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Dr Michael Gutland joins ISH as lecturer of Environmental Performance of Historic Buildings
3 December 2024
With a background in carpentry and construction, Dr Gutland joins the Institute of Sustainable Heritage excited to build student interest in older buildings. We spoke with him to learn more about his work and vision at UCL.
Tell us about your background
Before I started university, I was training to be a carpenter and worked in construction for several years. This helped me build a true appreciation for the craftsmanship embodied in many historic buildings and supported my understanding of the construction industry. My undergraduate degree was in Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering at Carleton University and completed my PhD in Civil Engineering at Carleton. During my time there, I specialised in heritage masonry buildings studying the fields of building science, energy and hygrothermal simulation, and building pathology. I was a post-doctoral researcher with the Energy In Cities group at the University of Victoria. In Victoria my work centred around improving retrofitting rates of residential buildings and addressing informational and economic barriers to retrofitting supported by data-driven and machine learning tools.
What are you most looking forward to talking to the students about?
I'm looking forward to fostering student interest and appreciation of historic buildings and shifting perceptions of our older building stock. Working on heritage buildings is much more rewarding and gratifying then on contemporary construction. It tests your engineering skills in ways that modern construction does not. It often requires creative solutions, forensic investigations, technical research, and applying of fundamental principles, whereas contemporary buildings can be by-the-book.
The number of existing buildings greatly exceeds the number of new buildings going up. As a result, there are plenty of career opportunities in this sector, whether your focus is on sustainability issues, structural engineering, architectural conservation, or in the trades.
How do you hope to shape the topic of Environmental Performance of Historic Buildings
My research focus is on the rehabilitation and care of historic and traditional buildings. Rehabilitation is necessary because the needs and demands society places on our buildings has changed since they were built, such as: climate change adaptation, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions (such as deep retrofits), fire and structural safety, accessibility, etc. The challenge is to find a balance between sustainable interventions, preserve the heritage values of the building, and maintain the long-term durability of the structure.
My research plans into rehabilitation will consist of two parts:
- Examining the hygrothermal (heat and moisture transfer) risks of building envelope interventions. With envelope interventions there is often the risk of increased moisture and material decay, and this needs to be mitigated, but not at the expense of improvements in energy performance. I plan to use my expertise in simulation and data-driven analyses to help make optimal retrofit decisions.
- Developing tools (such as grey-box and data-driven models) which can help address the socioeconomic and informational barriers which are contributing to slow retrofit adoption rates across the world. Reducing the existing building stock’s emissions is no longer a technological problem but tends to be limited by both uncertainty over the economic viability of deep retrofits, and lack of guidance and resources for building owners.
And finally, can you tell us about the most exciting project you’ve worked on?
The major rehabilitation projects on the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, where there were many interesting engineering and architectural challenges posed from heritage, sustainability, and functional perspectives.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Michael Gutland to his new role at the Institute for Sustainable Heritage.