Reporter：Dr. Chang Ruidong

Introduction:

The human-built environment—including buildings and infrastructure such as bridges and roads—has significant environmental impacts throughout its life cycle. In addition to utilizing existing environmental impact data from databases, such as life cycle assessment data, collecting raw real-world data using various devices is crucial for gaining a bottom-up understanding of the actual impacts of the built environment. Given a specific research question, how should researchers select and integrate various data collection devices and methods to establish a monitoring system for the built environment? This lecture systematically demonstrates how Dr. Chang’s team combines a wide range of monitoring approaches to address practical challenges facing the Australian construction industry. The lecture will cover the use of drones and LiDAR for 3D environmental reconstruction; the integration of sensors, cameras, and micro-weather stations to collect multidimensional data; the application of deep learning, machine vision, and statistical models to analyze data; and the utilization of simulation, behavioral experiments, and virtual and mixed reality technologies to develop and validate intervention measures. In addition, the lecture will adopt a critical perspective to examine how various uncertainties and risks arising in the practical implementation of these seemingly advanced methods—such as 3D environmental reconstruction—impact research results. All examples and case studies are drawn from the team’s field research in Adelaide, Australia.

Resume:

Dr. Chang Ruidong is an Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He has been listed among the top 2% of highly cited scientists worldwide by Stanford University for a single year and is a member of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments (IVE). Dr. Chang serves as an expert reviewer for several major Australian Research Council (ARC) funding schemes, including the Discovery Projects, Linkage Projects, and Industry Transformative Training Centre programs. He is an Associate Editor of Environment, Development and Sustainability (IF 4.5) and serves on the editorial boards of several international journals, including Scientific Reports and the Journal of Green Building. He previously conducted postdoctoral research at the School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). His research focuses on the intelligent monitoring, simulation, and joint optimization of materials, energy, and emissions in the built environment. He has contributed to numerous research projects funded by organizations including the International Energy Agency’s Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (IEA-EBC), Singapore’s Housing & Development Board (HDB), the Australian Research Council, and the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources. As one of the principal investigators, Dr. Chang secured funding through the 2022 ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre program for the project “Advanced Technologies for Building Construction and Manufacturing”, with total funding nearly RMB 25 million. As the lead principal investigator, he was awarded a 2026 ARC Discovery Project entitled “Integrated Monitoring and Optimisation of Vegetation–Building Photovoltaic Systems”, with funding exceeding RMB 3 million. In that year, only four projects across the fields of architecture and construction management were funded nationwide under this highly competitive scheme. Dr. Chang’s publications have received more than 6,000 citations on Google Scholar. His representative works include articles published in The Innovation (a flagship journal in the Cell Press family, IF 25), as well as papers ranked among the top three most-downloaded articles worldwide in Automation in Construction (2017) and the top five most-downloaded articles worldwide in Energy and Buildings (2022).