Recording: From Bottle Walls to Bat Roofs: Innovative housing design to keep cool in the tropics

Dr Ben Roberts will discuss the findings from recent research projects from homes and test buildings in Nigeria and Ghana with the aim to adapt and retrofit homes to keep them cool, comfortable, and healthy.

Dr Ben Roberts is a Lecturer in Building Energy at Loughborough University. Ben’s research covers heat management in buildings with a focus on improving occupant thermal comfort, adaptation of buildings for cooling, and reliable overheating modelling. In tropical climates, Ben is researching passive ventilation strategies to keep homes in informal settlements cool without air-conditioning that are affordable and use locally available materials. He has recently published work on innovative construction materials to provide better thermal comfort in tropical climates. In temperate climates, Ben is investigating how to ensure that the predictions of overheating by models are accurate for the new building regulations. He has published award-winning research on the subject and is currently leading the Reliable Overheating Modelling in Modern Apartments (ROMMA) project. https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/abce/staff/ben-roberts/ and https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/experts/ben-roberts/