Professor Rajat Gupta

• Building performance evaluation: ARCH 7025

Professor Gupta’s teaching interests lie in building performance evaluation (BPE) and low carbon building technologies. He has taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the School (formerly Department) of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. Currently he leads a postgraduate module on building performance evaluation (formerly post-occupancy building evaluation) (since 2004) as part of the MSc Sustainable Architecture: Evaluation and Design. From 2008-2011, Prof Gupta developed and led the Low carbon building technologies (LCBT) module (2008-2011), as part of the MSc Sustainable Building: Performance and Design programme. These modules are informed by cutting-edge research on carbon counting, building performance evaluation and low carbon building.

The BPE module (one of its kind) uses an innovative experiential learning-by-doing approach, whereby students, in groups of three or four, assess the actual sustainability performance of real case study buildings and live projects designed by leading architectural practices such as Penoyre & Prasad Architects, PRP Architects and Ridge & Partners. Learning from the BPE studies are shared with the respective design and engineering practices through reports and student-led workshops (held in architects’ offices), resulting in effective collaborations between academia and industry.

Current supervisor of PhD students as Director of Studies in Oxford Brookes University:

1. Luka Oreskvoic (Expected completion 2021), Evaluating the real environmental performance of an exemplar eco-housing development in Oxfordshire
2. Jonida Murataj (Expected completion 2022), Investigating the most effective retrofitting strategies for improving comfort and energy use in residential buildings in Albania

PhD students supervised to successful completion:

1. Marina Topouzi (2016) Occupants’ interaction with low-carbon retrofitted homes and its impact on energy use. Oriel College, University of Oxford, UK (As Second Supervisor)
2. Joaquim Flores (2014) Introduction of energy efficiency measures in the refurbishment of traditional buildings in Porto, Portugal. Oxford Brookes University, UK (As Second Supervisor)
3. Robert Irving (2013) Assessing the potential of heat pumps to reduce energy-related carbon emissions from UK housing. (As Director of Studies)
4. Paula Naukkarinen (2012) Energy-efficient renovation of hotels: the case of Cyprus (As Director of Studies)
5. Daniel Santana (2011) Socio-technical study of water use and conservation in Brazilian dwellings (As Director of Studies)
6. Ahmadreza Foruzanmehr (2010) Integrating vernacular passive-cooling systems into modern buildings in warm dry climates of Iran (As Director of Studies)

External PhD examination:

1. Andrew Marsh (2021) Thermal control in UK student accommodation. University College London, UK
2. Mikkel Poulsen Rydborg (2020) Climate change adaptation of low-energy, low-rise housing in oceanic climate zones. Aalborg University, Denmark
3. Salah Krimly (2020) Prospects for improvement in the design of residential building in Jeddah integrating passive ventilations technology and enhanced social interaction. University of Nottingham, UK
4. Martin Fletcher (2020) Thermal comfort in sport facilities: an evaluation of conventional methods and perspectives. Leeds Beckett University, UK
5. Sleiman Farah (2019) Impacts of climate change and use of energy storage in residential solar systems on the grid. University of South Australia, Australia
6. Rajat Aggrawal (2018) Optimization of energy efficient building envelope, IIT Delhi, INDIA
7. Michelle Lakeridou (2017) The potential for introducing minimum cooling set points in air conditioned offices: a UK case study. University College London, UK
8. Md Mohataz Hossain (2017) Improving environmental condition of workspaces of multi-storied ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh. University of Nottingham, UK
9. James Pittam (2016) Thermal analysis of residential housing.Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland
10. Tia Kansara (2016) Impact of increasing temperatures on thermal comfort and energy demand of transition zones in Abu Dhabi. Re-submission and re-viva. University College London, UK
11. Yanti Chen (2015) What is the relationship between design excellence and building performance, with particular reference to award-winning schools in the UK.University of Nottingham, UK
12. Matt Fox (2015) Thermography approaches for building defect detection.University of Plymouth, UK
13. Michele Agha-Hossein (2014) POE studies of an office environment.University of Reading, UK
14. Tia Kansara (2014) The impact on thermal comfort, health and energy consumption by a 1ºC intervention on building transitional zones in Abu Dhabi.University College London, UK
15. Rebecca Collins (2014) Local Projects for Sustainable Energy. Birmingham City University, UK
16. N Zaid (2013) Measuring GHG emissions in Malaysian low-cost housing. UNSW, AUSTRALIA
17. Miroslava Kavgic (2013) A city-scale physically disaggregated bottom-up energy model: technical options for decarbonising Belgrade residential stock. University College London, UK
18. Jonathan Taylor (2012) Predicting Microbial Risk in Flooded London Dwellings, Using Microbial, Hygrothermal, and GIS Modelling.University College London, UK
19. Meenakshi Sahu (2011) Optimization of energy efficient building envelope, IIT Delhi, INDIA
20. Cathryn M Hamilton (2011) The role of local government to support community carbon reduction: an analysis of capacity to act and climate change governance,University of South Australia, AUSTRALIA

Internal PhD examination:

21. Shahaboddin Resalati (2015) An assessment methodology for enviro-economic justification of new low and zero carbon building technologies, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Rajat’s research interests lie in evaluating building performance from a socio-technical perspective, smart energy systems, local area energy mapping, scaling up energy retrofits, indoor air quality and overheating in care settings and homes. As Principal Investigator (PI) he has won over £13 million in research grants from UK Research Councils (EPSRC, ESRC, NERC), EU, Innovate UK, United Nations and industry to investigate these subjects.

Rajat has been academic lead on major interdisciplinary research projects that include evaluating the impacts of low carbon communities using action research (£1.14 m ESRC/EPSRC energy and communities EVALOC project, RES-628-25-0012), suburban neighbourhood adaptation for a changing climate (SNACC, EP/G060959/1), scaling up energy retrofits (Innovate UK LEMUR project) and smart storage and local sharing of solar electricity in a cluster of dwellings in Oxford (Innovate UK ERIC project).

Rajat is currently PI of the £1.3 million EPSRC-DST Newton Fund sponsored RESIDE project on residential building energy demand reduction in India (EP/R008434/1, 2017-2022) that was ranked no. 1 amongst 22 proposals. He was UK lead of the successfully-completed RAEng Newton Fund project on customising building performance evaluation for India (Learn-BPE, £50k, 2017-2019) which led to the development and application of a customised BPE protocol (I-BPE) for 10 green buildings in India. Rajat was also leader of the United Nations funded project on mainstreaming sustainable social housing in India (MaS-SHIP, 2017-2019, £140k) that produced a sustainability assessment toolkit for housing developers and policy briefings for the Government.

Rajat is presently Co-Investigator (Co-I) on the £8 million EPSRC EnergRev project on scaling up smart local energy systems, PI of the £382k EPSRC EnergyREV Plus project on smart energy tools for enhancing user engagement in local energy projects (EP/S03188X/1) and lead academic in the Innovate UK £13.8 million smart local energy system demonstrator, Local Energy Oxfordshire (Project reference: 104781). He is also lead academic on two UK Government BEIS funded projects - £1.2 million Tcosy2 project on Holistic cost-efficient cladding system with integrated mechanical ventilation and £712k Breathe project on Bringing Renewable Energy Automation To Homes Everywhere. Rajat was leader of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) funded seminal study on ‘Care provision fit for a future climate’ that monitored overheating risk in four care homes outside London. He is currently Co-I on two NERC funded projects worth £1.09million on climate resilience of care settings (NE/T013729/1 and NE/S016767/1). He has also led a Building Performance Network sponsored study on State of the Nation Review of Housing Performance in the UK.

Rajat is Director of the international Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) network and member of the EPSRC and ESRC peer review colleges. He was scientific chair of the international Architectural Science Association (ASA) 2019 conference held in IIT Roorkee (India) and attended by 200 delegates. Rajat has lectured widely (UK, Europe, North America, Australia and Asia) and delivered 50 conference keynotes. He has produced over 150 peer-reviewed publications that include strategic research papers on the future direction of energy demand research and evaluation of an innovative national deep renovation programme, as well as reports for UNEP/UNFCCC on greening housing and climate change adaptation of the built environment.

Rajat is on the editorial boards of Energy and Buildings journal (Elsevier), International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development (Taylor & Francis) and Advances in Building Energy Research journal (Taylor & Francis). Rajat is currently external examiner for the MSc Energy and Sustainable Building Design programme at the School of Energy & Sustainable Development, De Montfort University. He has been a member of external validation panels for Masters Programmes in the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture and University of Bath. He has examined 20 PhD students in the UK, India, Republic of Ireland, Denmark and Australia.

Research grants and funding

Awards and honours

Rajat's impact case tudy on carbon mapping (DECoRuM®model) has been returned for REF 2021 (Unit of Assessment: 13) and REF 2014. DECoRuM® is an award-winning Geographic Information System (GIS)-based domestic energy mapping software. It can rapidly and accurately identify appropriate dwellings for area-based energy retrofits at a neighbourhood or city scale.  The DECoRuM® model has provided a range of environmental, public policy and practice benefits to low-carbon community organisations, local authorities, architects and householders.

The JRF funded care provision fit for a future climate project has been widely cited in the National Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 and led to development of Public Health England’s ‘Beat the Heat: care home overheating checklist’ that has been downloaded by over 2000 care sector organisations.

The EPSRC funded WLP+ project (2016-2019) has shown empirically a link between indoor environment and workplace productivity (8% drop in productivity over 1000ppm of CO2 levels). British Council for Offices (BCO) published the project report and shared the results with FM companies such as Emcor who have applied the project findings for management of their buildings, including the National Air Traffic Service building in Southampton.

The BEIS funded projects on thermal efficiency and demand side response have led to 50% energy reduction in 40 homes in Barnsley and block of flats in Great Yarmouth.

The Indo-UK Newton Fund sponsored Learn-BPE project has for the first time, created a customised version of building performance evaluation (I-BPE) for the Indian green building marketplace, and has been applied to 193,000 square metres of building area, while the decision support toolkit created as part of the UN funded MaS-SHIP project has been taken up by two major developers in India - Mahindra Lifespaces and Adlakha developers.

As part of the Learn-BPE project, six Oxford Brookes students from the Masters in Sustainable Architecture programme were sponsored to conduct BPE studies of eight green buildings, as part of their Masters dissertations in 2018 and 2019. This helped to strongly link research and teaching. Such recognition has helped students to find employment in India and abroad (UAE).

Further information

• UK Research Council projects
• Innovate UK projects 
• Innovate UK Project LEO
• Innovate UK Project ERIC/Community controlled energy 
• Inovate UK Project LEMUR
• EU funded Zero Plus project

• Member of Oxford-Cambridge ARC Universities Group on Zero Carbon initiative, 2021- 2023
• Steering group member of the interdisciplinary theme on Healthy Ageing & Care Network, Oxford Brookes University, 2020-2022
• Member of British Standards Institution (BSI) CB/401 committee - Retrofitting Energy Efficiency Measures, 2020 - present
• Grant panel member of EPSRC End use energy demand technology call 1 (2019) and  call 2 (2020)
• Judge for the RIBA President's Awards for Research 2019
• Member of BRAC Domestic Energy Technical Working Group, 2019 - present
• Director of international Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) network, 2019-2023
• External assessor of BEIS-funded £3 million Demonstration of Energy Efficiency Potential (DEEP) research project, 2019-2022
• Grant panel member for EPSRC/CREDS flexible funding on energy demand solutions, 2019
• External examiner for the MSc Energy and Sustainable Building Design programme at the School of Energy & Sustainable Development, De Montfort University, 2018-2022
• Member of UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships programme Peer Review College, 2018 - 2021
• Member of Senior Academic Promotions Committee, Oxford Brookes University, 2018-2021
• Founder member of the Building Performance Network (BPN), 2018 - present
• Member of EPSRC and ESRC Peer Review Colleges, 2017 - present
• Founder Director of Eco-Bicester Living Lab, 2016 - present
• Member of BSI committee on Energy Management (SEM/1), 2014 - present
• Evaluator on the Innovate UK (formerly TSB) £8 million Building Performance Evaluation programme, 2010-2014
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 2006 - present