CIRS is about doing things differently, and our research reflects our leadership at the frontier of new knowledge and practice in sustainability.
While the CIRS research program explores the gap between the potential capabilities of sustainable design and technology and the actual performance when combined with human behaviour, the reach of our discovery goes well beyond that mandate.
The global sustainability dialogue is advancing quickly, and CIRS brings a new perspective to the discussion by exploring sustainability solutions that focus on “regenerative design ”—the concept of buildings and other systems generating positive benefits for both human and natural systems.
Regenerative design shifts the whole sustainability dialogue from reducing negative human impacts to improving environmental and human conditions, which could have a profound impact on the way urban settings are developed, designed and constructed.
With the living laboratory concept as our foundation, the CIRS research program utilizes the UBC campus as a testing ground to engage the UBC community and multiple stakeholders in exploring regenerative sustainability solutions that can help bring communities back into balance around the globe.
Our research is:
- Interdisciplinary, because crossing disciplinary boundaries results in big ideas that can make even bigger impacts
- Relevant to decision-makers and policy makers, given that changes in behaviour and policies are required to achieve sustainability
- Based on the involvement of academic and non-academic partners in the research process, since each group needs the knowledge and engagement of the other to accomplish research goals
The CIRS research program combines infrastructure and research agendas and consists of three distinct areas: Sustainable Building Design and Operation, Tools for Modeling, Visualization and Community Engagement and Policy Analysis and Strategies.
Each research area includes projects that are physically undertaken in the CIRS building, use CIRS as the test bed for exploration, or are hosted at CIRS. Click on each research area to learn more about the exciting research projects underway at CIRS.
