Asiya Natekal

CNI Fellow - Class of 2015

Graduate Student, Planning Policy and Design
UC Irvine

Project

How Cool is UCI?

Description

The primary purpose of this project is to perform a feasibility study of “cool roofs” for the existing buildings on the UC Irvine campus in order to develop a proposal for a phase-wise implementation plan of cool roofs for the Office of Sustainability, UC Irvine. The core of this research is to utilize the campus as a living laboratory for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by retrofitting the existing building envelope.

Goals

The main goals of this research is to 1) Investigate the potential of “cool roofs” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and 2) create awareness of the retrofitting potential of the building envelope. The primary objective of this project is to perform a feasibility study of cool roofs for the existing buildings on the UC Irvine campus in order to develop a proposal for a phase-wise implementation plan of cool roofs for the Office of Sustainability, UC Irvine.

Future Plans

I plan to continue working on this research for multiple reasons:

1. Investigate innovative strategies to retrofit existing building on the UC Irvine campus. The various elements of the building envelope can be further explored and incorporated into the climate action plan of UC Irvine.
2. Investigate measures adopted to retrofit existing buildings across UC.
3. Work towards a publication.

Mentor

Richard Demerjian