SMART SKINS LECTURE SERIES 3.0
We are excited to announce the third round of the Smart Skins Lecture Series!
As part of the Smart Skins course, this semester’s series will explore cutting-edge approaches to building envelopes, with a focus on environmental intelligence - linking energy efficiency, visual comfort, solar control and harvesting, well-being, and biophilia.
The lectures will be delivered online by an outstanding lineup of international experts.
You are welcome to join via Zoom
EPDL at ICUC12
PhD candidate Naga V S K Manapragada represented the EPDL at 12th International Conference on Urban Climate in Rotterdam, presenting a workflow for climate-aware urban design. His talk introduced a hybrid machine learning framework that identifies representative climate days in bimodal weather regions, improving the accuracy and efficiency of urban climate and building performance simulations..
Link to ICUC12
CEES 2025 conference presentation on a new method to account for tree cooling effects on building energy performance
PhD candidate Naga V S K Manapragada presented a paper at CEES 2025, focusing on the energy impact of urban trees. The research - co authored with Prof. Jonathan Natanian and Eilam Sklar, introduces a microclimate-driven workflow that integrates ENVI-met data with Ladybug Tools and custom EnergyPlus scripts, enabling zone-level predictions of air-cooling effects - beyond shading alone.
Link to the paper
EPDL presents two posters at the Positive Energy Districts (PED) EU COST Final Conference in LINZ
This past week, our team from the Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) had the privilege of participating in the closing meeting of the PED COST Action. It was an inspiring event that brought together experts and researchers dedicated to the future of sustainable urban energy systems.
A special shoutout to our talented PhD candidates, Eilam Sklar and Naga V S K Manapragada who presented outstanding posters that showcased the cutting-edge computational methods we are developing at the EPDL lab. Their work highlights our commitment to pushing the boundaries of environmental design and sustainable energy solutions.
New Lab Opening at Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab!
We proudly opened our new lab, showcasing our commitment to healthy and innovative environments. The event featured project overviews and key demonstrations of our interactive design workflows, highlighting our approach to sustainable architecture and urban development.
EPDL's New Lab Facility
We have officially moved into our new lab space at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning in Technion! EPDL's new facility serves as a hub for cutting-edge research and collaboration. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and a dedicated team of experts, the lab aims to tackle pressing environmental challenges and shape the future of sustainable architecture and urban planning. Join us as we embark on a journey towards a greener, more resilient future.
Smart Skins Lecture Series 2.0
We are excited to announce the second round of the SMART SKINS LECTURE SERIES
As part of the Smart Skins course, we are delivering this semester, this lecture series will focus on recent advancements in building envelopes from a holistic perspective on sustainability - in which energy efficiency, visual comfort, solar control, solar harvesting, well-being, and biophilia are entwined.
The lectures will be delivered by a lineup of experts and divided into ten core themes, according to the course focus areas and end with a workshop on adaptive solar façade design by Naga Manapragada from EPDL.
You are free to join via zoom using this link
MIT-Zuckerman STEM Fund 2022-2023
We are honored to be one of the six recipients of the MIT-Zuckerman STEM Fund for 2022-2023. We are collaborating with the MIT Media Lab to investigate how to integrate future microclimatic scenarios into an interactive data platform for urban planning.
To accomplish this, we will utilize the computational resources of researchers and students at the Technion and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), namely the Environmental Performance and Design Lab's (EPDL) capacity to run high-resolution automated simulations of microclimate conditions and the MIT City Science group's high-performance, real-time, iterative CityScope platform.
Many thanks to the proposal's co-authors, Moshe Mandelmilch, PhD, of EPDL and Ariel Noyman, PhD, of the MIT Media Lab. We cannot wait to collaborate with Kent Larson, Ariel Noyman, and the rest of the Media Lab team at MIT.
For more information, click here
Experts Workshop on Urban Heat Islands Adaptation
Together with Israel's Planning Administration and Forum 15 (of Israel's self-governing cities), our lab served as the academic partner for the organization of an EU-funded workshop where EU and local experts and decision-makers will discuss and experiment with various strategies for adapting to current and future urban climate challenges.
Smart Skins - International Lecture Series
The Smart Skins lecture series is part of the Smart Skins course given by Dr. Jonathan Natanian this semester. The Lecture Series will focus on recent advancements in building envelopes from a holistic perspective on sustainability – in which energy, visual comfort, solar control, well-being, and biophilia are entwined.
The lectures will be delivered by leading international experts and divided into ten themes, according to the course plan:
> Ecological Facades and Biodiversity
> Energy active facades (BIPV)
> Nature-Inspired Building Skins
> Advanced computational workflows for façade designs
> Digitally fabricated building skins
> Environmental performance-based façade design
> Adaptive technologies and concepts in building skins
> Circular building skins
> Smart skins from theory to practice
> Advancements in high environmental performance envelope technologies
Join us on Thursdays (12:30 CET) >here<
Missed it? recordings can be viewed >here<
Block 2020_30_50 Design Studio
The thematic design studio entitled “Block 2020_30_50” focused on local thinking on new urban block typologies, that on the one hand meet the significant demographic challenges in the typical dense Israeli city, and on the other hand will address all aspects of sustainability in a broad perspective. The studio’s starting point is based on the understanding that the current common practice of design in Israel must change, and that an alternative to the current construction pattern is urgently needed – one which evolves from the search for better density beyond the traditional pursuit of ‘higher density’.
<< Click to view the studio booklet
Invited Lecture by Prof. Jonathan Natanian at the ZERO eMission conference
On September 16, Asst. Prof. Jonathan Natanian will speak at the Annual Decarbonization Conference in Tel Aviv, highlighting two Technion courses he leads where students use digital analytical tools to reverse engineer the environmental intentions of existing buildings and reimagine Israeli office towers beyond the “glass box” typology toward low-carbon, climate-conscious alternatives.
Register here
Urban Environmental Intelligence 2.0 Symposium at the Technion
In May 2025, we hosted the Urban Environmental Intelligence 2.0 symposium at the Technion - a full day of thought-provoking talks and discussions on eco-computational methods, climate design, and urban resilience.
The event featured keynote lectures by Jakob Strømann-Andersen, Bige Tunçer, and Zhongming Shi, alongside expert panels and local researchers. PhD candidates Naga Manapragada and Eilam Sklar co-organized and moderated the sessions.
The symposium concluded with a PechaKucha session featuring graduate student presentations from across disciplines at the faculty of Architecture and Town Planning.
Link to the symposium recording
Thinking Outside the Glass Box
The Winter 2025 design studio, led by Prof. Jonathan Natanian, focused on adaptive reuse strategies for Brutalist office towers in central Tel Aviv. These mid-century concrete structures served as the basis for exploring sustainable alternatives to the generic glass-box model.
The studio combined historical and typological research with advanced environmental analysis and computational tools. Students addressed key urban challenges such as climate resilience, densification, heritage, and changing work patterns - seeking holistic and locally grounded design responses.
Link to the full booklet
New Review Paper on Remote sensing for environmentally responsive urban built environment
A new article has been published in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment.
The paper, led by Naga V S K Manapragada and co-authored by Moshe Mandelmilch, Elena Roitberg, Prof. Fadi Kizel and Prof. Jonathan Natanian, offers a comprehensive review of remote sensing tools across five key environmental domains, including urban air quality, urban heat, outdoor thermal comfort, building energy consumption and solar potential.
It highlights how remote sensing RS empowers urban designers and policymakers to develop climate-adaptive, energy-efficient, and resilient cities, offering actionable insights for sustainable design and planning.
Link to the paper
New Paper Published on Environmental Architectural Design Exploration
We are thrilled to announce our latest article, “Ten Questions Concerning Environmental Architectural Design Exploration,” published in the journal Building and Environment. Authored by Francesco De Luca, Thomas Wortmann, and Jonathan Natanian, this paper addresses key challenges and offers innovative solutions within our field.
Link to the paper
New Publication: "Ten Questions on Tools and Methods for Positive Energy Districts"
Our article, "Ten Questions on Tools and Methods for Positive Energy Districts," delves into a holistic framework for the design of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) through a set of ten questions. Drawing upon the expertise of my eight co-authors, we provide a comprehensive overview of the scopes, methods, metrics, and toolchains for PEDs, along with tools available to integrate them into various phases of the design process.
This paper highlights the challenges and opportunities ahead, emphasizing the cutting-edge methods and tools necessary to achieve robust, resilient, and data-driven processes for PED designs in a dynamic, multiscale, and multidisciplinary urban environment.
Check out our publication with this free link <HERE>
New ISF Grant Awards
The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) awarded EPDL a prestigious individual grant to develop a multi-criteria method for the design of solar urban districts. This project examines a generative solar envelope approach at the urban scale in which a combination of solar-driven metrics drives the form-finding process of a dense district using machine learning and multi-objective optimization techniques.
We also received a second grant from the ISF for our new laboratory's equipment.
This project aims to advance scientific knowledge of solar design. Stay tuned for more soon!
![MVRDV [+] EPDL](https://epdl.net.technion.ac.il/files/2024/01/4-scaled.jpg "4")
MVRDV [+] EPDL
A great start to the collaboration between Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) and the MVRDV 's NEXT team, in which we aim to explore and establish the link between scientific environmental performance evaluation and design form-finding workflows.
The round table discussions with Sanne van der Burgh, Leo Stuckardt, Jaka Korla, Naga V S K Manapragada and Eilam Sklar and Jonathan Natanian have already raised important points regarding the balance between accuracy and speed, intuition, and automation, syncing environmental data in the right format, detail and scale with the design process, and many other aspects we aim to put on the table and computationally explore during this fantastic opportunity.
Webinar on Urban Microclimate Integrated Building Energy Modeling
Our PhD candidate, Naga V S K Manapragada, gave a presentation entitled "Urban Microclimate Integrated Building Energy Modeling" in which he discussed the requirements and available methods for microclimate integrated energy simulations. The link to the event's recording is provided below.
Expert Committee on the Development of a Climate Vulnerability Index for Israel
Drs. Moshe Mandelmilch and Jonathan Natanian participated in the Tel Aviv expert committee meetings hosted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Israeli Society of Ecology.
Internationa Symposium
Urban Environmental Intelligence
The closely linked urban and environmental 21st century challenges call for a paradigm shift in the way we conceptualize and construct the built environment. As cities have a substantial environmental impact, the pursuit of a sustainable urban form has emerged, but the complexity of considerations which are involved in this debate, and their mutual urban effects, hinder the potential to reach one simple solution. Despite the rapid advancements in computational design tools and methods which hold the potential to support an informed high performance urban design, their integration into the design process is still far from full, and requires further exploration. Corresponding to that gap, the field of urban environmental intelligence is quickly emerging and revolves around finding the right balance between environmental engineering, computational tools and urban design. This workshop brings together experts in different facets of urban environmental intelligence which together will share knowledge, ask questions and highlight the main barriers and opportunities of this field in light of the global climate and carbon challenges.
When - 02.06.2022 10:00-18:00 *SAVE THE DATE!*
Where - Peka Gallery - faculty of Architecture and Town Planning - Technion, Haifa
> Register here <
Dr. Marschall Prize to Dr. Jonathan Natanian
The ‘Werner Konrad Marschall and Dr.-Ing Horst Karl Marschall Foundation’ – the ‘Dr. Marschall Foundation’ for short – aims to promote excellence in science and research. The foundation awards the Dr. Marschall Prize once a year for an outstanding dissertation completed at the TUM Department of Architecture.
In his Ph.D. research, which was supervised by Prof. Thomas Auer and completed with the highest distinction (summa cum laude), Dr. Natanian explored the interrelations between urban block morphology and environmental performance. Jonathan explored this interface by developing computational workflows which help close a gap in parametric modeling for sustainable urbanism. His research reflects the high level of complexity required to achieve a holistic view of the relationship between urban morphology and environmental performance and offers a new set of methods for the effective integration of environmental indicators into the design process.
Living with the heat, not controlling it - an interview with Jonathan Natanian, Ynet
A recent Ynet interview with Asst. Prof. Jonathan Natanian explored reducing reliance on mechanical cooling by drawing on traditional passive design strategies and integrating localized, dynamic thermal comfort concepts into modern architectural planning.
Link to the article
Immersive Environmental Design Exploration Presented at SimAUD 2025
Our research assistant Amir Malka presented his first international paper at SimAUD 2025 in Madrid, co-authored with PhD candidate Naga V S K Manapragada and Prof. Jonathan Natanian, and representing a significant step toward integrating immersive tools into early-stage sustainable design processes.
The project introduces an interactive 3D design tool that links real-time environmental performance data with spatial decision-making. Built on the Fologram platform with custom Python scripts, it enables intuitive evaluation of multiple environmental KPIs during early design stages.
Link to a demonstration video of the workflow
Link to the paper
Is Rough Enough?
As part of the Computational Explorations seminar hosted by Prof. Thomas Wortmann at ICD Stuttgart, Prof. Jonathan Natanian has shared some of our lab’s recent work on the integration of machine learning and AI in environmental design exploration.
In his talk, Jonathan explored how we’re using AI to navigate the ongoing trade-off between accuracy and speed in environmental performance analytics.
Workshop at the Norman Foster Institute Programme for Sustainable Cities in Madrid!
Our PI, Jonathan Natanian, had the pleasure of sharing ideas and workflows with scholars at the Norman Foster Institute (NFI). The two-day workshop focused on integrating environmental performance analysis into urban design, covering climatic and microclimatic analysis and holistic environmental urban design strategies. It was great to see the scholars' projects for Athens, Bilbao, and San Marino evolve! Proud to represent the Technion at the NFI’s impressive academic body lineup! More about the program here > https://normanfosterinstitute.org/
Keynote in Warsaw
Dr. Jonathan Natanian was invited to deliver a keynote at the conference entitled "Redefining Cities in View of Climatic Changes”, organized by the Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology. During his talk, Jonathan explored the ongoing efforts we are part of at the Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) to develop new computational methods for high-performance architectural design.
New Publication in Sustainable Cities and Society
We all value diversity in the design of districts in terms of both forms and uses; however, the evaluation of the energy implications of such combinations has received little attention.
This paper proposes a two-phase optimization workflow to investigate the energy balance and other environmental performance KPIs in mixed-use districts designed in hot climates. The Solar Cover Factor (SCF) is a new solar radiation-based metric that accounts for different special and temporal solar exposure values of different surfaces throughout the district, based on their respective internal zone's occupancy patterns. The findings support the use of the SCF metric as well as the potential of the two-phase optimization sequence to offer an effective hierarchy between automated and interactive analyses for high-performance district design.
Click >HERE< to access the full publication.
Trip to CoDeC Symposium in Vienna
Great discussions at the CoDeC symposium in Vienna organized by the City Intelligence Laboratory (CIL) team led by Angelos Chronis. In the keynote by Prof. Jonathan Natanian, he discussed in how the Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) rethinks eco-computational tools. He was joined by his lab members - Amir Malka, Noam Naamat, N. V. SAI KUMAR MANAPRAGADA and Moshe Mandelmilch to discuss research at the AIT CIL.
For more information, click here
Guest Lecture at NUS
The Eco-Race in Architecture Caught Between
Enviromental Intuition and Intelligence
Abstract
The race towards sustainability in the built
environment is on!
Zero carbon by 2050 and limiting global warming
to 1.5 C are just some of the ambitious
thresholds we need to get to - but how do we
get there by design?
Many claim that we should get back to the
environmental architectural intuition we once had
- but will it be enough? others push toward fully
-digitized environmental design workflows - but
what will happen then?
This lecture will discuss some of these questions
which revolve around the gaps between
environmental intuition and intelligence in
Architecture from personal, local, and global
eco-race perspectives.
Join Us - 2 Fabuary 2023 14:00-16:00
> CLICK HERE <
EPDL wins a 500,000 ILS grant from the Israeli Ministry of Energy!
This three-year research entitled "Energy performance in heterogeneous urban districts: challenges and opportunities in a mixed use and typologically diverse hot Mediterranean context", aims at exploring the impacts of mixed-use and mixed-typology configurations on energy performance (i.e. supply, demand and the balance between them) in the Israeli context. It aims to generate applicable and robust findings for Israel’s urban and climatic context by adopting a cross-use, cross-scale (from a room to a district), and a cross-climatic analytical approach (different climate zones and future climate), which is applied here on several local test cases.
Colloquium Talk by Dr. Jonathan Natanian
The race towards sustainability in the built environmental is on! zero carbon by 2050 or under 1.5OC are just some of the ambitious thresholds we need to get to - but how do we get there? Many claim that we had an environmental intuition which we must get back to - but will it be enough? Others push towards fully digitized environmental design workflows – but what will happen then? This lecture will discuss some of these questions which revolve around the gap between environmental intuition and intelligence from a personal, local and global Eco-race perspectives. *The lecture will be held in Hebrew*
When - 24.01.2022 14:30
<< Click to watch the recording
SMART SKINS LECTURE SERIES 3.0
We are excited to announce the third round of the Smart Skins Lecture Series!
As part of the Smart Skins course, this semester’s series will explore cutting-edge approaches to building envelopes, with a focus on environmental intelligence - linking energy efficiency, visual comfort, solar control and harvesting, well-being, and biophilia.
The lectures will be delivered online by an outstanding lineup of international experts.
You are welcome to join via Zoom
Invited Lecture by Prof. Jonathan Natanian at the ZERO eMission conference
On September 16, Asst. Prof. Jonathan Natanian will speak at the Annual Decarbonization Conference in Tel Aviv, highlighting two Technion courses he leads where students use digital analytical tools to reverse engineer the environmental intentions of existing buildings and reimagine Israeli office towers beyond the “glass box” typology toward low-carbon, climate-conscious alternatives.
Register here
Living with the heat, not controlling it - an interview with Jonathan Natanian, Ynet
A recent Ynet interview with Asst. Prof. Jonathan Natanian explored reducing reliance on mechanical cooling by drawing on traditional passive design strategies and integrating localized, dynamic thermal comfort concepts into modern architectural planning.
Link to the article
EPDL at ICUC12
PhD candidate Naga V S K Manapragada represented the EPDL at 12th International Conference on Urban Climate in Rotterdam, presenting a workflow for climate-aware urban design. His talk introduced a hybrid machine learning framework that identifies representative climate days in bimodal weather regions, improving the accuracy and efficiency of urban climate and building performance simulations..
Link to ICUC12
CEES 2025 conference presentation on a new method to account for tree cooling effects on building energy performance
Our PhD student Naga V S K Manapragada presented a paper at CEES 2025, focusing on the energy impact of urban trees. The research - co authored with Prof. Jonathan Natanian and Eilam Sklar, introduces a microclimate-driven workflow that integrates ENVI-met data with Ladybug Tools and custom EnergyPlus scripts, enabling zone-level predictions of air-cooling effects - beyond shading alone.
Link to the paper
Immersive Environmental Design Exploration Presented at SimAUD 2025
Our research assistant Amir Malka presented his first international paper at SimAUD 2025 in Madrid, co-authored with PhD candidate Naga V S K Manapragada and Prof. Jonathan Natanian, and representing a significant step toward integrating immersive tools into early-stage sustainable design processes.
The project introduces an interactive 3D design tool that links real-time environmental performance data with spatial decision-making. Built on the Fologram platform with custom Python scripts, it enables intuitive evaluation of multiple environmental KPIs during early design stages.
Link to the paper
Urban Environmental Intelligence 2.0 Symposium at the Technion
In May 2025, we hosted the Urban Environmental Intelligence 2.0 symposium at the Technion - a full day of thought-provoking talks and discussions on eco-computational methods, climate design, and urban resilience.
The event featured keynote lectures by Jakob Strømann-Andersen, Bige Tunçer, and Zhongming Shi, alongside expert panels and local researchers. PhD candidates Naga Manapragada and Eilam Sklar co-organized and moderated the sessions.
The symposium concluded with a PechaKucha session featuring graduate student presentations from across disciplines at the faculty of Architecture and Town Planning.
Link to the symposium recording
Is Rough Enough?
As part of the Computational Explorations seminar hosted by Prof. Thomas Wortmann at ICD Stuttgart, Prof. Jonathan Natanian has shared some of our lab’s recent work on the integration of machine learning and AI in environmental design exploration.
In his talk, Jonathan explored how we’re using AI to navigate the ongoing trade-off between accuracy and speed in environmental performance analytics.
Thinking Outside the Glass Box
The Winter 2025 design studio, led by Prof. Jonathan Natanian, focused on adaptive reuse strategies for Brutalist office towers in central Tel Aviv. These mid-century concrete structures served as the basis for exploring sustainable alternatives to the generic glass-box model.
The studio combined historical and typological research with advanced environmental analysis and computational tools. Students addressed key urban challenges such as climate resilience, densification, heritage, and changing work patterns - seeking holistic and locally grounded design responses.
Link to the full booklet
New Review Paper on Remote sensing for environmentally responsive urban built environment
A new article has been published in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment.
The paper, led by Naga V S K Manapragada and co-authored by Moshe Mandelmilch, Elena Roitberg, Prof. Fadi Kizel and Prof. Jonathan Natanian, offers a comprehensive review of remote sensing tools across five key environmental domains, including urban air quality, urban heat, outdoor thermal comfort, building energy consumption and solar potential.
It highlights how remote sensing RS empowers urban designers and policymakers to develop climate-adaptive, energy-efficient, and resilient cities, offering actionable insights for sustainable design and planning.
Link to the paper
EPDL presents two posters at the Positive Energy Districts (PED) EU COST Final Conference in LINZ
This past week, our team from the Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) had the privilege of participating in the closing meeting of the PED COST Action. It was an inspiring event that brought together experts and researchers dedicated to the future of sustainable urban energy systems.
A special shoutout to our talented PhD candidates, Eilam Sklar and Naga V S K Manapragada who presented outstanding posters that showcased the cutting-edge computational methods we are developing at the EPDL lab. Their work highlights our commitment to pushing the boundaries of environmental design and sustainable energy solutions.
New Lab Opening at Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab!
We proudly opened our new lab, showcasing our commitment to healthy and innovative environments. The event featured project overviews and key demonstrations of our interactive design workflows, highlighting our approach to sustainable architecture and urban development.
New Paper Published on Environmental Architectural Design Exploration
We are thrilled to announce our latest article, “Ten Questions Concerning Environmental Architectural Design Exploration,” published in the journal Building and Environment. Authored by Francesco De Luca, Thomas Wortmann, and Jonathan Natanian, this paper addresses key challenges and offers innovative solutions within our field. Access the article here - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132324005390
Workshop at the Norman Foster Institute Programme for Sustainable Cities in Madrid!
Our PI, Jonathan Natanian, had the pleasure of sharing ideas and workflows with scholars at the Norman Foster Institute (NFI). The two-day workshop focused on integrating environmental performance analysis into urban design, covering climatic and microclimatic analysis and holistic environmental urban design strategies. It was great to see the scholars' projects for Athens, Bilbao, and San Marino evolve! Proud to represent the Technion at the NFI’s impressive academic body lineup! More about the program here > https://normanfosterinstitute.org/
Workshop at the Norman Foster Institute Programme for Sustainable Cities in Madrid!
Our PI, Jonathan Natanian, had the pleasure of sharing ideas and workflows with scholars at the Norman Foster Institute (NFI). The two-day workshop focused on integrating environmental performance analysis into urban design, covering climatic and microclimatic analysis and holistic environmental urban design strategies. It was great to see the scholars' projects for Athens, Bilbao, and San Marino evolve! Proud to represent the Technion at the NFI’s impressive academic body lineup! More about the program here > https://normanfosterinstitute.org/
EPDL's New Lab Facility
We have officially moved into our new lab space at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning in Technion! EPDL's new facility serves as a hub for cutting-edge research and collaboration. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and a dedicated team of experts, the lab aims to tackle pressing environmental challenges and shape the future of sustainable architecture and urban planning. Join us as we embark on a journey towards a greener, more resilient future.
New Publication: "Then Questions on Tools and Methods for Positive Energy Districts"
We're proud to announce our latest contribution to the "Ten Questions" series in the Building and Environment Journal.
Our article, "Ten Questions on Tools and Methods for Positive Energy Districts," delves into a holistic framework for the design of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) through a set of ten questions. Drawing upon the expertise of my eight co-authors, we provide a comprehensive overview of the scopes, methods, metrics, and toolchains for PEDs, along with tools available to integrate them into various phases of the design process.
This paper highlights the challenges and opportunities ahead, emphasizing the cutting-edge methods and tools necessary to achieve robust, resilient, and data-driven processes for PED designs in a dynamic, multiscale, and multidisciplinary urban environment.
A special shoutout to my exceptional co-authors: Francesco Guarino, Naga V S K Manapragada, Ábel Magyari, Emanuele Naboni, Francesco De Luca, Salvatore Cellura, Alberto Brunetti, and András Reith. Your expertise and dedication have been instrumental in bringing this research to life. We also acknowledge the support of the PED-EU-NET COST action and IEA's Annex83 "Positive Energy Districts" workgroups, as well as the partial funding from the KINETIC project and the Israeli Ministry of Energy.
Together, we illuminate innovative methods that can significantly impact sustainable urbanism and the transition towards energy efficiency. Thank you to the Building and Environment Journal and to Prof. Bert Blocken, the editor of the Ten Questions Initiative, for this opportunity to contribute to the discourse on Positive Energy Districts.
Check out our publication with this free link here – https://lnkd.in/dGWn-wxf
Smart Skins Lecture Series 2.0
We are excited to announce the second round of the SMART SKINS LECTURE SERIES
As part of the Smart Skins course, we are delivering this semester, this lecture series will focus on recent advancements in building envelopes from a holistic perspective on sustainability - in which energy efficiency, visual comfort, solar control, solar harvesting, well-being, and biophilia are entwined.
The lectures will be delivered by a lineup of experts and divided into ten core themes, according to the course focus areas and end with a workshop on adaptive solar façade design by Naga Manapragada from EPDL.
You are free to join via zoom using this link
New ISF Grant Awards
The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) awarded EPDL a prestigious individual grant to develop a multi-criteria method for the design of solar urban districts. This project examines a generative solar envelope approach at the urban scale in which a combination of solar-driven metrics drives the form-finding process of a dense district using machine learning and multi-objective optimization techniques.
We also received a second grant from the ISF for our new laboratory's equipment.
This project aims to advance scientific knowledge of solar design. Stay tuned for more soon!
MVRDV [+] EPDL
A great start to the collaboration between Technion's Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) and the MVRDV 's NEXT team, in which we aim to explore and establish the link between scientific environmental performance evaluation and design form-finding workflows.
The round table discussions with Sanne van der Burgh, Leo Stuckardt, Jaka Korla, Naga V S K Manapragada and Eilam Sklar and Jonathan Natanian have already raised important points regarding the balance between accuracy and speed, intuition, and automation, syncing environmental data in the right format, detail and scale with the design process, and many other aspects we aim to put on the table and computationally explore during this fantastic opportunity.
Keynote in Warsaw
Dr. Jonathan Natanian was invited to deliver a keynote at the conference entitled "Redefining Cities in View of Climatic Changes”, organized by the Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology. During his talk, Jonathan explored the ongoing efforts we are part of at the Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) to develop new computational methods for high-performance architectural design.
Webinar on Urban Microclimate Integrated Building Energy Modeling
Our PhD candidate, Naga V S K Manapragada, gave a presentation entitled "Urban Microclimate Integrated Building Energy Modeling" in which he discussed the requirements and available methods for microclimate integrated energy simulations. The link to the event's recording is provided below.
New Publication in Sustainable Cities and Society
We all value diversity in the design of districts in terms of both forms and uses; however, the evaluation of the energy implications of such combinations has received little attention.
This paper proposes a two-phase optimization workflow to investigate the energy balance and other environmental performance KPIs in mixed-use districts designed in hot climates. The Solar Cover Factor (SCF) is a new solar radiation-based metric that accounts for different special and temporal solar exposure values of different surfaces throughout the district, based on their respective internal zone's occupancy patterns. The findings support the use of the SCF metric as well as the potential of the two-phase optimization sequence to offer an effective hierarchy between automated and interactive analyses for high-performance district design.
Click >HERE< to access the full publication.
MIT-Zuckerman STEM Fund 2022-2023
We are honored to be one of the six recipients of the MIT-Zuckerman STEM Fund for 2022-2023. We are collaborating with the MIT Media Lab to investigate how to integrate future microclimatic scenarios into an interactive data platform for urban planning.
To accomplish this, we will utilize the computational resources of researchers and students at the Technion and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), namely the Environmental Performance and Design Lab's (EPDL) capacity to run high-resolution automated simulations of microclimate conditions and the MIT City Science group's high-performance, real-time, iterative CityScope platform.
Many thanks to the proposal's co-authors, Moshe Mandelmilch, PhD, of EPDL and Ariel Noyman, PhD, of the MIT Media Lab. We cannot wait to collaborate with Kent Larson, Ariel Noyman, and the rest of the Media Lab team at MIT.
For more information, click here
Expert Committee on the Development of a Climate Vulnerability Index for Israel
Drs. Moshe Mandelmilch and Jonathan Natanian participated in the Tel Aviv expert committee meetings hosted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Israeli Society of Ecology.
Trip to CoDeC Symposium in Vienna
Great discussions at the CoDeC symposium in Vienna organized by the City Intelligence Laboratory (CIL) team led by Angelos Chronis. In the keynote by Prof. Jonathan Natanian, he discussed in how the Environmental Performance and Design Lab (EPDL) rethinks eco-computational tools. He was joined by his lab members - Amir Malka, Noam Naamat, N. V. SAI KUMAR MANAPRAGADA and Moshe Mandelmilch to discuss research at the AIT CIL.
For more information, click here
Experts Workshop on Urban Heat Islands Adaptation
Together with Israel's Planning Administration and Forum 15 (of Israel's self-governing cities), our lab served as the academic partner for the organization of an EU-funded workshop where EU and local experts and decision-makers will discuss and experiment with various strategies for adapting to current and future urban climate challenges.
Internationa Symposium
Urban Environmental Intelligence
The closely linked urban and environmental 21st century challenges call for a paradigm shift in the way we conceptualize and construct the built environment. As cities have a substantial environmental impact, the pursuit of a sustainable urban form has emerged, but the complexity of considerations which are involved in this debate, and their mutual urban effects, hinder the potential to reach one simple solution. Despite the rapid advancements in computational design tools and methods which hold the potential to support an informed high performance urban design, their integration into the design process is still far from full, and requires further exploration. Corresponding to that gap, the field of urban environmental intelligence is quickly emerging and revolves around finding the right balance between environmental engineering, computational tools and urban design. This workshop brings together experts in different facets of urban environmental intelligence which together will share knowledge, ask questions and highlight the main barriers and opportunities of this field in light of the global climate and carbon challenges.
When - 02.06.2022 10:00-18:00 *SAVE THE DATE!*
Where - Peka Gallery - faculty of Architecture and Town Planning - Technion, Haifa
> Register here <
Guest Lecture at NUS
The Eco-Race in Architecture Caught Between
Enviromental Intuition and Intelligence
Abstract
The race towards sustainability in the built
environment is on!
Zero carbon by 2050 and limiting global warming
to 1.5 C are just some of the ambitious
thresholds we need to get to - but how do we
get there by design?
Many claim that we should get back to the
environmental architectural intuition we once had
- but will it be enough? others push toward fully
-digitized environmental design workflows - but
what will happen then?
This lecture will discuss some of these questions
which revolve around the gaps between
environmental intuition and intelligence in
Architecture from personal, local, and global
eco-race perspectives.
Join Us - 2 Fabuary 2023 14:00-16:00
> CLICK HERE <
Smart Skins - International Lecture Series
The Smart Skins lecture series is part of the Smart Skins course given by Dr. Jonathan Natanian this semester. The Lecture Series will focus on recent advancements in building envelopes from a holistic perspective on sustainability – in which energy, visual comfort, solar control, well-being, and biophilia are entwined.
The lectures will be delivered by leading international experts and divided into ten themes, according to the course plan:
> Ecological Facades and Biodiversity
> Energy active facades (BIPV)
> Nature-Inspired Building Skins
> Advanced computational workflows for façade designs
> Digitally fabricated building skins
> Environmental performance-based façade design
> Adaptive technologies and concepts in building skins
> Circular building skins
> Smart skins from theory to practice
> Advancements in high environmental performance envelope technologies
Join us on Thursdays (12:30 CET) >here<
Missed it? recordings can be viewed >here<
Dr. Marschall Prize to Dr. Jonathan Natanian
The ‘Werner Konrad Marschall and Dr.-Ing Horst Karl Marschall Foundation’ – the ‘Dr. Marschall Foundation’ for short – aims to promote excellence in science and research. The foundation awards the Dr. Marschall Prize once a year for an outstanding dissertation completed at the TUM Department of Architecture.
In his Ph.D. research, which was supervised by Prof. Thomas Auer and completed with the highest distinction (summa cum laude), Dr. Natanian explored the interrelations between urban block morphology and environmental performance. Jonathan explored this interface by developing computational workflows which help close a gap in parametric modeling for sustainable urbanism. His research reflects the high level of complexity required to achieve a holistic view of the relationship between urban morphology and environmental performance and offers a new set of methods for the effective integration of environmental indicators into the design process.
EPDL wins a 500,000 ILS grant from the Israeli Ministry of Energy!
This three-year research entitled "Energy performance in heterogeneous urban districts: challenges and opportunities in a mixed use and typologically diverse hot Mediterranean context", aims at exploring the impacts of mixed-use and mixed-typology configurations on energy performance (i.e. supply, demand and the balance between them) in the Israeli context. It aims to generate applicable and robust findings for Israel’s urban and climatic context by adopting a cross-use, cross-scale (from a room to a district), and a cross-climatic analytical approach (different climate zones and future climate), which is applied here on several local test cases.
Block 2020_30_50 Design Studio
The thematic design studio entitled “Block 2020_30_50” focused on local thinking on new urban block typologies, that on the one hand meet the significant demographic challenges in the typical dense Israeli city, and on the other hand will address all aspects of sustainability in a broad perspective. The studio’s starting point is based on the understanding that the current common practice of design in Israel must change, and that an alternative to the current construction pattern is urgently needed – one which evolves from the search for better density beyond the traditional pursuit of ‘higher density’.
<< Click to view the studio booklet
Colloquium Talk by Dr. Jonathan Natanian
The race towards sustainability in the built environmental is on! zero carbon by 2050 or under 1.5OC are just some of the ambitious thresholds we need to get to - but how do we get there? Many claim that we had an environmental intuition which we must get back to - but will it be enough? Others push towards fully digitized environmental design workflows – but what will happen then? This lecture will discuss some of these questions which revolve around the gap between environmental intuition and intelligence from a personal, local and global Eco-race perspectives. *The lecture will be held in Hebrew*
When - 24.01.2022 14:30
<< Click to watch the recording