The smart living lab team comprised of professors Dolaana Khovalyg (EPFL), Dusan Licina (EPFL), Raphaël Compagnon (HEIA-FR), Denis Lalanne (University of Fribourg), and Industry liaison officer Martin Gonzenbach (EPFL) traveled to Seoul, South Korea, for the kick-off meeting on 3-4 September to develop the Swiss-Korean Academic Exchange Program on the topic of sustainable and comfortable built working environment. South Korean partners were represented by professors Thorsten Schuetze (SungKyunKwan University), Yoonhie Lee (EWHA University), Sung-Taeg Nam (Hanyang University). The program was initiated by the Science and Technology Office (STO) of the Embassy of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea, led by Alessandra Apicella, as the cooperation in science and education between the two countries.

The attention to the concept of comfort and performance in the indoor built environment is growing worldwide due to the increase in working hours in the offices and the space limitation in highly populated cities. The lack of comfort in the working space could affect the health, performance, and efficiency of the occupants. It is well known, that Seoul has an extremely dense population and high amount of office workers working extensive hours. Oppositely, Switzerland remains a relatively protected country, with low population density and a well-established attention to the inside built environment and comfort. The extreme working environment and cultural differences, traditions, and challenges of South Korea and Switzerland is fertile soil to brainstorm around the inside built environment issues.

Through the meeting of Swiss and Korean students from different disciplines such as architecture, engineering, computer science, sociology and psychology, the Swiss professors, together with their South Korean counterparts, aim to guide the students in the process of the generation of innovative solutions in the field of the inside built environment, human-building interaction in the urban reality of South Korea in the Summer of 2019 and in Switzerland in Winter of 2020. The kick-off meeting on September 3-4 established the pedagogical framework and concrete basis for the development of these two linked exchange schools. The first edition of this transcultural and interdisciplinary educational program will be available for students of EPFL, UNIFR, HEIA-FR, EWHA University, Hanyang University, SungKyunKwan University, and the call for applications will be open in December 2018.

Along with the kick-off meeting, the smart living lab team attended the Open Talk “Technology meets Architecture – Designing Together the Living Environment of Tomorrow” organized by STO Seoul and opened by the Ambassador of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea, Mr. H.E. Linus von Castelmur. The event aimed to bring together experts and innovators from academia and private sector from Switzerland and South Korea to present concrete examples of projects and visions to design together with the living environment of tomorrow. The smart living lab was presented by two talks: “Inter-disciplinary experimental platform for the built environment of the future – smart living lab” by Prof. Dolaana Khovalyg and “Human-Building Interaction” by Prof. Dennis Lalanne.

More information

The ‘smart living lab’, a research and development center for the built environment of the future, will launch an open call for tenders for a collaborative parallel studies mandate (MEP*) to produce a preliminary design for its new building. The experimental building is intended to showcase pioneering approaches to resource efficiency. Construction will take place on the blueFACTORY site in Fribourg. Multidisciplinary design offices will have until October 2018 to submit their prequalification bids. The final winner and the preliminary design of the building will be announced at the end of June 2019.

An evolving building, an experimental tool
Construction of this experimental building for the exclusive use of the smart living lab will begin in Fribourg in 2020. Housed in the blueFACTORY Blue Hall back in 2015, this research center combines the expertise of the EPFL, the School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg (HEIA-FR) and the University of Fribourg (UNIFR). With a gross floor area of approximately 5,000 m2, 130 workplaces and a budget of CHF 25 million, the future smart living lab building is intended as a sustainable construction that will evolve over time. The building should lend itself to multiple uses and serve as an experimental tool for work under real conditions. It should further the aims of research and improve its own performance over its entire life cycle. Breaking new ground in the management of user comfort and the efficient use of resources, the new building is expected to reach the Confederation's 2050 energy targets thirty years ahead of schedule.

Open call for tenders, guaranteeing quality and equal opportunities
A collaborative parallel studies mandate (MEP) should enable a preliminary design of the future building to be prepared between September 2018 and June 2019. Since funding will come from the Canton of Fribourg, project design and execution are subject to cantonal legislation on public procurement contracts. As project owner, Bluefactory Fribourg-Freiburg SA has delegated organization of the MEP to the smart living lab. A call for tenders open to all interested design offices, whether in Switzerland or abroad, will ensure equal opportunities and encourage high project quality. The smart living lab will prequalify bidders on the basis of its assessment of their expertise. After that, a mostly independent panel of experts will review and assess individual project bids. This process will include various intermediate discussions conducted in a spirit of openness. These discussions will take place in the presence of the panel of experts, representatives of all selected design offices as well as researchers and specialists from the smart living lab. By emphasizing a collaborative approach conducive to inter-institutional and transdisciplinary dialogue, the process is intended to reflect the essential nature of the future building itself: multidisciplinary and serving as a catalyst for progress.

*in French: mandat d’études parallèles (MEP)

Call for tenders (published as of 14th September 2018)
More information

Contact
Anne-Claude Cosandey, Operational Director, EPFL Fribourg Outpost and Coordinator, smart living lab, +41 21 693 51 82, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Philippe Jemmely, Director, Bluefactory Fribourg-Freiburg SA, +41 26 422 37 10, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dolaana Khovalyg was appointed as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Energy and Building Systems Engineering at the School of Architecture, Civil, and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at EPFL. She will lead the new smart living lab's research group Thermal Engineering for the Built Environment Laboratory (TEBEL) in Fribourg as of 01.09.2018.

You just arrived at the smart living lab, which includes EPFL, HEIA-FR and UNIFR. What are your first impressions about this interdisciplinary research center?
The smart living lab is certainly a unique interdisciplinary platform that brings together researchers focusing on various aspects of the built environment aiming to collectively address the challenges of future buildings. Such environment allows not only to develop new synergies but also promotes debates between researchers from different, sometimes not obviously related, fields (e.g. between construction lawyers and engineers). In my opinion, this creates a great opportunity for us to reflect, to have a different perspective on our own research and to strive for strong outcomes. My overall impression is that the smart living lab is an exciting place to work and to innovate because of its diversity.

Can you tell us more about your career in academia?
I obtained my BS and MS degree in thermophysics from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. After working in the RAC (refrigeration & air-conditioning) industry for 5 years, I moved to the US after being granted a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue a PhD degree. I obtained my PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where I performed research at the advanced Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Center (ACRC) with focus on environmentally friendly (compact, lightweight, less refrigerant use, and thermodynamically efficient) heat exchangers for air-conditioning. While being a PhD candidate, I participated at the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore and had an entry in the “Sustainable and Livable Cities” challenge. My proposal on “Net-Zero Energy Air-Conditioning and Dehumidification” was one of the eight finalists worldwide, and this sparked my interest in sustainable and livable indoor environment which has a significant importance nowadays. In order to familiarize myself with thermal comfort and occupants behavior, I pursued a postdoctoral appointment at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), specifically at the International Center for Indoor Environment and Energy (ICIEE). And finally, all my academic milestones led me to my current position at EPFL.

What are you most excited about your appointment as Head of the new Thermal Engineering for the Built Environment Laboratory (TEBEL)?
I’m excited about the opportunity to form my own team and to set the research direction of the Lab in an attempt to shape the future of the built environment. I am also thrilled about the chance to educate young generation and to solve the research questions together.

What will your research focus on over the coming year?
The overall focus of my lab will be on minimizing energy use for thermal conditioning of buildings and building services such as HVAC and hot water supply. The reduction of energy use by building services is intended to be achieved by coupling systems with renewables and maximizing available heat recovery at the source, building, and neighborhood level. Advancement of personalized control of the indoor environment is an approach of TEBEL to enhance the performance of mechanical systems and to ensure comfortable working and living conditions for diverse occupants. And last, but not the least, TEBEL will also focus on active building envelope exchanging heat and moisture efficiently between indoors and outdoors and reducing the use of mechanical HVAC systems.

What inspires you about the built environment of the future and its research schemes?
I envision the future built environment to become highly intelligent, human-centered but at the same time more open and shared. Future buildings will not be designed using average metrics any more, but with the right balance between individual and group needs, which in my opinion, is a big challenge that needs to be addressed.

Whenever you are not doing research, what are you interested in?
Whenever I am not focused on my work, I parent my daughter who is 9 months old at the moment. I enjoy re-discovering the world with her, learning again how everything functions, and take a new look at very ordinary things.

Contact Dolanna Khovalyg
TEBEL research group