- Manfren, M., Sibilla, M., & Tronchin L, (2021). Energy modelling and analytics in the built environment - A review of their role for energy transitions in the construction sector. Energies, 14(3), 679.
- Sibilla, M., (2020). Buildings-as-Energy-Service. A Tool Kit for re-thinking about a new generation of buildings as components of a future energy infrastructure. Firenze: Altralinea Edizioni, ISBN: 978-88-94869-97-2.
- Kurul, E. & Sibilla, M. (2020). Rethinking Buildings. Should buildings simply be enclosures that house different functions?
Envisioning BasES (Buildings-as-Energy-Service)
Principal Investigator(s): Dr Esra Kurul
Contact: msibilla@brookes.ac.uk
Project start: February 2020
Project finish: July 2020
Funded by: N+
About us
The main aim of this project is to develop a toolkit for knowledge integration. The toolkit will envisage buildings as components of future Distributed Renewable and Interactive Energy Systems (DRIs).
This ambitious proposal involves:
- exploring and analysing the emergent properties of DRI at local level
- developing, testing and implementing the toolkit.
The specific objective concerns the use of the toolkit in the organisation of a Technology Support Net (TSN) for Buildings-as-a-Service. TSN includes a multitude of actors who often have different perspectives and scopes. They all work collaboratively in order to establish:
- work rules
- requisite skills
- work contents
- standards and measures
- and culture and organisational patterns with regard to the emergent systems.
Buildings-as-Energy-Service is a completely new topic so an appropriate TSN is needed urgently.
Research impact
We created a conceptual framework to envision buildings as energy services which:
- consists of 5 main categories and 15 lines of research
- enhances and integrates the socio-technical complexity around buildings as energy services.
The framework promotes a better understanding of socio-technical implications in adopting the DRIs vision. So by exploring these factors, we formed the basis on which to organise a dedicated Technology Support Net (TSN) for DRIs.
The scope of this conceptual framework is not to include all the information on the socio-technical energy transition. Instead it identifies some of the key areas where an inter and trans-disciplinary approach could be developed.
We transferred the conceptual framework into a cognitive tool. This was tested, implemented and disseminated with a survey and online focus groups. Gathering opinions from academic and non-academic stakeholders on both the content and function of the toolkit allowed us to improve the quality of it.
Leadership
Dr Esra Kurul
Reader in Organisational Studies in the Built Environment