Architecture for Human Environment with Smart Technologies 2024-2025

Swiss-Korean Academic Exchange Programme for master students of EPFL, HEIA-FR and UNIFR: Study of the synergy of architectural design, human factors, and technologies in the office buildings and their combined effect on the indoor environmental quality and human-building interaction in the context of the local culture and architecture in the post pandemic era.

The strong traditions, use of advanced technologies and direction towards a sustainable society, that Switzerland and South Korea share, pave the way to the international cooperation between two countries to raise awareness about urbanism and related social issues and facilitate solutions inspired by different cultures and policies.

Through the collaborative work of Swiss and Korean academicians and students from different disciplines, the ARC-HEST programme aims to comprehensively study the working environment in each country in conjunction with the local culture and architecture

The 3rd edition of the ARC-HEST joint pedagogical programme in the framework of two-week long Exchange Schools, a Summer School 2024 in South Korea and Winter School 2025 in Switzerland, offers lectures, workshops, and studios. The essential part of each Exchange School is the visit of 3 case study buildings by students and the analysis of the current state of the building design, operation, indoor comfort, occupant’s satisfaction, and behavior by different student groups. The main task of the student groups is to design a building assessment method, and to collect, process and evaluate data from the existing buildings. Based on the findings, the groups developed innovative solutions for the improvement of the built indoor environment, the satisfaction of the occupants with the building, and human-building interaction in the context of the diversity of occupants and architectural design across Switzerland and South Korea.

Behavior of buildings and indoor environmental quality are generally different for heating (Winter) and cooling (Summer) seasons. For these reasons, the topic of Summer comfort was investigated in Switzerland during the Summer Exchange School from 22 August to 1st September 2022 and the topic of Winter comfort was studied in South Korea during the Winter Exchange School from 6 to17 February 2023.

Each Exchange School involved a total of selected 30 students equally shared between 2 countries; the students were committed to participating in both Exchange Schools and had good communication and written English. Each country coordinated the selection of students that applied at the three individual universities. However, the trans-disciplinary approach was identified as the fundamental element for the generation of innovative solutions applied to the built environment within the framework of this exchange programme. Therefore, the common selection guidance was to aim for an interdisciplinary mix of excellent students.

Targeted Outcomes

• Establishment of the long-term cooperation programme between the partners, facilitate the exchange of ideas among students and enhance creativity.
• Increased mutual knowledge of Swiss and Korean cultures and traditions in architecture, engineering, and technology.
• Reinforced Swiss scientific and cultural presence in the fields of architecture and construction in East-Asia and vice versa.
• Dissemination of the results of the two Exchange Schools - production of the short video and publication of the illustrated book based on the contribution of students.
• Joint research topics originated from the meeting of different competencies among the academicians of the universities involved in the programme.
• Long-term research cooperation and scientific publications as a result of the joint research.

ECTS Credits

The programme is equivalent to a semester project and offers 4 ECTS for Master students at EPFL (ENAC), 5 ECTS for Master students at UNIFR, 6 ECTS for Master students at HEIA-FR.

Information

Events

Video

Gallery

Academic Partners

SungKyunKwan University
EWHA Womans University
Hanyang University

Co-organizer

Co-working spaces

Team | Contact

Dolaana Khovalyg

Head of Laboratory of Integrated Comfort Engineering (ICE)
Tenure Track Assistant Professor - EPFL
-energy efficiency
-heat recovery
-heating, ventilation and air-conditioning HVAC

Dusan Licina

Head of Human-Oriented Built Environment Lab (HOBEL)
Tenure Track Assistant Professor- EPFL
-human-building interaction
-heating, ventilation and air-conditioning HVAC
-health and comfort in buildings

Raphaël Compagnon

TRANSFORM Institute
Associate Professor UAS- HEIA-FR
-spatial analysis or planning
-efficient energy strategies and regulation
-renewable energy

Götz Menzel

TRANSFORM Institute
Associate Professor UAS- HEIA-FR

Denis Lalanne

Head of Human-IST Institute
Professor- UNIFR
-data visualization
-human-centered multimodal interfaces
-human-building interaction

Julien Nembrini

Human-IST Institute
Senior Researcher- UNIFR
-modeling, simulations and algorithms
-human-building interaction
-user-centered interfaces

Martin Gonzenbach

Director of Operations EPFL Fribourg and Smart Living Lab
-modeling, simulations and algorithms
-technology transfer
-administration