Dr Yair Schwartz
Lecturer in Engineering and Architectural Design
Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources
Faculty of the Built Environment
- Joined UCL
- 1st Mar 2015
Teaching summary
As part of his role as a Lecturer at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, Yair is leading the Sustainable Building Challenge - Whole Life Performance module at the BSc/MEng in Sustainable Built Environment, Energy and Resources (SBEER). He is also leading the Making Building at the MEng in Engineering & Architectural Design, and runs Design Practice 2 and 3 studios, with a strong focus on environmental design principles, life cycle analysis and buildings thermal simulations.
Between 2013 – 2020, Yair gave guest lectures regularly at the MSc Environmental Design and Engineering (EDE) solar design, Advanced Building Simulations and Mechanical & Natural Ventilation modules on themes such as Embodied Carbon, Life Cycle Analysis, generative design and Genetic Algorithms. He acted as a lead tutor on the Natural & Mechanical Ventilation and the Solar Design modules, where he led a team of tutors, supporting students in developing their environmental design strategies, simulations and design development.
In 2019 he was appointed as deputy course director (interim) for the MSc Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings.
Further to his teaching activities, Yair regularly supervises students at postgraduate level. This includes supervision of MSc EDE dissertations on themes such as Embodied Carbon performance gap, Life Cycle Analysis, Genetic Algorithms & Optimisation. He also acts as subsidiary supervisor on several PhD projects on similar topics.
Biography
Dr. Yair Schwartz is a lecturer in Engineering and Architectural Design at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE) at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at UCL. He is an expert in buildings Life Cycle Analysis, Embodied Carbon and the life cycle performance of Refurbishments vs Replacements. Yair has been developing Generative Design tools and computational analysis in his work, as well as building performance simulation tools.
Yair was trained as an architect at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. He has several years of experience in architectural design and environmental consultancy on schools, office and residential developments.
Yair undertook an Engineering Doctorate at UCL IEDE, at the centre for Virtual Environments, Interaction & Visualisation (VEIV), in a collaboration with Hawkins Brown Architects. In his thesis, Yair compared the Life Cycle Carbon Footprint and Life Cycle Cost of the refurbishments and replacements of existing buildings in London. As part of his engagement with Hawkins Brown, Yair developed the award-winning Hawkins Brown Emission Reduction Tool (HB:\ERT) – an embodied carbon calculator that helps design teams to easily calculate the Embodied Carbon of their designs.
Yair is involved in a number of Whole Life Cycle and Embodied Carbon advisory groups (UKNZCBS, LETI/TM65) and has been invited to deliver expert lectures to both professional and governmental organisations.