Projects

WBE

Improving the environmental performance of buildings is a key factor in climate change efforts, because building construction and operations are responsible for a large portion of Canada’s carbon emissions. The effort to reduce the emissions and energy consumption profiles of buildings is critical to municipal, provincial, federal and global targets. 

Meanwhile, we see a parallel rise in interest in subjective wellbeing (SWB), and community wellbeing (CWB). Wellbeing is expressed in activities ranging from meditation, to gardening, hiking, and the effect that our indoor environments have on wellbeing, health and productivity. Our focus in this project is on human wellbeing, at both individual and community levels, in the built environment. We see wellbeing as emerging from normal everyday activities called social practices. These practices are both shared and co-created between people. They, and wellbeing, are therefore a result of social and individual activities and qualities that can be structured by the built environment. 

There is a history of speculation about the effect building and infrastructure features on human wellbeing, but little evidence. We can ask people to assess their own sense of wellbeing, and satisfaction the comfort of their home, office, building and neighbourhood – and then we can assess how wellbeing and comfort interact. As a result we hope to learn how the built environment might enhance or decrease human wellbeing.

U of T’s interdisciplinary research group, led by PI Dr. John Robinson, believes that we can improve human wellbeing at the same time as environmental performance of our buildings. The research group’s goal is to understand how to develop net positive environmental and human performance outcomes in the built environment. 

PWBE and CWBE: Two SSHRC-funded projects on wellbeing and the built environment

The “Practicing Wellbeing in the Built Environment” (PWBE) and the “Community Wellbeing in the Built Environment” (CWBE) projects assess and interpret the wellbeing of occupants across five different buildings. We use qualitative and quantitative methods to understand how wellbeing might develop or be reduced as a result of daily activities in various built environment settings.

Team members

John Robinson
Marianne Touchie
Blake Poland
Alstan Jakubiec
Sylvia Coleman
Garrett Morgan
Yuan Cao

CMHC

Post-Occupancy Evaluations (POEs) are a tool used to assess how the actual performance of a building compares to the design intent as well as other building benchmarks including code compliant buildings. POEs involve data collection and assessment of both technical and human factors, depending on the design objectives of the particular building development. By identifying if and how design goals are met, the findings of a POE can then be useful for improving the performance of the subject building and, more broadly, for building developers, owners and operators in the design and operation of future buildings.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has commissioned POEs on two high performance buildings in the social housing sector located in Hamilton, Ontario. One is the Ken Soble Tower which has undergone a holistic retrofit in order to achieve the EnerPHit standard and the other is the YWCA, a new multi-unit development targeting the Passive House certification standard. 

Given the performance specifications and holistic approach used in the design of both of these buildings, CMHC wishes to document the technical performance of the buildings as well as resident perceptions of the indoor environmental quality, suitability of accessibility, social inclusion and other building livability features. The POEs will also assess innovative technologies and practices to better understand costs, benefits, implementation considerations, the impact of design and construction decisions on operations and residents.

Team

Marianne Touchie
Yuan Cao
Helen Stopps
Kirtan Singh
Sylvia Coleman

“Wellbeing and the built environment: a new framework for U of T campus building performance assessment”

The “Wellbeing and the built environment: a new framework” project is funded by U of T’s Dean’s Strategic Fund. A three-year project, the research will build on the WBE work, to pilot a new assessment framework which integrates GHG emissions, life cycle costs and inhabitant wellbeing. The framework will be applied before and after three to five campus building retrofits. The ultimate goal of this transformative project is to assess campus building performance from a triple-bottom-line perspective including the linking of environmental, economic and wellbeing objectives.  

Team

Marianne Touchie
John Robinson
Alstan Jakubiec
Blake Poland
Yildirim Serra 
Kirsten Stevens
Nastaran Makaremi