J. Alstan Jakubiec

J. Alstan Jakubiec is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto where he focuses his efforts on the design of the built environment with emphasis on wellbeing, comfort, environmental performance, and low-energy design strategies. He holds Bachelor’s (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Master’s (University of Pennsylvania) degrees in architecture and a PhD in Building Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alstan specializes in building performance simulation (daylight, energy) and post-occupancy evaluations and environmental measurements. He believes that through data-driven processes, designers can create comfortable built environments that will support social interaction, require less energy, and last longer before being razed. Alstan co-creates the popular ClimateStudio and ALFA tools for calculating the daylighting and energy performance of buildings and actively develops new software tools as part of his research. He also co-founded Mapdwell, a technology company dedicated to providing information to homeowners about the renewable energy potential of their rooftops.

At U of T, Alstan publishes extensively on data-supported design through building performance simulation, environmental measurements, and subjective occupant experience. He teaches courses in building performance simulation, daylighting, multi-disciplinary sustainability issues, building lifecycle analysis, and urban sustainability. Alstan is the head of the Design for Climate and Comfort Lab, where he works with his students to improve the comfort, wellbeing, and energy efficiency of buildings and urban areas through data-driven processes. Alstan also runs the Spectral Materials Database, a web-database to enhance realism and accuracy in lighting simulations. He is a member of the Wellbeing in the Built Environment research group at U of T where he collaborates on integrating social practice and environmental quality on improving the built environment for human participants, serves as a voting member on the Illuminating Engineering Society’s Daylight Metrics Committee, and is currently a guest editor for Lighting Research & Technology.