VIDEO
Dr Ian Ridley, Senior Research Fellow
How can buildings be good for the environment as well as the people working or living in them? That question is at the heart of Dr Ian Ridley's research at RMIT University.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Dr Ian Ridley. Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, School of Property Construction and project management. RMIT logo.
AUDIO. Ambient music.
VISUAL: Dr Ridley sits facing the camera.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: OK so I'm a building scientist and my research looks at ways of designing, building and operating buildings in an environmentally friendly way. So they are buildings which are going to be comfortable and hopefully healthy for the occupants And at the same time buildings that are going to be good for the environment, the wider environment.
VISUAL: Exterior shots of new buildings, including RMIT’s Swanston Street building and design hub.
DR RIDLEY VOICEOVER:That's going to be buildings which use low amounts of energy have reduced CO2 emissions so that's good for climate change mitigation. And generally use less natural resources. One of the best ways of doing that is to design the fabric or the envelope of a building to be appropriate to the location where it's going be built.
VISUAL: Return to Dr Ridley talking to camera.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: I've spent fifteen years doing this type of research in London I also spent two years in Brazil. I'm now in Melbourne in Victoria which has a milder, temperate climate. It's quite a challenging climate in terms of both heating and cooling.
VISUAL: Dr Ridley walking down inner city Melbourne street looking at houses.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: One the things that has struck me about living in Melbourne is how the building stock in many ways would be considered to be quite poor by world standards. Very few of the houses have double glazing There's limited amounts of insulation in the houses.
VISUAL: Return to Dr Ridley talking to camera.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: I think historically it's understandable why houses were built as they have been. Energy has been very cheap, resources have been plentiful and in some ways the climate is quite mild. So especially in winter the solution has been ok, we'll just heat our houses rather than using the envelope or the fabric of the house design.
VISUAL: Dr Ridley walking with student, inspecting interior and exterior of a new house.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS:A lot of the research is designed to provide hard evidence that the buildings are performing as well as they've been designed to do. And hopefully with that level of confidence governments be it at state level or federal level can then have the evidence that they need to show when they make building regulations.
VISUAL: Exterior shot of new city buildings and RMIT campus.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: and the building code stricter that it will produce sustainability, the future design and planning of sustainable cities and health and wellbeing of urban dwellers.
VISUAL: Return to Dr Ridley talking to camera.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: I've found the research culture in RMIT to be very supportive...
VISUAL: Dr Ridley continues house inspection with student.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS: ...There's always people willing to give advice and positive feedback and criticism when you're putting in research proposals. It's always very very good and very important to get a second opinion.
VISUAL: Return to Dr Ridley talking to camera.
DR RIDLEY SPEAKS:One of the things about built environment research is it's fairly multidisciplinary and indeed interdisciplinary. So it's very good and very useful to have interaction with social scientists and colleagues from other professions.I think one of the good things about being a vice-chancellor's senior research fellow is that you can concentrate if that's what you want to do on your research. It's one of the things I've enjoyed is having the time to really write papers and spend more time thinking about the quality of the research I'm doing while I'm not hassled by having to do extra administrative work.
VISUAL: Fade to white.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Find out more at www.rmit.edu.au/research/research-fellowship-schemes. RMIT logo.
[END TRANSCRIPT]
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