Sustainable, resilient and healthy built environments: An integrated approach

建筑环境作为现代人类的主要栖息地，包括活的和死的生物体（称为室内微生物组）的复杂混合物，这不仅会影响居住者的健康和生产力，还会使建筑物的不同部分恶化，导致材料结构特性发生不良变化。此外，建筑环境是造成气候变化相关问题的部分原因，因为它是资源开采的主要引擎，也是建筑行业二氧化碳排放量高的主要原因。近来，作为减少温室气体排放的努力，绿色建筑设计和用于非结构性和结构性室内应用的新型生物源绿色材料的使用已经增加。然而，新兴的绿色材料是天然可生物降解的，并且没有明确的迹象表明它们与建筑环境微生物组的相互作用将如何影响这种可持续建筑的结构完整性和室内空气质量。 我的长期愿景是设计新的理解和方法，更好地设计健康，弹性和可持续的建筑，通过整合建筑环境生态学动态的基本因素，以应对气候变化，以及它们对新兴绿色建筑材料的环境性能的影响。在短期内，通过这个发现计划，我的目标是调查气象因素对室内空气质量动态和微生物群落的影响，在有植物的办公室（亲生物设计）和没有植物的办公室（非亲生物设计）。此外，我的目标是更好地了解室内微生物组对选择绿色建筑材料的物理和机械性能恶化的季节性影响，这些材料用于生物和非生物空间，受到气候变化导致的洪水等自然事件的影响越来越大。随后，我还旨在评估实验室规模的基因增强天然纤维对微生物降解的性能，以供未来的潜在应用。也就是说，后者旨在开发一种新的技术，可以从根本上使敏感的绿色建筑材料对微生物生长和代谢活动（作为生物降解的主要原因）更具弹性。 完成拟议的探索计划将有助于加拿大在健康，弹性和可持续建筑设计方面的领导地位，最终可以使设计师和建筑师更好地利用植物和抗微生物材料，同时减少气候变化造成的潜在长期经济损失。

Built environment, as the main habitat of the modern human, encompasses a complex mixture of viable and dead organisms (known as indoor microbiome), which can not only affect occupants' wellbeing and productivity but also deteriorate different parts of the buildings, leading to undesirable changes in the materials' structural properties. In addition, the built environment is accountable for part of problems associated to climate change, due to being a principal engine for resource extraction and high amount of CO2 emissions by the building sector. Recently, green building designs and use of novel bio-sourced green materials for non-structural and structural indoor applications have increased as an effort towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the emerging green materials are naturally biodegradable and there is no clear indication as to how their mutual interaction with built environment microbiome would affect the structural integrity of such sustainable buildings and the indoor air quality. My long-term vision is to devise new understandings and methods for better design of healthy, resilient, and sustainable buildings by integrating factors underlying dynamics of built environment ecology in response to climate change, and their effect on the environmental performance of emerging green building materials. In the short-term, through this Discovery Program, I aim to investigate the effect of meteorological factors on dynamics of indoor air quality and on microbial communities in offices with plants (biophilic design) and without plants (non-biophilic design). In addition, I aim to better understand the seasonal effect of indoor microbiome on deterioration of physical and mechanical properties of select green building materials for use in both biophilic and non-biophilic spaces under the increasing impact of natural incidences such as flooding as a result of climate change. Subsequently, I also aim to assess the performance of laboratory-scale genetically enhanced natural fibres against microbial degradation for future potential applications. Namely, the latter aims to develop a novel technique that could fundamentally make the susceptible green building materials more resilient against microbial growth and metabolic activity (as the main cause of biodegradation). Completion of the proposed Discovery program will contribute to Canada's leadership in the design of healthy, resilient, and sustainable buildings, which can eventually enable more optimal use of plants and microbial-resistant materials by designers and architects, while decreasing potential long-term economic losses due to the climate change.