MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the world's leading educational institutions and has few peers in engineering and the sciences. Its 154-acre campus extends for more than a mile along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. MIT enrolls 9,900 students, more than half in graduate programs, who are taught by and work with about 900 faculty. An independent, coeducational, privately endowed university, MIT divides its academic programs into five schools: Architecture and Planning, Engineering, Humanities and Social Science, Management, and Science.

The School of Architecture and Planning is home to the Media Laboratory, The Center for Real Estate, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Department of Architecture, the first university-based architecture program in the United States. The Department of Architecture in turn includes programs in Architectural Design, Visual Studies, History, Theory and Criticism of Art and Architecture, and Building Technology.

THE BUILDING TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM

Core faculty in this program, all trained in engineering disciplines, conduct research in building facades, ventilation, heat transfer, indoor air quality, control of HVAC systems and detection and diagnosis of HVAC faults, building-energy simulation and monitoring, and energy policy. Faculty in Building Technology collaborate with colleagues in mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering, material sciences, and MIT's Media Lab and Technology and Policy Program, thus substantially broadening the knowledge base and facilities devoted to building-technology research.

The program provides a focus for graduate students interested in the development and application of advanced technology for buildings of all types. Students in this program take subjects in basic engineering disciplines along with subjects that engage the application of these topics to buildings. The interdepartmental degrees, Master of Science in Building Technology and Ph.D. in Building Technology, are awarded by the program.

IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING TECHNOLOGY

The building industry represents one of the largest, and most important, enterprises in world. Some of the statistics for the US alone are quite staggering: roughly one quarter of the assets of large corporations are tied up in buildings and land; costs associated with housing are the largest single expenditure of an average family; about one third of all investment in the U.S. is for the construction of commercial and residential buildings; and new housing construction costs represent about eight percent of the annual GNP. The average American family constantly confronts problems of home affordability while shortages of minimally acceptable housing for lower-income families continue to grow. One third of the U.S. energy consumption is used in residential and commercial buildings and the percentage is growing relative to other sectors. For fast-growing economies in other parts of the world, there is a growing demand for practical, sustainable building designs that will provide a higher standard of living with minimal resource demand.

Many of these problems are being met both in the U.S. and internationally by innovations in building technology. These innovations, for example, apply recent advances in the fields of materials, manufacturing and thermal sciences to the construction of new buildings, to the retrofit or rehabilitation of existing buildings and to the efficient operation of buildings.

Graduates of the Building Technology program meet the need for a new generation of trained professionals in the building field who understand the technological fundamentals as well as the broader architectural design and construction processes. Likely careers of graduates are in the building materials industry, in building construction and industrialized buildings, as well as practice with architect-engineers, energy-efficiency consultants, and service within government and regulatory agencies related to housing and buildings.

RESEARCH

Research projects in the Building Technology Program range from experiments in specialized laboratories to field studies, computational analyses, and engineering and architectural design. Sponsorship has come from industry, foundations, and government agencies, with significant support from the National Science Foundation and from ASHRAE. Areas of current research include:

- Building Control and Diagnostics
- Building Energy Studies
- Building Materials
- Computer Graphics for Physical Performance
- Indoor Air Quality, Building Ventilation, and Indoor Environment Modeling
- Sustainable Building Design

Current and recently completed projects are as follows:

Building Controls and Diagnostics

- Ventilation Control Strategies
- Electric Metering and Diagnostics
- Simulation of HVAC System Performance

Building Energy Studies

- International Studies (Russia, Pakistan, India)
- Energy Conservation in Office Equipment and Lighting

Building Materials

- Composite Materials for Building Envelopes
- Advanced Thermal Insulations
- Thermal Insulation for Developing Countries
- Materials Selection
- Advanced Building Envelopes - an Energy Producing Wall
- Advanced Building Skins

Computer Graphics for Physical Performance

- Visualization of Light and Sound
- Modeling and Rendering of Weathered Materials

Indoor Air Quality, Building Ventilation, and Indoor Environment Modeling

- Indoor Air Quality in Ice Rinks
- Building Material Emissions and Indoor Air Quality
- Design Guidelines for Displacement Ventilation
- A New Turbulence Model for Airflow Prediction in a Room
- Large Eddy Simulation of Airflow in and Around Buildings
- Simplified Methods for Indoor Environment Modeling
- Simple Programs For Indoor Environment Design

Sustainable Building Design

- Alliance for Global Sustainability
- Energy-Efficient Buildings in Developing Countries

FACILITIES

Students and faculty in the Building Technology Program have access to a wide range of facilities. The Program maintains its own laboratory spaces for research, computation and teaching. These include a full-scale environmental chamber, small-scale prototyping facilities, and advanced workstations. Projects are also performed in the Mechanical Engineering department's Heat Transfer Laboratory, in the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems, in Civil and Environmental Engineering labs, and on-site in buildings. MIT's extensive system of networked computer workstations is also available.

Further Information

Further information is available in the homepage of the Building Technology Program or via telephone, mail, or email:

http://mit.edu/bt/www/

Building Technology Program
Room 5-418
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307
617-253-1876 (voice)
617-253-6152 (fax)
dorrit@mit.edu (email)