Building Performance

Research and teaching is focused on:

• Computational building performance simulation as an enabling technology in this context
• Optimization of indoor environmental quality for health, comfort and/or productivity.

Although the building industry is one of the most important industrial and economic sectors, influencing the quality of life and the environment, planners and property developers pay relatively little attention during the design phase to the life-cycle cost of owning and operating buildings.
For building design, construction, operation, maintenance and management activities, there is an urgent need for the integration of ‘generally applicable’ and ‘generally accepted’ methods and tools, for various applications, each having various levels of complexity and/or various types of end-users.

Increasingly, computer-based models (programs) are employed to aid in the design, operation, or management decision-making process. Development, evaluation, ways of dealing with uncertainties and practical use of the models and programs is therefore increasingly important. Building performance is closely involved in the TU/e Strategic Area Energy and in the TU/e Smart Cities Center program.