Prof. Kristina Mjörnell

Talk title: Estimation of presence of hazardous substances in the existing building stock using machine learning on  building specific data

The research group has developed methods for predicting characteristics in multi-family buildings using machine learning methods on large-scale data from the Swedish building stock. The predicted results have been used as input to get better cost estimates for renovation strategies in the building stock. Hazardous substances are typically observed during the actual renovation, and can increase the renovation costs several fold. So, knowing this information beforehand is advantageous when deciding on appropriate renovation measures. Machine learning tools have not yet been used to automate predictions for the presence of hazardous materials in building components before. The absence of centralized storage of environmental inventories and decommissioning inventories is a crucial reason. Sweden is unique in terms of the requirements for carrying out environmental inventories and demolition inventories prior to rebuilding and demolition. Unfortunately, this information has only been stored by property owners and urban construction offices and environmental administrations and not at national level. In this project, important is done to collect and systematize observations to make them useful for machine learning.

Short CV

Kristina is responsible for the Business and innovation area Smart Cities and Communities which involves planning and coordinating RISE future activities in the field. She has 20 years of experience working as project leader, platform leader, coordinator of research activities, networks, initiation, planning and realization of research and development projects. The work has been focused in the following areas: moisture management, indoor environment investigations, energy efficient and sustainable renovation, and smart sustainable cities. She coordinates a national research environment involving about 30 researchers and as many companies and organisations. She is also adjunct professor in Building physics and active in research and supervising PhD students. Kristina is president of ENBRI (European National Building Research Institutes) board. RISE representative in E2BA, member of advisory committee for the Norwegian initiatives KLIMA2050 and NZEN, Board of National Renovation Centre, Board of Swedish Moisture Centre, Smart housing Småland, Information Centre for sustainable buildings. Member of IQS strategy group, IVA (Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, Division III and board of IVA Väst, SBU Swedish Universities in civil engineering and built environment.