News
2025
A half-day IDRL Symposium is scheduled on March 18, 2025. Here is agenda.
Indya Barginere and Violet Drinkwater’s microalgae concrete project, captured in a photograph by Hamideh Hossei, has received an award in the national Framing the Future: Industrial Technologies Photo Contest, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Read more.
Hosseini, S. S., Ardabili, B. R., Azarbayjani, M., & Tabkhi, H. (2025). Demographic Disparities, Service Efficiency, Safety, and User Satisfaction in Public Bus Transit System: A Survey-based Case Study in the City of Charlotte, NC. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 29, 101296.
2024
Hamideh Hossei continues her work at the Integrated Design Research Lab (IDRL) as a Postdoctoral Researcher. She earned her Ph.D. in Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering from UNC Charlotte in 2024. Her doctoral research focused on the comprehensive assessment of various BIPV typologies to address the Duck Curve problem.
Hossei, Hamideh, and Kyoung Hee Kim. “Comprehensive analysis of energy and visual performance of building-integrated photovoltaics in all ASHRAE climate zones.” Energy and Buildings 317 (2024): 114369.
Hossei, Hamideh, and Kyoung Hee Kim. “Assessing the PV-integrated south facade in mitigating the BIPV system oversupply.” Energy Reports 12 (2024): 4594-4606.
Rashvand, N., Hosseini, S., Azarbayjani, M., Tabkhi, H., (2024). Real-Time Bus Departure Prediction Using Neural Networks for Smart IoT Public Bus Transit, IoT 2024, https://doi.org/10.3390/iot5040029.
Kyoung Hee Kim and her students are featured in a video showcasing high-performance microalgae windows. Watch here: YouTube.
2023
Mona Azarbayjani’s publication “High-Performance Double Skin Facade Buildings” provides a comprehensive theoretical platform for the use and construction of double skin façade projects. The DSF concept has been used mostly in European buildings; however, its success in other climates should be addressed. Increasing numbers of buildings are featuring double skin façade technology in the US; however, still relatively few have been studied for their performance in operation.
Elena Vazquez Pena has received the 2023 Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) Dissertation Award. Founded in 1976, the ARCC is an international association of architectural research centers, academies and organizations committed to the research culture and supporting infrastructure of architecture and related design disciplines. The award, presented with the Association for Architectural Education, recognizes one dissertation each year. Her research has been published in articles in the Journal of Facade Design and Engineering, Smart Materials and Structures, and in the SPIE Conference Proceedings, Behavior and Mechanics of Multifunctional Materials XVI. January-11.
2022
Mona Azarbayjani and Hamed Tabkhi (Engineering) have received a received a $255,992 Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I (STTR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Their PhD student Roshanak Ashrafi, a candidate in the interdisciplinary Infrastructures and Environmental Systems (INES) program, recently received third place for her oral presentation at the 2022 Graduate Research Symposium. Their team also won second place in the Epic Innovator competition.
Kyoung Hee Kim recently published her book Microalgae Building Enclosures: Design and Engineering Principles (Routledge).
Kyoung Hee Kim and Matthew Parrow (UNC Charlotte Microbial Ecophysiology and Evolution Laboratory) were selected as finalists for the 2022 Latrobe Prize, a biennial $100,000 award granted by the AIA College of Fellows for research leading to significant advances in the architecture profession.
Kyoung Hee Kim’s Type III proposal in collaboration with systems engineering titled “Human-Data-Driven Optimization for Pandemic-Resilient Facility Layout Planning” has also been selected for funding by the CoEN Seed Grant program.
Liz McCormick organized and moderated a Inside | Out symposium on the state of fresh air and human health in buildings on March 31, 2022. The event brought together speakers from both practice and academia to discuss alternate modes of indoor habitation “after” COVID.
Liz McCormick was selected to participate in the Timber Design Faculty Development Workshop at Clemson University, May 16-19.
Liz McCormick has won a 2022 ACSA/AIAS New Faculty Teaching award.
Ketki Bapat (dual MS+MArch) received the first place award for oral presentation at the 21st Annual Graduate Research Symposium at UNC Charlotte on March 31.
Kyoung Hee Kim delivered a knowledge event lecture “Carbon Neutral Building Enclosures” to BECC/AIAC on March 30, 2022.
2021
Greg Snyder, Emily Makas and a team including Fernando Claudio Rodriguez, Sierra Grant, Emma Lineberger, and other students celebrated the opening of Container / Contained: Phil Freelon – Design Strategies for Telling African American Stories at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.
Mona Azarbayjani was recently awarded Gambrell Faculty Fellowships.
Mona Azarbayjani and her PhD student Armin Amirazar contributed to the co-authored article “Low-Cost and Portable Device for Measuring Spectrum of Light Source as a Stimulus for the Human’s Circadian System” in Energy and Buildings Journal.
Kyoung-Hee Kim and the IDRL won a 2021 Architect R+D award for the project “Biochromic Window,” currently installed on the second floor of Storrs.
Hamideh Hosseini was recently awarded a Love of Learning Award from The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Hosseini is one of 200 recipients to receive the award.
Kyoung Hee Kim joined as a panelist at the 2021 AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference: Communities fall conference.