news 2017

TU Graz highlights new features in the Smart City project "STELA". Instead of relying on high tech for the thermal refurbishment of existing multi-storey buildings, social compatibility returns to the centre stage of the project. Anna has now got more room. A wheelchair user, she lives on the ground floor of an 11-storey house in Leoben.

Research news Active components on buildings such as blinds whose design was copied from naturally occurring solutions - that is the subject of the research conducted by a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the University of Freiburg, and the University of Stuttgart. The aim is to equip them with drive elements that can move without any electrical energy input.

About one billion birds are killed every year when they unwittingly fly into human-made objects such as buildings with reflective windows. Such collisions are the largest unintended human cause of bird deaths worldwide - and they are a serious concern for conservationists. A new paper published in June in the journal Biological Conservation finds that, as one might suspect, smaller buildings cause fewer bird deaths than do bigger buildings.

Want to boost collaboration among researchers' Even in an age of easy virtual communication, physical proximity increases collaborative activity among academic scholars, according to a new study examining a decade's worth of MIT-based papers and patents. In particular, the study finds that cross-disciplinary and interdepartmental collaboration is fueled by basic face-to-face interaction within shared spaces.

Office and residential buildings use more energy per square metre, the taller they are, according to new research from UCL. Researchers at UCL's Energy Institute have found that electricity use, per square metre of floor area, is nearly two and a half times greater in high-rise office buildings of 20 or more storeys than in low-rise buildings of 6 storeys or less.

EPFL, in association with the School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg, the Geneva School of Art and Design and the University of Fribourg, is taking part in the 2017 international Solar Decathlon competition.

Research news Architecture clearly reflects societal developments. Prof. Stephan Trüby explains in an interview how financial markets influence the shape of bank buildings and what the impact of digitalization on individual architectural elements is. As a professor for Architectural and Cultural Theory, can you tell us about the relationship between these two fields? Stephan Trüby: Architecture is probably the most complex cultural technology that humankind has produced.

Using a satnav to get to your destination 'switches off' parts of the brain that would otherwise be used to simulate different routes, reveals new UCL research. The study, published and funded by Wellcome, involved 24 volunteers navigating a simulation of Soho in central London while undergoing brain scans.