Campus as a Learning Lab

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    Open Access
    Toward Sustainable Transportation on Campus: Analysis and Results of the 2020 University of Calgary Commuting Habits Survey
    (2021-08-19) Kamkar, Hassan
    The University of Calgary, comprising more than 33,000 students and 7,000 employees, contributes significantly to the city's transportation demand and needs for different transportation modes. Thus, it is important to enhance the sustainable transportation network and shift commuters' transportation demand to more sustainable modes. With this aim, the Ancillary Services and Office of Sustainability of the university, in partnership with a research group from the Civil Engineering Department of the university, started a project called "Toward Sustainable Transportation on Campus". In order to obtain the required data for this project, an online survey was designed and distributed among university members to capture their commuting behaviour and their attitude toward various aspects of transportation. We investigated the gathered data to shed light on commuters' current situation travel patterns to and from the University of Calgary campuses. We also identified barriers to use each transportation mode and examined the satisfaction level commuters have with their trips. Based on the results obtained from our analysis, a set of recommendations is provided that could increase the desirability of sustainable transportation modes and encourage commuters to switch from private cars to public transit and active modes.
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    Open Access
    Contribution of the University of Calgary Institutional Sustainability Strategy to the Sustainable Development Goals
    (2020-08) Gomez Blanco, Andres; Herremans, Irene; Keogh, Áine
    This project addresses the following question: to what extent does the University of Calgary Institutional Sustainability Strategy (ISS) contribute the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recent studies do not report the contribution of the higher education sector to the SDGs. Also, the use of frameworks and guidelines is not clearly stated. This research gap is addressed by applying the SDG Compass steps to the ISS and reviewing the U of C’s materiality matrix. The findings demonstrate that the Compass serves as a tool to identify the ISS contribution. Besides, the materiality matrix is a key driver in determining the material aspects in the ISS scope. Six SDGs, eight targets, and nine indicators comprise the Strategy’s contribution with specific actions regarding education, clean energy, innovation, responsible consumption, and climate change. Finally, 25 indicators were designed to measure the ISS contribution from 2020 to 2021.
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    Open Access
    Using smartphone data to design urban spaces: visualization, modeling, and public engagement
    (2020-05-21) Rout, Angela; Galpern, Paul; Maurer, Frank; Willett, Wesley J.; Tsenkova, Sasha
    University campuses contain outdoor spaces that, when well-designed, can support student well-being. It may be easier to design campuses that benefit students if designers are aware of student movement and campus use patterns. Until quite recently, precise data about how students move around their campuses has not been widely available. However, the near ubiquity of smartphones, and their capacity to collect location data, presents new opportunities both to understand student movements, and more generally, the movements of people across urban areas. While the data are abundant and seemingly available, much work remains to demonstrate the value of this resource in real-world urban design applications. This thesis presents four stand-alone manuscripts that address different aspects of the urban design process, using a single university campus as a model system. The first provides a review of how location data have been used to understand human behaviour in urban settings. The remaining three draw on a data set of smartphone locations collected from 300 students, tracking their individual movements on a university campus. One study, using these data, considers how best to incorporate location data in public engagement. Another demonstrates a tool for visualizing location data intended for use by design experts. And a final study investigates patterns in the use of design features by modelling the data. These studies demonstrate that location data derived from smartphones (for example, smartphone-GPS data) can be used by non-experts in public engagement scenarios, that it can also help architects to understand flows of human movement, and that it can guide designers towards better-informed decisions about design features. The introduction of the thesis provides the context for this research, and provides an overview of each chapter. The thesis concludes by discussing how all four studies provide insights for future researchers and more specifically, to designers of campus plans.
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    Open Access
    Optimization of Waste Collection System at University of Calgary
    (2019-08) Farahbakhsh, Samira
    This project would not have been possible without the support of Ana Pazmino at facility management of University of Calgary. Her support through all the steps of this project was invaluable and helped me to understand and develop thoughts and ideas. Secondly, I want to thank Irene Herremans for her support in this degree. Her guidance, immense knowledge and support to keep me on track, made this project happens. Also, thanks to my friend Elshan who always kept me motivated. Finally, I want to thank my family specially my husband Amir who supported me all the way in this journey with his love, patience and companion.
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    Open Access
    Modeling of the Water-based Heating System of the Mechanical Engineering Building at the University of Calgary
    (2019-12) Ahmed, Saeed; Li, Simon; Li, Leping; Ramirez Serrano, Alejandro; Nezhad, Amir Sanati; Hu, Jinguang
    In this research, the model of the water-based heating system of Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB) is developed. This project is conducted in collaboration with “Office of Sustainability” of University of Calgary (UofC), because one of their goals is to reduce the energy consumption of UofC’s buildings. The water-based heating system has one of the major share in total energy consumption of a building. It highlights the importance of building this model, which can help to understand some important aspects and variables (related to energy consumption) of the water-based heating system. The model has four major component models, namely boiler, Air Handling Unit (AHU), Reheat Coil (RHC) and radiator (RAD). A component model aggregately represents the similar type of equipment in MEB. For example, a single boiler model is used to represent two boilers of the water-based heating system of MEB. The component models of AHU and RHC are based on energy balance equations, and these are gray-box models. However, the models of boiler and RAD are black-box models, because some required data is not available for developing their gray-box models. The empirical data for developing component models is collected through Building Management System (BMS) software, with the help of Office of Sustainability. The model is developed in Simulink. An individual model for each component is developed and then parameters are estimated for each component model. The parameters of gray-box models are estimated in Simulink, whereas the coefficient parameters for black-box models are estimated in MS-Excel. The output of each component model is then compared with the measured data to ascertain the error. The integrated model of the water-based heating system is developed by connecting the component models. Being a pilot project, the worked helped all involved to understand the opportunities available and the difficulties present, to undertake a project related to UofC building heating system. The Simulink model developed can help the facility management of UofC to look into energy consumption of the water-based heating system of MEB.