Fulltime, two-year trainee position at the PDEng program 'Smart Buildings & Cities' of the Eindhoven University of Technology. The position will be part of a larger team working on a project for the government as part of the National Climate Agreement, aiming to accelerate and support the large-scale sustainable renovation of the housing stock. We are looking for candidates with a strong interest in the built environment and an MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical or Environmental Engineering, or equivalent. Knowledge from sustainable renovation, HVAC-systems and construction processes and experience in Building Performance Simulation are beneficial.

 

Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program

The Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stake holders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

After the two year program our trainees become technical designers with a broad technological understanding of the disciplines relevant to the above mentioned smart cities themes (architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building physics and services and ICT), who excel in their own discipline and who are able to work in multidisciplinary design teams, contribute to design issues outside their own core disciplines, integrate different technologies into new products and concepts, and who understand the commercial aspects of these innovative products and concepts.



Job description

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The program consists of two main parts running in parallel:

- Half of the program consists of post-master level education in the form of generic design projects and courses about design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills. Furthermore, it includes several technical courses about topics relevant to SB&C. This part of the program also offers ample opportunity to develop professional skills.

- The other half of the program is dedicated to an individual design project in collaboration with a company. It is the trainees' main responsibility to manage and execute the project. Each trainee is supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the designed product or process is part of the final deliverables.



The company design project related to this traineeship is described below.



Company design project:

As part of the Green New Deal, all European countries will engage in a 'renovation wave' of public and private buildings to achieve a carbon-neutral built environment by 2050. The current European market for the sustainable renovation of the housing stock is too small, leading to high costs and little innovation. As part of the National Climate Agreement of the Netherlands, the acceleration of the large-scale renovation of the housing stock is identified as one of the key challenges. However, in addition to mere scale, the increased demand for renovations should be standardized to create the market conditions that allow for industrialisation and innovation, to ultimately lead to cost reduction. The demand for renovations needs to be structured in a way that will allow the building industry to offer standardized solutions that allow for large scale, high-speed construction processes.



As part of the National Climate Agreement, a few ingredients are identified that are necessary to achieve these ideal market condition for standardization and industrialization. Firstly, housing renovations should not be brought to the market on an individual basis, but instead, they should be clustered to form a couple of hundred housing renovations in one collective procurement 'bid'.  Secondly, these larger-scale clusters of housing renovations should consist of similar housing types, with similar renovation measures. Therefore, a housing classification system will be developed, which defines clusters of housing types and their optimal renovation strategies to be adopted in the collective procurement of renovations.



The in-company assignment that this PDEng project will focus on is specifically targeting the development of a prototype system for this housing classification system. For this purpose, a parametric study using dynamic building performance simulation is proposed. The parametric study has to include variations related to: 1) renovation solutions, including various insulation strategies and HVAC systems; 2) dwellings, exploring the variations of the characteristics within a single type of dwelling (e.g. rowhouses 1945-1990); 3) users, varying occupancy profiles and behavioral profiles. The outcomes of this parametric study using dynamic simulations will be evaluated in relation to summer comfort, winter comfort, indoor climate, peak demand of the grid, and optimized according to costs and CO2 emissions during a certain lifespan. Based on this comprehensive parametric study, a housing classification system will be derived that is based on dwellings in a particular class having the same 'optimal' renovation solution. A preliminary 'proof of concept' study has already indicated that this 'optimal' solution may vary greatly depending on the specific characteristics of the dwelling.

 

The PDEng trainee will be embedded in the Building Performance group - www.tue.nl/buildingperformance. For questions about the project contact prof.ir. Elphi Nelissen

Who can apply?

We are looking for an excellent and highly motivated candidate with:

• an MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical, Environmental Engineering, Real Estate, Building Management, or equivalent,

• an interest in sustainable renovation and the technical aspects this relates to (e.g. HVAC systems, insulation strategies, renewable energy, user behavior, etc.)

• an interest in building performance simulation

• an academic attitude in order to analyze and perform applied research with an integral view on what is needed for the future built environment in respect to sustainable renovation

• an excellent command of the English language, both in speaking and writing.

 

What do we provide?

We offer a fulltime traineeship of two years. The traineeship is a formal employment at the Eindhoven University of Technology according to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (CAO-NU). Trainees receive a financial compensation according to this standard. Gross salary: € 1913.



Trainees are provided with their own work place in the building of the Department of the Built Environment. The university provides all general modern facilities belonging to first class universities; mediation in housing, excellent sports facilities, language courses, modern digital library facilities etc. For more information please visit http://www.tue.nl/en/.