Computational Engineer in building performance analysis

We are seeking an engineer with experience in advanced building performance simulation and whole-building energy modelling for the development of tools for resilient and climate adaptive buildings.

Afdeling: Research & Innovation
Functietitel: Computational Engineer in building performance analysis
Inzet: 32-40 uur per week
Locatie: Amsterdam

What will you work on?

The built environment is ill-prepared for more frequent and increasingly intense climate-related extreme events. Recent scientific and technological advances in the construction industry provide timely solutions for improving the resilience of specific single hazards (e.g. flood hazard or, but they are often not cost- seismic hazard)effective, rarely eco-friendly and nearly never address the multiple hazards present in many locations. This is hardly surprising because there is neither a clearly defined framework for quantifying the whole-life social-economic-environmental impacts of extreme natural events nor tools for assessing the holistic climate resilience of buildings. Consequently, it is currently very challenging to develop or select optimal solutions for real-world multi-hazard scenarios.

The MULTICARE project addresses this challenge directly by developing new multi-criteria decision-support frameworks and providing plug & play technological and digital solutions for improving the resilience of the built environment in a cost-effective, reliable and sustainable manner.

Amsterdam is one of the pilot cities in MULTICARE, next to other cities in Italy and Romania. Here, we are concerned with heat stress and how buildings can address this, without having to sacrifice energy performance or circularity. Your work will focus on the development of digital computation and tools for historical and new buildings in Amsterdam.

As a Computational Engineer for the MULTICARE project, you will join the AMS Prototyping team. This newly established team offers prototyping and testing services to turn academic ideas into tested concepts or prototypes, in order to help the adoption of innovations in the public or private sector. You will collaborate closely with Research Fellows and Program Developers across the institute, especially within the Urban Energy, Climate Resilient Cities and Circularity in Urban Regions programs.

Your responsibilities will include:

  • Model development: utilize and enhance the existing Rhino/Grasshopper parametric models, specifically the Amsterdam archetype base models developed in earlier project work for the benefit of balancing energy performance, circularity and climate resilience of buildings.
    • Assist in the energy retrofit design of historical and new buildings using parametric Grasshopper models, which enable the evaluation of various systems under diverse climate scenarios and hazards while integrating resilience and circularity indicators.
    • Integrate future climate scenarios, as well as new retrofit and new-built components into the model.
    • Incorporate resilience systems and circularity concepts into the multi-criteria decision-making tool.
  • Collaboration:
    • Work with project partners from TU Delft and OMRT on the technical deliverables of the MULTICARE project (bi-weekly, monthly).
    • Engage in regular collaboration with research teams from AMS Institute and TU Delft, as well as the project manager and program developers (daily, weekly). You will contribute to work packages related to your technical deliverables, including the evaluating of intensity, frequency and duration of heat stress at building and city block level, evaluating embodied carbon and reusability at component and building level, and refining the MULTICARE resilience framework on the building and community level.
    • Collaborate with AMS Research Fellows, in particular colleagues working on the topics of energy, climate resilience and circularity (as appropriate).
  • Prototyping: as part of the Prototyping team, you will contribute to developing the prototyping capability within the institute.
    • Help explore opportunities for parametric modelling in other domains, in collaboration with Program Developers from all themes at AMS Institute.
    • Participate as support in 3 prototyping activities, led by other team members.

Key skills and experience

  • You have strong critical and analytical skills, with a proactive and determined attitude to deliver tangible results as part of a larger collaboration.
  • A MSc degree in engineering, architecture or applied science related to building energy flows and building science.
  • Proficiency in Rhino/Grasshopper and associated modelling packages (Ladybug, Honey Bee)
  • Understanding of:
    • Building energy systems, building energy simulation (such as EnergyPlus, OpenStudio and Radiance…) and thermal comfort analysis
    • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial data processing
  • Affinity with:
    • Circular construction, whole-life carbon and reusability
    • Heat resilience of buildings
  • Very good English language and presentation skills

Our Opportunity

  • 32-40 hours per week (0,8 – 1,0 FTE)
  • Salary scale 10 based on the salary table of the CAO Nederlandse Universiteiten
  • An excellent pension scheme with ABP
  • A total balance of 328 hours per year annual leave (based on 1,0 FTE)
  • An NS business card when using public transportation for your home-office commute

About Us

AMS Institute is a public-private institute founded in 2014 by Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University together with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We are a young and ambitious international institute at the forefront of innovation, situated at the nexus between industry, government and academia. Engaging and developing the latest technology and science with research, experiments and projects in the city of Amsterdam, we take on the challenges posed by our rapidly urbanizing world. Our mission is to develop a deep understanding of the city—sense the city—to design solutions for its challenges, and integrate these into the city of Amsterdam. Our research portfolio revolves around applied technology in themes such as water, energy, waste, food, data and mobility, and integrating these themes to create a prosperous society.

Procedure

Are you interested? Send your motivation and CV by email to vacatures@AMS-institute.org by December 16, 2024.

The job interviews take place on January 7, 2025 (first round) and January 14, 2025 (second round).

More information

For more information about the content of the vacancy and the procedure, please contact us by e-mail to vacancies@ams-institute.org.