ULB-BATir

The BATir (Building, Architecture & Town Planning) department is embedded in the ‘Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelles’ which is part of the ‘Université Libre de Bruxelles’ (ULB).  It is a multidisciplinary department, created in 2006 by the fusion of 5 laboratories.

The BATir department is in charge of the research and education related to the ‘art of building’ which includes: Civil engineering, Structural engineering, Material engineering, Architectural Engineering and Town planning.

It is composed of 5 research units: AIA (Architectural Engineering), IUAT (Town Planning), LGC (Civil Engineering), LGM (Geomechanics), SMC (Computational Mechanics).

The BATir department is currently very active, with 10 full time faculties, 1 senior permanent researcher, 6 post‐doctoral fellows and 30 PhD students.

BATir‐AIA team unites experts in diverse fields of research in architecture and building engineering, collaborating with colleagues in various institutions in Belgium and abroad.

Ongoing research activities are structured along the following themes: (1) History of modern architecture and construction, (2) Exhibition architecture, (3) COLLAeB, (4) Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism Lab (SAUL), (5) Risk analysis in high-rise buildings.

The Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism Lab (SAUL) where the participation in the SMARTER project is being developed, is structured as a research framework named I4C (Integrated Design for Cities of the Future) that brings together the research activities about sustainable urbanism and architecture in the AIA (Architectural Engineering) and IUAT (Urbanism & Regional Planning) units of BATir department. The I4C framework comprises two tracks: Integrated Design for Sustainable Architecture & Urbanism (ID) and Cities of the Future in the framework of GEB (Global Ecological Balance) (COF).

The team at ULB–BATir lead the Research & Data Structuring work package WP2 and contribute as a transversal expert in the other WP.  Tasks within WP2 include the review of existing and updated body of research relating to mortgages and energy efficiency and green building construction, research of performance data of Green Mortage programmes and the estimation of” Green Cost Premiums” and the “Total Cost of Monthly Ownership”. Research also addresses guidelines for Property Evaluators and the alignment potential of the Certification systems to the Level(s) reporting framework, and to CEN standards.

Taking part in the SMARTER project consortium has allowed highlighting key elements of the building physics and the technical performance of buildings contributing to energy efficiency, human health and well being and environmental sustainability. This has been systematically contextualised with the economic and cultural dimensions that overall sustainability requires. In this way, it is envisioned to enlarge the reach of the research into practical implementation as it relates to all the society in which the university is inmersed, and to all stakeholders of the value chain in the bulding sector. In addition, the geographical scope and multi country partnership, allows fertile exhanges and to comprehend how the principles would apply in different contexts.