Dr Hector Altamirano-Medina
Academic Director
Dr Hector Altamirano is a Lecturer in Environmental Design and Engineering at the Bartlett School of Environment Energy and Resources, Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, Faculty of the Built Environment. Hector is a building scientist with a broad research interest in energy, the indoor environment and the operational performance of buildings. Hector is a trained architect with an MA in Energy, Environment and Sustainable Design, and a PhD in Building Science
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Dr Yasemin D Aktas
Deputy Academic Director
Dr Yasemin D Aktas is a Lecturer at the Department of Civil, Environment and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE). Yasemin has extensive research experience in the impact of flooding, wind driven rain and other climate-induced and atmospheric hazards on built environment, heritage structures, indoor mould testing, hygrothermal characterisation via environmental monitoring, and sustainable building and urban design. She is currently teaching on the MEng Engineering and Architectural Design, a joint programme between UCL CEGE, UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering and The Bartlett School of Architecture.
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Colin King
UKCMB Commerical Director
Colin is the Director of BRE, as well as BRE’s lead officer on historic structures, existing housing and building solutions pre- and post-refurbishment. He is also a well-known expert in moisture in buildings, and sits on a number of standards committees and policy bodies in this regard including BS5250, PAS 2030 and PAS2035 and e BSi Retrofit Taskforce. He is currently involved in the latest review of Part C of the Building Regulations for England. Colin is the commercial director of the UKCMB and works particularly on standards, policy work, training and commercial projects and opportunities.
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Valentina Marincioni
Technical Manager
Valentina is a research engineer in building physics with a background in thermo-mechanical engineering. Her main research focuses on moisture transfer within internally insulated solid walls. She worked on the research and development of an internal wall insulation system, using laboratory experiments and in-situ measurements.
Her EngD project, sponsored by Natural Building Technologies, aims at developing a framework for the probabilistic moisture risk assessment of internal wall insulation. A tool based on the framework could help designers making informed decisions about insulation strategies during retrofit projects.
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Athina Petsou
The title of her PhD is:
Reducing energy consumption and the unintended consequences of energy-efficient intervention in historic buildings: understanding, assessing and addressing thermal discomfort
Reducing energy consumption is one of the most urgent challenges of our times. The need for more sustainable cities sets off the research and understanding of traditional building techniques since historic buildings constitute 25% of the European built environment1. It is commonly believed that historical buildings are not energy efficient, a belief that is counter proven by the latest scientific research2. Before the industrial revolution, the design and the building materials were fundamental to the building thermal performance and indoors conditions. This project aims to identify the most critical factors affecting the users’ thermal comfort in historic buildings and then develop innovative approaches for the definition, assessment and quantification of thermal discomfort. The project also looks at the quantification of environmental and financial benefits of these methodologies (energy efficiency, carbon reduction) to protect the building fabric and its social significance. A historic building has a cultural and monumental value, interacts with local communities and is part of living memory. Protecting it and learning from the past can open new ways of designing for different lifestyles and preventing negative consequences due to maladaptation, such as failure of the building fabric, increased use of energy and carbon and health issues.