Researchers from CBE and our collaborators from SinBerBEST (a Berkeley-Singapore research collaboration) were awarded all three 2018 Best Paper Awards given by Building and Environment, an international journal that publishes original research related to building science and human interaction with the built environment.
At the 2019 ASHRAE Winter Conference on January 12th-16th, several CBE faculty, researchers, students and alumni will present recent results and demonstrate new design tools. For those of you not able to attend you can view the PDFs in this blog post.
As 2018 comes to a close, here at CBE we can look back on many successes over the year: More industry partners than ever; new tools for practitioners; numerous publications; new funding, scholarships and awards; and welcoming new graduate students, visitors, and post-docs to our team.
As one of the West Coast’s premier general building contractors, Rudolph and Sletten has been at the forefront of new building technology and cutting-edge trends for over 50 years, producing some of the most recognizable and iconic structures in California. The company focuses on markets requiring technical expertise such as biotech, pharmaceutical, higher education, healthcare, technology, high-rise, corporate campus, and justice.
This spring, CBE’s research team was joined by post-doctoral researcher Thomas Parkinson, a leading expert on thermal perception in dynamic environments. Thomas earned his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney where he studied with long-standing CBE research collaborator Prof. Richard de Dear. He later became a lecturer there until his journey east to UC Berkeley.
Project Scientist Fred Bauman recently received the ASHRAE Fellow award, a recognition for those who have distinguished themselves in the HVAC industry. His contributions are based on the extensive research on UFAD that he directed at CBE, leading to deeper knowledge and guidance for these advanced HVAC systems. Recently, he has led a similar efforts to address thermally massive radiant systems.
In March, CBE’s research team received news of a successful proposal led by the UC Davis Energy and Efficiency Institute to form a new California Energy Product Evaluation (Cal-EPE) Hub. The objective of the Hub is to evaluate commercially available technologies that are relevant to institutional and commercial customer procurement processes, including products related to energy efficiency, renewable distributed generation, and distributed storage.
This spring, CBE welcomes global HVAC manufacturer Daikin as one of its newest industry members. Having yet to fully establish themselves in North America, you could be forgiven for not recognizing their brand. However, with annual sales of over 17 billion dollars, Daikin is indeed a global leader in air conditioning equipment.
Wells Fargo’s focus on sustainability has been a priority for over 10 years. They built their first LEED certified branch in 2008, and include LEED certification as a basic standard for all new builds, major renovations, and space acquisitions. However, LEED is not the only thing they are focused on; they have committed to an ambitious set of operational goals to be achieved by the year 2020.
Since CBE’s launch in 1997, collaborations with industry and government partners have been central to our work, and have led directly to many of CBE’s most important and far-reaching results. The center began then with ten partners, a requirement set by the National Science Foundation, for funding as an Industry/University Collaborative Research Center; membership has grown in recent years to almost 40 members.