News

BEEE’s Building Environment(BE) Group Awarded $34.6 million by the RGC Theme-based Research Scheme 2021/22

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that BE Research Group, led by our Chair Professor, Ir Professor Niu Jianlei as the Project Coordinator and with Prof. Cheuk-ming Mak and Dr Ruoyu You as Co-PI, was awarded $34.6 million by the RGC Theme-based Research Scheme 2021/22 for a project entitled “Healthy and Resilient City with Pervasive LoCHs.” The project aims to create localized outdoor comfort places/hubs (LoCHs) in the urban environment by employing a scientific microclimate design methodology based on advanced modelling and simulation of wind, heat, and moisture in the early stages of building design and planning, with the help of artificial intelligence in optimisation. The project team consists of 10 other researchers from various disciplines of PolyU and other local universities, including Dr Zheng Tan of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE), Prof. John Shi of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), and Dr Ting-kei Pong of the Department of Applied Mathematics. The research team also includes 10 researchers from 8 overseas universities, and 2 collaborators respectively from the estate developer and software developer. The team looks forward to working with other stakeholders from the relevant government departments and estate development industry to speed up the application of the research results. This is the 2nd project in the department to be supported by the prestigious TRS scheme. The previously awarded project was led by Prof. Asif Usmani, Head of BEEE. The Department would like to congratulate Prof. Niu and his team on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success. Urban wind and microclimate modelling. Simulation based optimization

BEEE’s Associate Professor Awarded $5.7 Million by the RGC Research Impact Fund Scheme (RIF)

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that our Associate Professor, Dr Wei Minchen Tommy was awarded $5.7 million by the RGC Research Impact Fund Scheme. Dr Wei has been awarded $5.7 million by the RGC Research Impact Fund Scheme for a project titled “Deeper understanding of color matching mechanism for developing high-quality lighting and imaging systems”. The project aims to understand how the human eyes and brains work together to perceive the same color appearance produced by stimuli with different spectral compositions, especially those with highly structured spectra. It can help the development of high quality lighting (e.g., LEDs, OLEDs, and laser diodes) and imaging (e.g., displays, cameras, printers) systems. As the project coordinator, Dr Wei will lead a team including color scientists, vision scientists, and neuroscientists from local and overseas universities, world-leading high-tech companies, US national laboratory, and international standardization bodies. The Department would like to congratulate Dr Wei and his team on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.

BEEE’s MPhil Student Awarded the PolyU Maker Fund Programme 2021

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that our MPhil student, Mr. Wong Ho Yin, was selected to enjoy a 24-month incubation and funding support of HK$600,000 in PolyU Maker Fund Programme 2021. Mr. Wong, as the team leader, joined the 3-day Hardware Bootcamp in Early August, they had great performance in the First Assessment and were shortlisted after the Bootcamp. Afterwards, they went through the “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) development and market validation training before the Final Assessment in September. Under the supervision of BEEE Assistant Professor, Dr Huang Xinyan, Mr. Wong’s team with the project entitled “Smart Building Emergency System” was selected ultimately to enjoy a 24-month incubation and funding support. The proposed Smart Building Emergency System will apply artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies into a smart signage network that can guide residences towards the shortest and safest evacuation paths in a fire event. This system will be a core component of the novel smart firefighting technology developed in PolyU (the SureFire Project). It will be applied to the next generation smart and resilient building that will help Hong Kong achieve the status of the world's leading smart city. PolyU has tailor-made PolyU Maker Fund Programme for Hong Kong young makers, by leveraging its own expertise and resources as well as partners’ network and through the support of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) (Funding Scheme for Youth Entrepreneurship in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area) under the administration of Youth Development Commission of Home Affairs Bureau.  The Department would like to congratulate Mr. Wong Ho Yin and his team on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.

The HKIE Scholarship 2020/21 - BEEE Awardee

New Chair Professor – Professor Christopher Chao

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) is pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. Christopher Chao to the post of Chair Professor of Thermal and Environmental Engineering in the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering. Prof. Christopher Chao received his BSc(Eng) degree in Mechanical Engineering (First Class) from The University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 1988. He was awarded the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fellowship for Overseas Studies in 1990 and obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from The University of California, Berkeley, USA, in 1992 and 1994, respectively. Prof. Chao was an Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) from 1995-1997. Before returning to PolyU in September of 2021, he was an Assistant Professor (1997-2002), Associate Professor (tenured, 2002-2009), Full Professor (2009-2015) and Chair Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2015-2018) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He was Associate Dean of Engineering (Research and Graduate Studies) (2011-2014) and Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at HKUST (2014-2018). He joined HKU to serve as Dean of Engineering and Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering from 2018 to 2021. Prof. Chao was ranked by Clarivate Analytics in the top 1% worldwide by citations in the research field of Engineering in 2021. He has published over 170 archival journal papers. He serves as Editor and is on the editorial boards of several major journals in the field of Energy and Built Environment including Energy and Buildings, Building and Environment, Indoor Air, Building Simulation, Indoor and Built Environment, etc. He is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, Hong Kong Institution of Engineers and International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate. He serves in various Government units and core I&T organizations including the New Energy Transport Fund and Gas Safety Advisory Committee of the Hong Kong Environment Bureau, the Building Committee of the Housing Authority, the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund Council, Board of Directors of Cyberport, Board of Directors of the Engineering Forum of HKIE, etc.

Best Paper of CUE2020

The Department of Building Environment and EnergyEngineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that Prof. Yang Hongxing and Dr Cao Sunliang of BEEE and their research students’ paper entitled Peer-to-peer trading optimizations on net-zero energy communities with energy storage of hydrogen and battery vehicles has been awarded as the best paper by CUE2020: Applied Energy Symposium:­ Low carbon cities and urban energy systems. Developing intelligent energy solutions for resilient urban systems is a global and complex challenge which involves interdisciplinary fields. With this as theme of the conference, CUE2020 aimed to provide a premier international forum for all stakeholders including academia, industry and policy decision makers to present and share latest findings in all aspects across this domain, discussing how smart technologies and services can integrate the production and use of energy to support a more sustainable and resilient urban system. CUE2020 was organized by the international journal, Applied Energy and Applied Energy Innovation Institute (AEii), hosted by Sophia University. Due to the COVID-19, the event was held in virtual symposium on Oct 10-17, 2020 for sharing the most recent progress of research RD&Ds in urban energy systems. The Department would like to congratulate Prof. Yang, Dr Cao, Dr Liu and Dr Zhou on the excellent achievement.   

Welcome message from the Head of Department

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) was officially established in December 1981 (formerly referred to as the Department of Building Services Engineering). We have been serving Hong Kong’s building services engineering industry ever since, promoting sustainable, efficient and healthy indoor and urban living environments in one of the world’s greatest cities by providing world class teaching and conducting internationally leading research.  BEEE is one of the constituent departments of the Faculty of Construction and Environment, and offers a full range of taught and research based study programmes leading to awards from Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) to Masters (MSc and MEng) right up to Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).   Among many challenges confronting the world, perhaps the most critical is to provide high quality living environments to rapidly urbanising and ageing populations under the creeping threat of a worsening climate and increasing environmental pollution. UN forecasts that the world's population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. 70% of the people are projected to live in urban areas, placing enormous strain on cities and the environment. To deal effectively with these challenges, future building engineers will need to be data savvy and work in interdisciplinary teams to deliver optimal solutions enabling smart urban environments incorporating elements such as vertical farms; renewables driven integrated buildings and transport systems; citywide recycling and so on for a sustainable planet and a smart and resilient built environment. In order to promote this vision, we have designed state of the art study programmes providing the best possible training to our students in designing high performance buildings and building systems through judicious exploitation of the sciences and contemporary technologies such as sensor and comms networks, AI and IoT techniques, data science and programming, BIM and digital twin systems etc. This is consistent with our mission, stated as, to imagine, engineer and promote sustainable, salutogenic and safe environments for human habitation.   BEEE full-time academic and teaching staff members engage in a wide range of research activities organized in the following three research themes: Building Energy: Energy issues in buildings are addressed in the context of both demand and supply to improve the sustainability of the built environment. Building Environment: Optimisation of buildings and built environments for thermal comfort, indoor air quality, visual/spatial and vibration/acoustic aspects to improve occupant health and productivity. Building Safety and Resilience: Protection of building occupants from hazards such as fire and lightning to improve safety and resilience of communities, buildings and built environments.   I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in our department and programmes and hope you’ll join us in learning to promote smarter urban environments for a better and more sustainable future for humanity and our planet.   Prof. Asif Usmani Head of Unit Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering

New Assistant Professor - Dr Cynthia Hou

The Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) is pleased to announce that Dr Cynthia Hou has been appointed the new Assistant Professor of BSE, starting on 18 August 2021. Dr. Cynthia Hou received her PhD in Real Estate and Construction from the University of Hong Kong and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Before joining PolyU, she worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Management in the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (2020-2021) and a lecturer in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2015-2020). She has been engaged in research in the field of built environment management. Her research focuses include post-occupancy evaluation, workplace management, strategic facilities management, and heritage management. Recently, she has leveraged smart technologies in her research by investigating smart hotels, smart heritage facilities management, and virtual reality (VR) technologies applications in built environment education. She seeks to investigate efficient and sustainable built environment management strategies from a facilities management perspective. She is also keen on adopting digitalisation approaches in her research, with an aim to delineating the dynamics among people, facilities and space in the built environment and exploring data-driven solutions for facilities management problems in society.

New Chair Professor - Professor Chen Qingyan

The Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Chen Qingyan to the post of Chair Professor of Building Thermal Science in the Department of Building Services Engineering and concurrently as Director of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR). Professor Chen obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Thermal Energy Engineering from the Tsinghua University in 1983, and his Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Delft University of Technology in Netherlands in 1985 and 1988 respectively.  Before joining our University, Professor Chen was the James G. Dwyer Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, USA. Professor Chen’s research interests include computer simulations and experiment measurements of built environment, energy-efficient, healthy and sustainable buildings.  His journal publications have been cited by more than 19,000 times and his h-index is 73 according to Google Scholar.  During his career, Professor Chen established four multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research centres/consortia with a total research funding of over HK$200 million from different government agencies.  He was interviewed by more than 80 media outlets from 10 countries for his research on infectious disease transmission in built environment during COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Chen has been serving as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal “Building and Environment” since 2008.  He was the Director of National Consortium for Key Project on Ventilation and Air Quality Control Strategies for Residential Buildings in China from 2016 to 2019 and the Founding Director of Tianjin Key Laboratory of Indoor Environment Quality Control in the Commission of Science and Technology of Tianjin Municipality in China from 2014 to 2016.  Furthermore, he was the Chief Scientist in the National Consortium for 973 Project on Key Problems in Cabin Air Environment of Large Commercial Airliners in China and the Director of Center for Cabin Air Reformative Environment at Tianjin University in China from 2012 to 2016, and the Principal Director in National Air Transportation Centre of Excellence for Airliner Cabin Environment Research in USA from 2004 to 2010. Professor Chen has received a number of prestigious awards including the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Building Performance Simulation Association in 2013, the John Rydberg Gold Medal from the Scandinavian Federation of Heating, Ventilating and Sanitary Engineering Associations in 2011, and the Willis J. Whitfield Award from the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology in 2007.  Professor Chen has also received several technical paper and poster awards and Distinguished and Exceptional Service Awards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).  In addition, he was awarded as an honorable member of the Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning and Sanitary Engineers of Japan in 2020.  He is also a Fellow of the ASHRAE, the International Society of Indoor Air Quality, and the International Association of Advanced Materials.

PolyU Summer Programme 2021

The Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that PolyU Summer Programme 2021 was held successfully on 4 August 2021 via online mode. PolyU Summer Programme is a university-wide activity coordinated by the Academic Registry. It aims to promote PolyU and our undergraduate programmes to Secondary 4 and Secondary 5 students, and to help them make informed JUPAS choices. First, there was a Video Show briefly presenting BSE.  Afterwards, BSE Associate Head and Associate Professor, Dr Horace MUI, and Programme Leader and Associate Professor, Dr L.T. WONG, introduced BSE and BEng(Hons) in Building Services Engineering to the participants. Other activities included a virtual laboratory tour, student sharing, demonstrations and DIALUX software application introduction. BSE believes that this programme has deepened the senior secondary school students’ understanding of Building Services Engineering. We look forward to seeing them again in the near future.