Sustainable Engineering – (Ph.D.)

The vision of the BRE Institute in Sustainable Engineering is to pave the way to a new generation of digital buildings that have lifelong resilience and adaptability to their environment, usage and occupancy, enabled by (a) smart materials and products, (b) integrated design and manufacturing systems, and (c) total lifecycle approaches.

The complementary expertise of our academic staff and researchers spans six main research themes:

* Smart materials and products: Research in this theme involves material and structural performance enhancement to different combinations of solicitations and the development of novel materials with embedded resilience.


* Virtual Manufacturing and supply chain management: Research in this theme explores design and manufacturing business models that promote sustainable and total lifecycle integrated product development approaches.


* Building intelligence: Research in this the theme involves the design and deployment of digital technologies to support stakeholders’ activities and knowledge needs across the lifecycle of a building project.


* Building resilience: Research in this theme explores how risk management and built environmental protection can be integrated into design and construction sustainability principles and approaches.


* Energy and sustainability: this theme is concerned with management of energy in buildings with a view of delivering lifelong sustainable facilities.


* Comfort, health and well-being: the exploration of comfort conditions of occupants and socio-technical aspects that underpin user interaction with buildings and building systems via digital interfaces forms the focus of this theme.



The concept of a dynamic and self-updatable digital conceptualization of a building, that fully exploits latest advances in ICT, including pervasive sensing technologies, is central to the centre’s vision. These digital technologies will help maintain a dynamic representation of a building necessary to provide real-time building performance (including energetic) accounts, while ensuring the building has lifelong adaptability to its usage and environment.