CEGE Researchers at University College London win CIBSE Building Performance Award 2023

Several members of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) at University College London (UCL) were honoured with an award at the prestigious 2023 CIBSE Building Performance Awards. The CIBSE Building Performance Awards ceremony was held at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge and was attended by 800 leading industry figures from over 80 shortlisted companies. The AIRBODS research project, which aimed to reduce airborne infection through building design and operation, was awarded the Learning and Development category prize.

The AIRBODS project was a rapid consortium project that involved six universities and was led by Loughborough University. CEGE's investigators Liora Malki-Epshtein, Lena Ciric, and Thorsten Stoesser led the research at UCL, which included experiments, field studies, and computational models in fluid mechanics, air quality, microbiology, and aerosols. A team of researchers, students, and technical researchers, including Filipa Adzic, Rupy Matharu, Arthur Hajaali, Oliver Wild, Murat Mustafa, Melisa Canales, and Wickson Cheung, supported the project, with high-performance CFD support from Alex Stubbs.

CEGE's Environmental study of the government's Events Research Programme, led by Liora Malki-Epshtein, helped get large-scale events back up and running following the Covid-19 lockdowns in Spring-Summer 2021. The ERP Environmental study expanded what was supposed to be a small field study to involve a large team from three universities from AIRBODS and was funded by DCMS. The team led by CEGE carried out monitoring of live events for air quality, microbiology, and crowd observations around the country. The project would not have been possible without immense support from CEGE and UCL in getting the environmental study off the ground at less than a month's notice back in the deep lockdowns of spring 2021.

According to CIBSE, the Learning and Development category attracted a wide range of entries, all of which recognized the need to improve skills across the industry to address critical shortfalls. The judges welcomed the entries, saying that it is clear that the industry is looking to tackle current challenges, including climate change, fire safety, and the operational performance of buildings.

The AIRBODS project also received a Highly Commended award across all projects in the 16 categories, making it a double success for CEGE at the 2023 CIBSE Building Performance Awards.

Official findings from the Environmental Study of the UK Government’s Events Research Programme:

• Science Note - Emerging findings from studies of indicators of SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk at the Events Research Programme: environment, crowd densities and attendee behaviour - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

AIRBODS Project:

• Airborne Infection Reduction through Building Operation and Design for SARS-CoV-2: www.airbods.org.uk

Journal Articles:

• A post-occupancy study of ventilation effectiveness from high-resolution CO2 monitoring at live theatre events to mitigate airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2
• Measurement and rapid assessment of indoor air quality at mass gathering events to assess ventilation performance and reduce aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2