PhD Position in Urban Building Energy Modeling for Socio-Ecological Transformation

The Architecture and Building Systems (A/S) research group at ETH Zurich, headed by Prof. Arno Schlueter, investigates energy systems in the context of climate and human comfort at the building and urban scale. One of the group's pillars is research and application of Urban Building Energy Modelling (UBEM) to generate knowledge about cities and neighbourhoods as interconnected systems in order to support sustainable urban development and the well-being of their inhabitants.

This dissertation is part of the National Research Programme 81 (NRP 81 "Building Culture") of the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF within the project "Beyond Replacement Construction: Implementing the Socio-Ecological Transformation of the Swiss Built Environment". In collaboration with the group of Prof. David Kaufmann, SPUR / DBAUG, the project focuses on the socio-ecological transformation of urban buildings in Swiss cities through soft densification (e.g. vertical extensions, infill development, reuse) as an alternative to demolition and total renovation. The project addresses current challenges of conventional densification strategies in terms of environmental sustainability and socio-environmental challenges resulting in displacement and exclusion. Start date: June 2025 or by arrangement, duration 4 years.

As a PhD student, you will carry out independent and collaborative research, including literature reviews, data collection and analysis, leading to novel contributions to the field. You will be responsible for writing and publishing academic papers, presenting findings at conferences and managing your dissertation. During the first two years of your PhD, you will also assist the Chair in teaching. In addition, you will support knowledge transfer by engaging with the public, industry and policy experts, contributing to open source modelling tools and assisting with project coordination within the research team.

For the project, your work will center around the following tasks:

• Urban data: Collecting diverse and multi-modal data to create a comprehensive urban dataset.
• Establishing/extending Urban Building Energy Models (UBEM) using City Energy Analyst (CEA) to compute comprehensive environmental metrics for selected vulnerable transformation areas (VTAs).
• Soft-Densification Archetypes: Defining and parameterizing densification strategies (e.g., vertical extensions, retrofitting, re-programming), integrating stakeholder insights, literature reviews, and real-world data, applying/developing new data-driven methods
• Identification of Transformable Sites: Using UBEM to pinpoint optimal locations for densification based on spatial, architectural, and socio-economic assessment
• Implementation and Environmental Assessment: Applying densification strategies to selected VTAs, analyzing environmental metrics and using generative techniques to create visualizations to communicate findings to a broader public
• Publications and Knowledge Transfer: Publishing findings in peer-reviewed journal publications and conference proceeedings

We are seeking a highly motivated and self-organized PhD candidate to join our research team in Zürich. The ideal candidate should have:

• Master's degree in Integrated Building Systems (MIBS), architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, environmental science or a related field.
• Strong computational skills with experience in working with/developing computational models or urban data analytics.
• Knowledge of building energy modelling and/or urban building energy modelling (preferably with experience in City Energy Analyst or similar tools)
• Initial experience with machine learning, clustering methods or generative AI (preferred but not required)
• Willingness and ability to collaborate with researchers from different backgrounds, stakeholders and the general public
• Programming skills in Python (preferred but not required)
• Excellent communication skills in written and spoken English, German is a plus
• High degree of personal responsibility and self-organisation

Describe here what particularly distinguishes the work in your department/group e.g.:

• Training opportunities
• Perspectives for career development
• Support programmes (e.g. mentoring) and networks
• Your (team) culture and team composition
• Working environment and employment conditions
• Your commitment to diversity (e.g. flexible working hours, possibility for part-time work, home office)