Leixlip, Co. Kildare, Ireland Matti Hannus, Chief Research Scientist, Matti.Hannus@vtt.fi VTT Technical Research Centre of... more
Keith Ellis, Senior Researcher, Keith.A.Ellis@Intel.com Innovation Open Lab (Intel Labs Europe), Intel Ireland Ltd, Leixlip, Co. Kildare, Ireland Matti Hannus, Chief Research Scientist, Matti.Hannus@vtt.fi VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland Jilin Ye, Research Associate, A.J.Ye@Lboro.ac.uk Tarek Hassan, Professor, T.Hassan@Lboro.ac.uk Steven Firth, Lecturer, S.K.Firth@Lboro.ac.uk Farid Fouchal, Research Associate, F.Fouchal@Lboro.ac.uk School of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, United Kingdom Bruno Fies, Senior Engineer, bruno.fies@cstb.fr Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France Nico Vlug, Senior Consultant, Nico.Vlug@dnvkema.com DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability, Arnhem, The Netherlands Kai Lindow, Project Engineer, Kai.Lindow-projekt@ipk.fraunhofer.de Fraunhofer-Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Berlin, Germany
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The scope of this paper is a study of the potential of decision support systems for retrofit provision in domestic buildings, using monitoring technologies and performance-based analysis. The key research question is: in the age of... more
The scope of this paper is a study of the potential of decision support systems for retrofit provision in domestic buildings, using monitoring technologies and performance-based analysis. The key research question is: in the age of proliferation of cheap, mobile and networked sensing equipment, how can measured energy and performance data from multiple in-home sensors be utilised to accelerate building retrofit measures and energy demand reduction? Over the coming decade there will be a significant increase in the amount of measured data available from households, from national Smart Meter rollouts to personal Smart Home systems, which will provide unparalleled insights into how our homes are performing and how households are behaving. The new data streams from Smart Homes will challenge the prevailing research and policy initiatives for understanding and promoting energy-saving building retrofits. This work is part of a £1.5m UK Research Council funded project ‘REFIT: Personalised ...
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Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are expected to have a significant impact on improving energy efficiency in buildings. Currently there is limited understanding of the potential of ICT to reduce energy consumption in... more
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are expected to have a significant impact on improving energy efficiency in buildings. Currently there is limited understanding of the potential of ICT to reduce energy consumption in buildings. In order to put ICT at the core of the energy efficiency effort and to enable reaching their full potential, it is necessary to foster research and development (R&D) into novel ICT-based solutions and strengthen their take-up — so that the energy demand of buildings can be further reduced by adding intelligence to components, equipment and services. In this paper, ICT-based demand-driven innovation and optimised solutions to energy efficiency in buildings are investigated which cover the role of ICT and its priorities for energy efficiency, the state-of-the-art of energy efficiency in buildings, vision and roadmaps for energy efficiency in buildings and key areas where there is much potential to improve energy efficiency in buildings through t...