Researcher/Post-Doc on Interactions and Potential Trade-offs between Circularity, Climate Resilience, and Energy Performance

Delft University of Technology is hiring a researcher/Post-Doc on "Multi-hazard Resilient and Low Carbon Façade Technologies". The position is part of the Horizon Europe MULTICARE project.

The MULTICARE project seeks to address the clear gap in existing frameworks and tools for assessing the comprehensive socio-economic, environmental, and resilience impacts of extreme natural events on infrastructures. Currently, there's a significant lack of integrated approaches to understanding climate impacts, resource sustainability, and energy demands in the context of urban development and building design. The project aims to address this need by developing and prototyping solutions in Amsterdam, with a physical demonstrator in the East of the city and a virtual demonstrator encompassing the entire city centre.

We are looking for a dedicated researcher or Post-Doc who will focus on assessing the interactions and potential trade-offs between circularity, climate resilience, and energy performance across different scales - from individual buildings to neighbourhoods.

As part of a team of academic and industry partners, the candidate will help develop a multi-criteria decision-support framework to aid in evaluating and selecting solutions. This role involves significant collaboration in creating a virtual demonstrator for the MULTICARE project, highlighting key areas such as circularity and embodied carbon assessment.

Key tasks include:

• Developing and refining theoretical and methodological approaches for cross-topic impact assessments, identifying trade-offs at different scales.
• Applying these frameworks to case studies within the MultiCare project to test and validate them.
• Contributing to developing spatial decision-support and parametric design tools, as well as a design handbook in close collaboration with industry partners.

The position is funded for 2.5 years (0,8 FTE). The project will offer opportunities to collaborate with industrial partners and academics from other disciplines, as required (human comfort and building physics, façade design and engineering, climate design, probability and uncertainty analysis, seismic and structural design).

The researcher will be affiliated with TU Delft, Environmental Technology & Design at the Department of Urbanism and with the AMS is hosting an interdisciplinary team of Research Fellows from TU Delft, Wageningen University & Research and MIT. Within AMS Institute, the MULTICARE project team consists of a Project Manager, a climate resilience Research Fellow, an urban energy Research Engineer. This role would complete the project team as a circularity Research Fellow.

About the MULTICARE project:
This large international project aims to create a more resilient built environment by providing digital tools for assessing, improving and responding to future climate threats, and by providing corresponding technological construction solutions to improve the resilience of buildings. In particular, the project will develop (i) novel multi-criteria decision-support frameworks and a suite of digital services to facilitate the whole-life cycle multi-hazard resilience assessment, design and management across material-to-urban scales: (ii) low-carbon technologies to upgrade the resilience of buildings against multiple hazards, with a focus on climate-related extremes. The project results will be demonstrated in large-scale pilots (3 buildings, 4 neighbourhoods/cities) in different European countries with diverse conditions.

• You are a team player:
• You have shown your passion and excellence in the field of environmental research and design:
• You have a strong background in sustainability assessment, building and environmental technology, circularity principles in construction and urban design, and practical experience in architecture and urban design:
• You like working on the verge of academia and practice. Besides, you are open-minded, open to learning on the job:
• You should have knowledge and experience of GIS for spatial analysis and mapping of urban environments, with programming (e.g. Python):
• You have excellent language skills, both written and verbal and you enjoy to work in a team, take initiative, and to be results-oriented:
• You are available for at least two years starting in August 2024.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. T he TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

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Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core and we actively to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment has a leading role in education and research worldwide. The driving force behind the faculty's success is its robust research profile combined with the energy and creativity of its student body and academic community. It is buzzing with energy from early in the morning until late at night, with four thousand people studying, working, designing, conducting research and acquiring and disseminating knowledge. Our faculty has a strong focus on 'design-oriented research', which has given it a top position in world rankings.

Staff and students are working to improve the built environment with the help of a broad set of disciplines, including architectural design, urban planning, building technology, social sciences, process management, and geo-information science. The faculty works closely with other faculties, universities, private parties, and the public sector, and has an extensive network in the Netherlands as well as internationally.

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Department of Urbanism
The department of Urbanism is one of the four departments at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. The department sees Urbanism as an interdisciplinary planning and design activity that focuses on the (re)creation of sustainable urban landscapes aimed toward climate adaptability, circularity, social equity, and ecologically inclusive urbanisation at all scales. Urbanism has an international reputation for academic research, scholarship and education built on the Delft Approach to Urbanism. This is reflected in our mission: to advance, share and apply knowledge on how to adapt the built environment to societal and environmental changes, and on how to apply contextual design, planning and engineering strategies and interventions with impact for a better society.

Section of Environmental Technology & Design (ETD)
The section of Environmental Technology and Design (ETD) contributes to inter- and transdisciplinary, context-driven and solution-focused research and education for the sake of a better environment. It involves a joint design and engineering approach, with social-and environmental-based methods and techniques as operative instruments, as well as the development and application of advanced urban data science and geospatial information technologies to support this main aim. Research and education blends environmental technology, urban ecology, citizen participation and environmental behaviour at different scales. There is a strong emphasis on the interaction of these fields in terms of theories, methods and techniques, as well as their application via concepts, strategies and spatial interventions, as a significant part of ETD's research portfolio concerns applied science for and often with public and private partners.