Ata ChokhachianMassachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT · School of Architecture and Planning
Ata Chokhachian
Doctor of Engineering
About
48
Publications
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Introduction
Ata is a research scientist, educator, and advisor in the domains of building technology and urban climate. He held the position of research associate from 2015 to 2023 at the Technical University of Munich. In January 2020, he founded Climateflux, a company offering platforms for data-driven and computational workflows for acquiring climatic knowledge. At present, he holds a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and conducting postdoctoral research at MIT.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
March 2019 - July 2019
July 2018 - May 2020
January 2016 - May 2023
Education
January 2016 - January 2022
February 2012 - February 2014
Publications
Publications (48)
In this initial study of a research project, this paper seeks to understand the thermal conditions in the cities of Lisbon and Munich, specifically focusing on Urban Heat Island intensity and on thermal comfort using the Universal Thermal Climate Index modeling data at the Local Climate Zone scale. Based on these datasets, Munich has exhibited more...
This research investigates the potential of additive manufacturing and digital planning tools for the creation of location-specific façade redesigns that can host cavity-dependent animal species and develops methods for their realization. The proposed approach is explored based on a case study of a student dormitory in need of renovation in the urb...
This chapter introduces the notion of Informed Urban Environments based on the application of data integrated methods for human- and ecology-centred perspectives to urban planning, design and adaptation. The aim is to initiate a data-based inter- and trans-disciplinary discourse in sustainable urban development that is multi-domain and transscalar...
Cities are composed of a multitude of interconnected interactive layers and systems. The contemporary urban discourse has seen the utilization of Open data in decoding and understanding complex urban patterns that have eluded researchers for decades. Different layers of raw data from historical city cores up to the atmospheric climate have become m...
This book collects ground-breaking works on the actual and potential impact of big data and data-integrated design for resilient urban environments, including human- and ecology-centred perspectives. Comprehending and designing for urban social, demographic and environmental change is a complex task. Big data, data structuring, data analysis (i.e....
In the context of dense urban environments and climate change, pedestrians’ thermal experience plays an increasingly significant role in people’s health and well-being. In this research, the authors combine the fields of architecture, climate-responsive design, and robotic fabrication with the goal of investigating strategies to improve outdoor the...
In recent years, we have witnessed a growing public awareness of the impacts of the natural and built environment on well-being and health in cities. Although this is an encouraging sign, there is still a lack of good evidence and objective measures on how urban microclimate affects people's perception of outdoor thermal comfort in urban environmen...
The Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) has been linked to outdoor activity patterns and used to evaluate the effectiveness of urban interventions to improve thermal comfort. This study investigates how simulating the urban environment at increasing levels of physical accuracy impacts UTCI values along three cycling routes in Cambridge, Massachu...
This paper presents the modelling enhancements of the multizone model of TRNSYS and its GUI TRNLizard for the dynamic evaluation of the thermal behaviour of outdoor urban spaces. The developed approaches for detailed radiation modelling based on surface discretization and raytracing in 3-dimensional space extended the capabilities of the thermal bu...
In different contexts and parts of the world there has been centuries of efforts and challenges in different scales to shape a dialogue between formal and informal settlements. It’s widely been accepted that even though the self-built settlements often present low-quality living standards, low accessibility to public facilities or higher exposure o...
Brick is one of the most widely used building materials worldwide, and this is projected to continue. The clay material, due to its high thermal capacity, robustness and formal flexibility, can be assembled in different ways to control thermal behavior with self-shading or adding active interventions like extra moisture. Additionally, bricks as mod...
In order to get to a carbon neutral building stock-which is e.g. required by the EU Carbon roadmap by 2050-our efforts need to be smart and holistic on all scales of design. At the same time, it is essential that a transformation process leads to healthy, comfortable and inspirational environments-indoors as well as outdoors. Additionally, it is ne...
PANDO is a numerical process-based simulation tool that enables the user to model individual trees and canopies in Rhino Grasshopper interface. This plugin simulates radiation fluxes in three different wavebands of photosynthetic (PAR), near infrared (NIR) and thermal. It also counts for photosynthesis and transpiration by tree canopies. PANDO can...
Majority of the world population live in urban settlements where for the city dwellers, the quality of life is directly influenced by the environmental conditions as a result of the built environment. The environmental conditions on the public realm and in the buildings, shape how people use outdoor and indoor spaces in their daily life. Correspond...
As a countermeasure to the high-density urbanization and urban heat island, urban green
infrastructure has been promoted as an approach to improving human health and adapting to climate change. However, after rapid development in recent years, some high-density areas even lack green space in neighborhoods. In response to the limitation of green lan...
Climate change, urban population growth and resource shortages are the most crucial issues of our time. The global trend is rapid urban population growth, although this trend is decreasing in European countries. In this context, availability, distribution and the adequate management of resources are the fundamental issues that need to be addressed...
The term appropriation in general definition, is known as a temporary phenomenon that implies a dynamic process (human activities) of interaction between the individual and its surroundings (built environment). The term in generally used to illuminate the connection between people and public spaces in social science; however, the footprint of envir...
https://www.theccd.org/articles/climatewalks-human-centered-environmental-sensing
Climate is the primary factor that allows the use of public spaces. In particular, microclimate describes the conditions that human beings continuously experience through their senses. Microclimate most drastically affects conditions in cities, the places where society, economy and environment converge and where walkability, comfort and health are...
Human's general perception of an open space is influenced by architectonical, psychological but also physical factors. For this reason, it is important to consider environmental comfort as a crucial element when it comes to designing an urban outdoor space [1]. In this paper, we consider the following research questions: in a Mediterranean climate,...
The regenerative approach to design goes beyond limiting the environmental impact of the built environment and towards the enrichment of the ecosystem, adaptation to climate change, and the improvement of human health. This concept is being applied to buildings through new standards such as the Living Building Challenge, yet examples of implementat...
Microclimate among further key factors has a fundamental influence on how people occupy and use public spaces in dense urban environments. Respectively, comfort evaluation of outdoor spaces is essential due to the fact that they accommodate daily pedestrian flows and various outdoor activities, also they contribute largely to urban livability and v...
Microclimate has among further key factors a fundamental influence on how people occupy and use public spaces in dense urban environments. Comfort evaluation of outdoor spaces is essential since they accommodate daily pedestrian traffic and various outdoor activities, also they contribute largely to urban liveability and vitality.
In the wider cont...
About half of the energy loss in buildings is wasted through windows. Determining the optimum window-to-wall ratio (WWR) for different building facades would reduce such energy losses. The optimum WWR is the window area that minimizes the total annual energy of cooling, heating, and lighting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the optimum...
Environmental data acquisition tools are broadly used for climate monitoring and urban comfort assessment followed by data mining and sensing techniques for putting into evidence the relationship between environmental qualities of urban spaces and human well-being. Within this context, an environmental toolkit is a fundamental tool to evaluate tran...
Over the history of human settlements, approximately 30% of the world's population lived in brick made structures by 1990. It is also projected that the brick product segments will raise 3.5% during 2017-2027 and it is anticipated to dominate over the forecast period. So far, energy regulations have pushed the innovation of bricks towards better U-...
Extensive cost in the building industry comes from cooling and heating to create thermal comfort. Hence, it is necessary to utilize passive solutions, in addition to suitable design, in order to reduce energy consumption. This research attempts to investigate the impact of archetype patterns in office buildings on annual energy consumption for cool...
The early design stages of urban planning have a great impact on indoor comfort and energy aspects. Alternative power supply options, based on solar potential, should be considered in the early stages of design, as they may constitute highly efficient substitutes. Existing software solutions for such simulations require higher level of detail from...
Studies on microclimate of cities have already proved that pedestrian thermal comfort is function of built environment and it is fundamental to understand this phenomena both with numerical techniques and field measurements to achieve comfortable, healthier and more livable urban spaces. There has been wide variety of methods to approach this quest...
This chapter describes the positive effects and improvements of green streets on outdoor thermal comfort, considering the relevant influence on human well-being and urban heat island phenomenon in cities. The most influencing characteristics of plant species, which determine outdoor comfort, are described, e.g., foliage shape and dimension, leaf ar...
One of the main consequences of increasing urbanization in dense metropolitan contexts is the issue of microclimate and its relevance for dwellers due to heat and cold stress peak points. Extreme cases occur in tropical climates, where people are constantly exposed to heat stress. This research evaluates - as a case study - heat tolerance of people...
The concept of resilience in urban design and decision-making is principally focused on change instead of resistance over an adaptive process. For cities, this concept in a broader scale means how to withstand unforeseen events that will fundamentally amend the city's wellbeing, rather than being stabilized and protected. The same concept is applic...
The integration of energy and indoor comfort aspects into the early stage of urban planning is essential to conceive energy efficient urban structures and to avoid expensive compensation measures in the later building design. This could end up with increased insulation levels, complex air conditioning systems as well as increased energy demand duri...
The research proposes a mathematical generative methodology to identify performance linking urban forms and density indicators. Selected performance criteria for this preliminary study are shadow factor (on the public
ground) and Urban Heat Island effect. The results are interpreted based on the mathematical correlation between building form factor...
Environmental conditions strongly affect the use of public space and influence movement patterns: the evaluation of these conditions demands innovative computational methodologies and tools to collect data, process it and interpret such huge arrays of information. Computational and coupling methodologies open the way for developing an integrated un...
In urban areas the impact of built environment on wellbeing and human health should be considered due to urban heat island phenomenon. The present research aims at identifying a method for an accurate estimation of thermal outdoor comfort and mean radiant temperature, modeling and simulating the effects of urban form and vegetation on microclimate...
The world has experienced extreme urban growth in the last and current centuries, since more than half of the world population living in urban areas. Cities are expanding toward megacities with higher densities and narrower urban canyon profiles with huge urban structures and building masses. The transformation of urban landscape to densified city...
The parameter, as a variable of differentiation, defines the limits and boundaries of a system and the conditions for its operation. It is through parameters that we are able to produce certain logical relationships between different parts in design procedure. Fundamental to this, however, is the assumption that the object or phenomenawe are modeli...
The buildings are one of the most resistant and at the same time exclusive creatures of human beings in different civilizations. In the past, the most significant impact of each society was the scale and hugeness of their buildings as a direct mirror of their power among other nations. Also theirs buildings were intelligent and practical enough to...
As the living world becomes more and more complex by the time goes on, the question comes up that how to take the complexities of a design in different parameters and reduce it down to a physical prototype?
This is where a shift in thinking and design process is necessary.
Parametricism is a term for a new call epochal global style of architecture and covers all the design disciplines and also has become an important benchmark in design education as well. The term after its advent in 2008 has developed a global movement that has become mature in the body of technology and contemporary issues on architecture and urban...
Advent of machinery age, altering in human needs and lifestyle has changed the pattern of architecture. This pattern is in close relation with different environmental, contextual, behavioral and theoretical aspects of dwellers. With a glance to the history of design, in 1940s the new style of architecture came up which was called Googie architectur...
Parametricism is a term for a new call epochal global style of architecture and covers all the design disciplines and also becomes an important benchmark in architecture design as well. The term recently, has developed a global movement that becomes mature in the body of technology and contemporary issues on architecture and urbanism. Parametric de...
Nowadays, architecture is known as a tool for communication. This means that, it is used to transfer the language, which is the extraction of human`s needs and desires, to the image in the real world. Image is an abstract perception, but when it synthesizes with language, it expresses a story or manifests the reality. In this paper the concept of i...