15.03.2004
Andrew Miller, Professor of Building Sustainability in the University of Brighton’s School of the Environment will give his Inaugural Lecture on the 22 March.
It is called ‘Building Sustainability: energy throughout the life-cycle’ and will take place at 6.30pm in the Westlain Lecture Theatre, Westlain House on the university’s Falmer campus.
Professor Miller’s lecture will be based on the environmental impact of buildings throughout their life-cycle and their contribution towards sustainability. He will focus on the use of energy, identifying its significance to sustainability and describing some of the research undertaken at the University of Brighton.
This includes investigation of the use of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) to reduce peak temperatures in buildings and enable more of them to provide comfortable summertime conditions without the need for air conditioning and evaluating its use as a heat store for use with solar collectors and underfloor heating.
Andrew has been employed by the university and its predecessor Brighton Polytechnic for over 24 years and is a chartered Building Services Engineer. He completed his first degree at Bath University in 1972 and his PhD at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1976.
Professor Miller is leader of the Environmental Life-cycle of Buildings Research Unit (ELBRU) and with his colleague Dr Kenneth Ip is responsible for more than £600k of EU and UK funded projects and a total of 10 postgraduate researchers.
He is currently working with the University of Rouen, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) in the UK and their French counterparts, the AICVF, developing case studies of good practice towards sustainability of the built environment.
Funding from the EU InterregIII programme has enabled a Centre for Sustainability of the Built Environment between the two universities to be established, providing facilities to model and monitor sustainable building solutions. The project, entitled ‘durabuild’ aims to develop the network of specialist designers, contractors, manufacturers, clients and academics working towards the sustainability of the built environment.
Dissemination of the research findings and development of the network will be undertaken through two international conferences, the first of which will be held at the University of Brighton on 13-15 September 2004.
Research undertaken within ELBRU includes environmental impacts of buildings at all stages in their life-cycle. Two current projects are supported through the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) which has enabled research programmes to be undertaken with David Robbens Underfloor Heating Systems and with Omnova Wallcoverings.
Contact: Marketing and Communications, University of Brighton, 01273 643022
