Healthy Buildings by Design
Sustainability planning in construction 2026
6th October 2026, 12pm
Speakers:
1. Dr Carolina Montano Owen, Technical Lead, Sustainable Buildings, Circular Buildings Coalition Grant Manager at World Green Building Council: Creating Circular, Low-Carbon Spaces that Support People
2. Lala Rukh, Doctoral Researcher at University of Galway: Novel assessment framework for residential buildings to ensure they are healthy, comfortable and energy-efficient.
3. Mohamad Soboh, Doctoral Researcher at University College Cork: Framework for Predicting Concrete Anchor Load Capacity Using Non-Destructive Testing and Artificial Intelligence.
The webinar established that truly sustainable buildings must integrate low-carbon circularity, occupant health and comfort, and structural resilience. Presenters introduced frameworks to move beyond static asset ratings (like BER) toward verified annual performance outcomes and AI-driven structural health monitoring.
Circularity and Global Sustainability
- Urbanization Challenges: By 2050, approximately 68% of the population is projected to live in urban areas, increasing the need for resilient building stocks.
- Regional Risks: Climate impacts vary by region, including extreme heat in sub-Saharan Africa, coastal risks in Asia, and flooding/heatwaves in Europe.
- World Green Building Council Goals: The organization aims for total decarbonization of the built environment by 2050 and the creation of equitable, resilient communities.
- Global Targets: Ambitious targets for 2035 include increasing the electricity share by 35%, cutting energy consumption intensity by 25%, and increasing sector circularity by 15%.
- Circular Strategies: Emphasis is placed on “design for change” to ensure buildings are adaptable and that materials are reused or reduced rather than downcycled.
Residential Health and Energy Framework
- Performance Gap: Traditional Building Energy Ratings (BER) are asset-based and often fail to reflect actual energy consumption; some A-rated buildings performed as C-rated in practice.
- EPC Plus Framework: A novel assessment tool using 12 KPIs across three pillars (internal environment, energy/carbon, and behavior) to ensure homes are healthy and cost-efficient.
- Indoor Environment Findings: Research indicates that bedrooms often have poor indoor air quality (CO2 levels), and single-family dwellings are more prone to humidity-driven mold issues than mechanically ventilated apartments.
- Behavioral Readiness Index (BRI): A metric used to assess how flexible occupant behavior is regarding energy use, noting that smart meter ownership alone does not induce meaningful behavior change.
Structural Health Monitoring
- Concrete Anchor Prediction: A framework using non-destructive testing (NDT) and AI to predict the pull-out capacity of concrete anchors without requiring destructive tests.
- Defect Detection: The system identifies hidden damage such as debonding, corrosion, and cracking using ultrasonic signatures.
- Hybrid AI Approach: The model combines physical lab experiments with numerical surrogate models to create a larger dataset for training AI (e.g., Random Forest, XGBoost).
- Engineering Application: The goal is to provide quantitative data to decide if a structure should be monitored, repaired, or replaced.
Q&A and Integration
- Integrative Design: Certification systems and digital tools (including AI) are recommended to manage trade-offs between indoor environmental quality, circularity, and carbon emissions.
- Material Safety: Reusing materials requires new standards and health declarations (EPDs) to ensure secondary materials are safe for occupants.
- Contractual Implementation: Performance frameworks could be mandated in design-and-build or ESCO contracts, where payments are tied to verified annual health and energy outcomes rather than one-time installation subsidies.
