Carleton University researchers, led by Gabriel Wainer, a professor in the department of Systems and Computer Engineering, and industry partner Autodesk, have received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Strategic Partnership Grant worth $617,000 to investigate new technologies that will assist in the design of more sustainable buildings.

Photo Courtesy of carleton.ca/hr.
?Carleton continues to take the lead working with industry partners on issues related to sustainability,? said Rafik Goubran, vice-president (Research and International). ?This collaborative project will play an important role in developing sustainable buildings and greener communities.?
Wainer, along with Carleton?s Stephen Fai and Liam O?Brien, leads a group of more than a dozen interdisciplinary researchers combining the disciplines of systems engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering and architecture. ?Modern building automation systems collect and store vast amounts of data in temporal scales ranging from seconds to multiple years and spatial scales ranging from rooms to communities,? said Wainer. ?But the tools that facilitate management and visualization of these data are in their infancy. The whole point of our project is greater building sustainability. How can we build or retrofit buildings to reduce emissions and improve sustainability"?
Currently, when an architect designs a building they use Building Information Modelling (BIM). This process...