BEEE LoCHs Research Team Received Best Paper Awards at Healthy Buildings 2023 and ISHVAC 2023

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to share the news that BEEE Postdoc fellow Li Jia-nong (first author) and PhD student Wang Jiawei (second author) in Prof Niu Jianlei’s research team have received Best Paper Awards for the excellence of research papers presented in both Healthy Buildings 2023 Asia and Pacific Rim (Healthy Buildings 2023, June) and the 13th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (ISHVAC 2023, November). The two conferences are all top conferences of the field.

The Healthy Buildings, a triennial event organized by the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) since 1988, and The International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (ISHVAC) initiated in 1991 in Beijing, are widely recognized as two of the most influential international conferences in the field of healthy building environment and energy engineering. The Best Paper Award was established in both conferences to recognize the excellence and significance of the research presented in the conference paper. 

The award-winning research paper in Healthy Building 2023 is titled ‘Elderly residents’ uses of fragmented outdoor spaces in public housing estates in Hong Kong’ which decodes the causality of usage behaviour and heat-risk exposures of elderly residents. The other award-winning research paper in ISHVAC 2023 is titled ‘Linking passive observation and agent-based simulation to better understand the usage behaviour of elderly residents in public squares’ which introduces a novel simulation tool to examine the efficiency of different shade configurations in public squares in optimizing square usage and mitigating heat risks. The research was based on Prof. Niu’s recent Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) Funded Program titled ‘Healthy and Resilient City with Pervasive LoCHs’, and it has received praising feedback after Li Jia-nong’s presentations in Healthy Building 2023 and ISHVAC 2023, recognizing its importance in providing basis and inspiring future related research.

We would like to offer the warmest congratulations to Prof. Niu Jianlei’s team for the excellent achievement in Healthy Building 2023 and ISHVAC 2023. Please follow the latest research under Prof. Niu’s TRS funded program for more information about the development of healthy and resilient cities with pervasive LoCHs.