The Human-Oriented Built Environment Lab HOBEL

“Buildings of the future must not be only energy efficient, but they should also contribute to “Michelin Star” air quality”

“Buildings of the future must not be only energy efficient, but they should also contribute to “Michelin Star” air quality”

The Human-Oriented Built Environment Lab (HOBEL) is the research laboratory of Prof. Dusan Licina within the Smart Living Lab in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at EPFL Fribour.

HOBEL strives to advance the knowledge of the intersections between people and buildings by ensuring high indoor environmental quality for building occupants with minimum energy consumption. HOBEL’s mission is to improve the knowledge in the domains of dynamics and fate of air pollutants in buildings, human inhalation exposures, smart ventilation systems and controls, and more broadly, human comfort and energy efficiency in the built environment. We pursue our goals through a combination of laboratory and field experiments, modeling, data analysis, and at times numerical simulations, ranging from the human scale to the building and even urban scale.

© 2024 EPFL

Wei Jia joined HOBEL in January 2024 as a visiting Doctoral student

— Wei Jia joined HOBEL in January 2024 as a visiting Doctoral student. He is currently a Year-4 PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Yuguo Li at the University of Hong Kong. He received his bachelor’s degree from Chongqing University, China in 2018.

© 2024 EPFL

Wenjing Ji joined HOBEL as a visiting scholar.

— Wenjing Ji joined HOBEL in December 2023 as a visiting scholar. She is an associate professor of Building Environment and Energy at University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. Wenjing received her PhD degree from Tsinghua University, China, in 2018.

© 2023 EPFL

Evangelos Belias completed his PhD Thesis at HOBEL

— Evangelos Belias completed his Ph.D. studies at EPFL. His work "Building ventilation and outdoor air pollution: Implications for health, comfort and energy" was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Dusan Licina, Head of HOBEL, EPFL.

© 2023 EPFL

Seoyeon Yun completed her PhD Thesis at HOBEL

— Seoyeon Yun recently completed her PhD Thesis entitled "Assessment of Monitoring Strategies for Inhalation Exposure and Occupancy in Office Environments"

© 2023 EPFL

Hui Dong joined HOBEL as a new PhD assistant

— Hui Dong received her Master of Science in Environmental Technology (2023) and Master of Public Health (2021) from Imperial College London in London, United Kingdom, and her Bachelor of Engineering in Building Environment and Energy from Tianjin University in Tianjin, China (2020).

© 2023 EPFL

HOBEL Research Paper Acknowledged with Best Paper Award at 43rd AIVC

— The paper entitled "Can Naturally Ventilated Office Buildings Cope with Dusty Outdoor Air?" authored by Evangelos Belias, Flourentzos Flourentzou, and Dusan Licina received the prestigious Best Paper Award at the 43rd AIVC Conference

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