Dr Alejandro Moreno-Rangel

Lecturer

Architecture

Personal statement

Alejandro is Lecturer in Building Performance Evaluation and Net Zero Design. Alejandro’s main research interests are sustainable architecture and the indoor environment – indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort –, particularly Passivhaus buildings. Ultimately, the connections between sustainable architecture to health and human behaviours to create healthy homes through design research methods. Recently, Alejandro has developed an interest in using low-cost sensors as research tools and their effect on residential behaviour, design, and human health & well-being. Alejandro is also a certified Passivhaus Designer.

Publications

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Publications

International Public Health communication design: Tsekleves Emmanuel, Fonseca-Braga Mariana, Moreno Rangel Alejandro; Design and Covid-19 From Reaction to Resilience (2024) (2024)
Comfort redefined: Bourikas Leonidas, Moreno-Rangel Alejandro; Future Home Trends, Innovations and Disruptors in Housing Design (2023) (2023); https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003358244-5
Net-zero homes and Passivhaus: Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Vázquez Juan Manuel, Huenchuñir Marcelo; Future Home Trends, Innovations and Disruptors in Housing Design (2023) (2023); https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003358244-4
Introduction: Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Conroy Dalton Ruth; Future Home Trends, Innovations and Disruptors in Housing Design (2023) (2023); https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003358244-1
Future Home : Trends, Innovations and Disruptors in Housing Design: Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Conroy-Dalton Ruth; (2023); https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003358244
Community empowerment : lessons learned from a local health programme: Fonseca Braga Mariana, Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Tsekleves Emmanuel; Life-Changing Design IASDR 2023 (2023); https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.265

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Research

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Research Interests

Alejandro’s main research interests are net zero buildings, particularly Passivhaus homes, and its connections to health, urban and human behaviours. Through this, Alejandro explores the architectural design, energy efficiency methods, passive techniques and their impact on the indoor environment – indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort–, particularly in homes and their relation to the urban environment to create healthy homes. Architecture has well responded to climate change mitigating the effects of the built environment. However, its impact on health is usually left aside. Alejandro’s approach to architectural design seeks to improve the quality of life for all citizens in an ageing society, delivering sustainable interventions that take a “whole house” approach. Alejandro’s research uses design research methods to explore the interactions between resident behaviours and the built environment to deliver healthier indoor environments, considering the impact of bio-psychological-social aspects of health, climate change impacts, and energy efficiency methods interactions. Alejandro’s research interests also extend to the use of low-cost sensors as research tools and the effect that they could have on residential behaviour, design and human health & well-being.

Professional Activities

International Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality & Climate (Event): Peer reviewer; 15/1/2024
UK Indoor Environments Group (External organisation): Advisor; 1/9/2023
Healthy Buildings Europe 2023 (Event): Peer reviewer; 1/1/2023
Atmosphere (Journal): Peer reviewer; 1/11/2022
UIA World Congress 2023 Copenhagen Science Track (Event): Peer reviewer; 21/10/2022
Supporting the SDGs through the net zero built environment: The Passivhaus approach: Speaker; 20/5/2022

More professional activities

Projects

An integrated typology-based approach to guide the future development of European historic buildings towards a clean energy transition (FuturHist): Sharpe, Tim (Principal Investigator) McElroy, Lori (Co-investigator) Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2027
Net Zero Housing Design in Practice – Evaluating Innovation: Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Principal Investigator); Heating costs for a 100m² Passivhaus dwelling can be as low as £200 pa with the potential to eliminate fuel poverty.

The Scottish government has committed to adopting a Passivhaus equivalent approach to building energy performance standards by 2025. Building regulations will be adapted and solutions developed to achieve this quickly and cost-effectively – with a focus on a fabric-first approach. Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) can provide valuable data on performance outcomes in terms of achieving the required target standards. Publication of the results of this project will provide measured outcomes and evidence for the impact of implementation of Passivhaus in Scotland.

The outcome of the project is an evidence-based report will quantify the performance of replicable infra-red heating systems to achieve the standard:

a. occupancy profile
b. indoor air temperature
c. indoor relative humidity
d. indoor carbon dioxide concentrations
e. outdoor temperature
f. outdoor relative humidity
g. barometric pressure
h. dwelling energy consumption (manual readings)a
i. heating costs

A questionnaire will be used to collect “soft data”, e.g., occupants’ level of satisfaction with the indoor air quality, construction process, etc.

The project in question has already attracted high-profile media interest, e.g., leading specialist publications—“Passive House Plus” and Home Energy Scotland (EST) have expressed interest in publishing the output. These offer valuable opportunities for promoting the (independently validated) capabilities of Kirsty Maguire Architects, and the advantages of the innovative technology.; 04-Jan-2023 - 08-Jan-2024
Healthier Fleetwood: Tsekleves, Emmanuel (Principal Investigator) Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2021 - 31-Jan-2022
Exploring how sources, behaviour and mitigation strategies influence Indoor Air Quality: A Pilot Study: Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Co-investigator) Stevenson, Vivky (Principal Investigator) Mehra, Archit (Co-investigator) Nasar, Zaheer (Co-investigator) Rolfo, Stefano (Co-investigator) Gauthier, Stephanie (Co-investigator) Zhong, Jo (Co-investigator) Ferguson, Rob (Principal Investigator) Booker, Douglas (Principal Investigator); The aim of the project is to build up interdisciplinary monitoring and modelling capabilities to inform and influence building design and behaviour change. This will done through a proof of concept study in a purpose built facility for studying indoor environmental quality in the built environment at Chester University - DOMestic Systems and Technology InCubator (DOMESTIC) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling work using STFC capabilities; 02-Jan-2020 - 30-Jan-2021