Speakers

Christoph Reinhart, Professor and Director of Building Technology Program at MIT. He is leading the Sustainable Design Lab (SDL), an inter-disciplinary group with a grounding in architecture that develops design workflows, planning tools and metrics to evaluate the environmental performance of buildings and neighborhoods. He is also the head of Solemma, a technology company and Harvard University spinoff as well as Strategic Development Advisor for mapdwell, a solar mapping company and MIT spinoff. Products originating from SDL and Solemma are used in practice and education in over 90 countries.

Before joining MIT in 2012, Christoph led the sustainable design concentration area at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where the student forum voted him the 2009 Teacher of the Year for the Department of Architecture. From 1997 to 2008 Christoph had worked as a staff scientist at the National Research Council of Canada and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Germany. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed scientific articles including two textbooks on daylighting and seven book chapters. His work has been supported by a variety of organizations from the US National Science Foundation and the Governments of Canada, Kuwait and Portugal to Autodesk, Exelon, Kalwall, Philips, United Technology Corporation and Sage Electrochromics.

Christoph’s work has been recognized with various awards among them a Fraunhofer Bessel Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2018), the IBPSA-USA Distinguished Achievement Award (2016), a Star of Building in Science award by Buildings4Change magazine (2013) and seven best paper awards. Mapdwell has been recognized with FastCompany’s Design by Innovation 2015 award for Data Visualization as well as a Sustainia 100 award. Christoph is a physicist by training and holds a doctorate in architecture from the Technical University of Karlsruhe.

Joana Portugal Pereira, Assistant Professor at the department of Energy Planning, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, visiting Fellow at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London and an Invited Assistant Professor at the department of Mechanical Engineering of University of Lisbon.

She is a Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) and the UNEP Emission Gap Report (2020 and 2021). Previously, Joana was a Senior Scientist at the IPCC Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change and acted as an author and editor of the IPCC Special Reports on Global Warming of 1.5C and Climate and Land Use.

Joana carried out research on sustainable food systems, energy modelling and climate mitigation policy and authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles and books (chapters and Editions). Reaching beyond a purely academic public, Joana has written 35 policy reports about resilient and low carbon agriculture, climate innovation strategies and societal transformations to the Asian Development Bank Institute and the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology. She was an advisor on the Portuguese Climate Law, the Brazilian International Maritime Organisation (IMO) delegation and the Brazilian Government in defining its 2015 National Determined Contribution (NDC), and two Brazilian State governments (PE and MG) in designing their climate neutrality strategies.

Joana has been a co-Principal Investigator and a task leader in 15 international interdisciplinary projects and a PI in two research projects with industrial businesses, policymakers and international organisations in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean regions. She has coordinated project consortiums funded by the UK-Trust Fund, UK-NERC, EU-Horizon2020, Global Environmental Facility (GEF) trust fund, IRENA, World Resource Institute, SITRA and GIZ.

Hugo Águas, is an Associate Professor at the Materials Science Department of FCT-NOVA and photovoltaics research group leader at CEMOP-UNINOVA. He received his PhD in 2005 in Optoelectronics Engineering. His current research interests are in the fields of thin films deposition and silicon materials for photovoltaic devices and optical sensors; nanomaterials processing; biosensors; microfluidics and SERS. He has coordinated 6 national projects and was responsible in several national and international projects, including the H2020 Project APOLO (H2020-LCE-2017-RES-RIA) aimed at developing photonic-enhanced flexible Perovskite solar cells for BIPV (https://project-apolo.eu/. Hugo was the main organiser of symposium K - Photonic materials and techniques for SERS and solar cell light trapping at E-MRS Fall Meeting 2016 and is guest Editor for several journals, such as PSSa (Wiley), Materials Letters (Elsevier) and Materials, Sensors and Micromachines (MDPI)

He holds a patent for Solar Tiles comprising the development of silicon thin film technology for direct application in ceramic tiles building elements, which was given the Innovation Award in Energy Live Expo in 2014. He has a publication record of more than 178 publications recorded by WoK.

Ajla Aksamija, PhD, LEED AP BD+C, CDT is a Professor and Chair of the School of Architecture at the University of Utah. Her research expertise includes building science and sustainability, emerging building technologies, facade systems, digital design, and innovations in architecture. Dr. Aksamija directed Perkins&Will Building Technology Laboratory (“Tech Lab”), one of the first practice-driven research laboratories focusing on advanced building technologies.

Her recent book, Research Methods for the Architectural Profession, was published by Routledge in 2021. She has authored two previously published books, Integrating Innovation in Architecture, Design, Methods and Technology for Progressive Practice and Research (John Wiley & Sons, 2016) and Sustainable Facades: Design Methods for High-Performance Building Envelopes (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). Dr. Aksamija has contributed to several other books and has published over ninety research articles and invited papers. She is a frequent speaker at industry-based, scientific, and academic conferences. She serves as the President of the Facade Tectonics Institute.

Jose Miguel Rico-Martinez, PhD, architect, teacher, studied in the University of the Basque Country where he presented in 2015 his PhD about daylight performance of expanded metal and where he currently teaching at the Building Construction department.

He has contributed in several conferences, books, journals and postgraduate programs as Light Facade Master, Sustainable Construction Master, Timber Structures, Construction and Design Master in the University of the Basque Country.

Member of the Scientific committees of the Light Facades Master, the International Congress on Architectural Envelopes by Tecnalia, the Journal of Façade Design and Engineering (JFDE) and the EFN European Facade Network.

Olga Ioannou is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architectural Engineering and Technology of TU Delft. She works for the chair of Building Product Innovation. She is in the steering committee of the Circular Built Environment Hub at TU Delft and a member of the Architectural Facades & Products (AF+P) group. Her expertise lies in architectural education, network learning and knowledge creation within the extended communities of knowledge. This is why she is now actively involved in developing programs for integrating circularity in BK curricula across all the faculty’s departments and levels of education.

Olga is interested in the systemic character of circularity and how it challenges the established processes for the production of the built environment, stakeholder relations and societal values. Her current research extends into how circularity can be enacted and performed at neighbourhood scale. She also runs a second research stream that focuses on circularity at product scale and in particular, circular building product design using secondary materials.

Enrico S. Mazzucchelli, Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering at ABC Department (Architecture Built environment and Construction engineering), Politecnico di Milano. His research and teaching activities focus on: design and performance analysis of innovative systems and building envelope components, resilient buildings design, integration of building services and renewable energy systems in Zero Energy Buildings, timber construction by means of industrial prefabrication techniques and technologies, retrofit of existing buildings. He is author of books, international conference papers, journal articles and he is member of editorial board of the “Journal of Facade Design and Engineering”.

He participates in national and international research programs. In 2012, he was guest researcher at Högskolan i Gävle (Sweden), Academy for Technology and Environment. From 2016 to 2018, he participated in the COST Action TU1403 Adaptive Façades Network (AFN) project, funded by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). He is coordinator and lecturer of the PhD course “Strategies and tools for advanced building envelopes design towards resilient constructions”.

He is member of "CIBW098 - Intelligent and responsive buildings" - International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction and “European Façade Network” (EFN).

Nebojsa Jakica is an Associate Professor in Facade Design and Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). He is a director of the FACETS lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory specializing in Industry 5.0 technologies for façades.

The FACETS lab envisions a future of facades by exploring a unique mix of façade-related art, design, science, and technology to form an inspiring research and education ecosystem for innovation. The research covers a plethora of topics as diverse as Façade Computational Design and Engineering, Additive Manufacturing of Façade Systems, Autonomous Facades, Façade Digital Twins, VR Façade Mock-ups, and Circular Economy for Facades.

Daniel Arztmann has a diploma in architecture and a Master of Engineering in Facade Construction. He has been working for Schüco in Bielefeld since 2003, where he started as a project engineer for major international projects. In the further course of his activities at Schüco, he was in the lead of product management and technical development of a product range especially developed for emerging markets. Today, he is in charge of building physics for large international projects and is involved in the development of several special products for Schüco.

In addition to his work in business, Daniel Arztmann has been teaching as a professor of façade construction at the Detmold University of Applied Sciences since 2017. Here he is leading the international Master of Integrated Facade Design (MID) degree program. He is a board member of the Institute for Design Strategies at TH-OWL and an active member of the European Façade Network and the Façade Tectonics Institute.