Fellowship awarded to study how cities can cope with future heat
The Priestley International Centre for Climate welcomes Prof Bernard Lenz who has been awarded a Fellowship to study the energy demand in cities in a warming climate.
Prof Lenz, who is based at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, will undertake a six-month sabbatical working with the Priestley Centre’s researchers on “Possible adaptation process of urban areas: reducing the impacts of climate change on the energy demand of human settlements”.
The research focusses on the need to adapt the built environment to stabilize the urban micro-climate system and to minimize the impacts of climate change on future living conditions without increasing the energy consumption of buildings.
With the summer of 2018 – just declared the joint hottest summer on record – giving a foretaste of the longer, hotter and more frequent heatwaves that can be expected, the need to meet the demand for air conditioning in buildings will increase.
Prof Lenz’s research, which will be based on computer simulations, will look at inner building temperatures for different temperature scenarios, as well as the optimisation of urban areas to reduce the heat island effect, and how the two can be combined.
Climate adapted design approaches for cities and buildings will be essential for future urban living. The research aims to minimise the impacts of climate change on living conditions for inhabitants, without increasing the energy consumption of the buildings.
Bernard Lenz is a professor at Hochschule Karlsruhe University in the Faculty of Architecture and Building Construction where he is Head of Field in Energy Optimisation and Building Science. His sabbatical at the Priestley Centre has been funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
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