Taubman faculty participate in new project “Integrated Responsive Building Envelopes,” promoting energy efficiency at U-M

Taubman College Associate Professor Geoffrey Thün, and Associate Professor Jerome Lynch (CoE) will lead an interdisciplinary U-M team as primary investigators to develop new building envelope systems aimed at transforming the ways in which buildings mediate environmental conditions and manage energy consumption more effectively. Participating Taubman faculty will serve as co-principal investigators on the project, and include Associate Dean and Professor Jean Wineman and Assistant Professors Kathy Velikov and Lars Junghans.

With $535,000 in funding provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research, the College of Engineering, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the Rackham Graduate School, researchers from the College of Engineering, Taubman College and the School of Natural Resources and Environment, as well as materials and environmental scientists will embark this fall on a two-year collaborative project called, “Integrated Responsive Building Envelopes” (IRBE). The funding will in large part support doctoral, graduate and post-graduate research fellows working on the project.

Responsive Envelopes are an emerging area of design for green buildings and combine kinetic building components, ‘smart’ material composites, ubiquitous sensing, distributed computing and intelligent mechanical systems to produce building skins that respond dynamically and in real time to changing climatic conditions and occupant needs.

Within the Taubman College team, Thün will coordinate the overall system development focusing on the design and integration of dynamic envelope components; Junghans will conduct system optimization modeling and energy flow analysis; Wineman will study human interaction with sensor-rich environments and Velikov will develop advanced user interface systems.

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