Climate change is placing significant stress on the built environment, including intense heatwaves, changing microclimates, and increasing energy demand with associated environmental impacts. This talk outlines key climatic risks for buildings and cities, and examines architectural approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation, with particular attention to the central role of the energy transition in reducing emissions and enhancing urban resilience. The discussion concludes with insights from two recent research projects that demonstrate how urban building energy modelling and positive-energy district frameworks can inform evidence-based renovation strategies and data-driven decision support. These examples underscore how integrated tools and methods can accelerate the transition towards low-carbon, climate-resilient urban development.

Biography:

Ipek Gürsel Dino (PhD) is a Professor of Architecture at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. She received her PhD in Architecture from Delft University of Technology in 2010, and the MArch in Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University, USA in 2005. Her research and teaching mainly focus on climate change, energy transition in the built environment, computational design, tool-making and data-driven methods for performance assessment. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her research has been supported by organizations in Europe and USA, including Horizon Europe (EU), Driving Urban Transitions – Urban Europe (EU), Clean Energy Transition Partnership (EU), Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (NL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA), British Council (UK) and TUBITAK (TUR).