This project provides a pipeline for developing comprehensive Urban Building Modeling Databases (UBMD) in data poor contexts. In partnership with four testbed sites in Africa, our work addresses environmental challenges identified through community and stakeholder engagement, and provides Participatory AI methods for civic data production , and environmental performance assessments of urban contexts. The UBMD can be used to assess indoor thermal comfort, cooling energy demand, and embodied and operational carbon emissions of buildings in informal communities; it allows comparison of various combinations of building design strategies and technological interventions to provide recommendations for resilient building stock design guidelines and planning policies.
Our AI models produce multi-dimensional building datasets for under-represented African cities, support mapping of informal settlements, and support the quantification of embodied carbon, and environmental performance analysis. The project addresses the environmental challenges residents of informal settlements face in African cities, enabling community participation in policy design and implementation toward resilient, bioclimatic, and low-carbon construction using local materials.
