About us

We aim to pave the way for a new generation of digital buildings that have lifelong resilience and adaptability to their environment, usage and occupancy.

This will be made possible by smart materials and products, integrated design and manufacturing systems, and total lifecycle approaches.

View our Knoholem project update

We are interested in investigating how to ensure optimum resilience, sustainability, and continual fitness for purpose on our existing building stock and how to best deliver new or refurbished human-centred buildings that address lifetime requirements and are adaptable and resilient.

Buildings should have the ability to be context-aware, ie factor in environmental and user needs, such as behaviour and lifestyle patterns, and thus be adaptive to change. There is a need to re-think the concept of a building and move from traditional ‘low value’ components towards extended IT-aware materials and products embedding various forms of intelligence.

Recognition and awards

Our Centre leader Professor Yacine Rezgui is a qualified architect and holds the BRE Chair in Building Systems and Informatics. Our researchers are members and chairs of various academic and engineering organisations such as the:

• International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineers Working Commission on Information Technology
• European Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering
• Board of the Association of European Civil Engineering Faculty
• British Computer Society
• Society of Collaborative Networks.

We have been awarded prizes including the Literati Club Award for Excellence and the Donald Julius Groen Prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.