PhD success for Yahya Lavafpour
Many congratulations to Yahya Lavafpour for being awarded his PhD. Yahya’s thesis was entitled ‘Self-Shading Façade Geometry to Control Summer Overheating in UK Passivhaus Dwellings for Current and Future Climate Scenarios’. Yahya’s research investigated a novel approach to reducing overheating in UK Passivhaus dwellings by testing if altering the geometric form of a UK Passivhaus (by tilting the south facade to give self-shading) might be capable of passively protecting the house from a summer overheating risk, both for current and future climate scenarios. The research found that this approach could be effective for current UK climatic conditions but would not be capable of eradicating overheating for 2080s climate scenarios. Yahya has presented his work at international conferences (PLEA 2017 Edinburgh; PLEA 2016 Los Angeles; IBPC 2015 Torino and SEB 2014 Cardiff) and published in an international journal (Lavafpour Y and Sharples S, Summer thermal comfort and self-shading geometries in Passivhaus dwellings: a pilot study using future UK climates. Buildings, 5, 964-984, 2015). In January 2018 Yahya took up a lecturing post in the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of the West of England (UWE).