ARCH Lab Presents Pacific Northwest Thermal Comfort Research in Buenos Aires
Earlier this month, ARCH Lab director Dr. Tareq Abuimara traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to present the lab’s research and meet with an international network of building scientists. The trip was funded by a 2026 Faculty Travel Grant from the WSU School of Design and Construction.
On 5 October, Dr. Abuimara presented “Thermal Comfort in the Age of Climate Change: The Case of Institutional Buildings in the American Pacific Northwest” at the Buildings for People 2026 Symposium, hosted by the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA). The poster and pitch presentation shared findings from the lab’s work on how occupants experience heat in aging campus buildings. The paper appears in the symposium proceedings.
Over the next two days, he took part in the fifth Experts Meeting of the IEA EBC Human-Centric Buildings Network. Researchers from [number] countries met to work on how buildings can be designed and run around the people inside them. Dr. Abuimara [proposed / is leading / will contribute to] a new activity on design and retrofit recommendations that address resilience, sufficiency, and equity, building on the lab’s research in institutional buildings
We thank the School of Design and Construction for making this trip possible.
Building for what’s coming. Go Cougs!
ARCH Lab Receives SDC Faculty Travel Grant to Present in Buenos Aires
Dr. Tareq Abuimara, director of the ARCH Lab, has received a 2026 Faculty Travel Grant from the WSU School of Design and Construction. The award will support his trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 4 to 8 October.
On 5 October, Dr. Abuimara will present “Thermal Comfort in the Age of Climate Change: The Case of Institutional Buildings in the American Pacific Northwest” at the Building|s for People 2026 Symposium, hosted by the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA). The work, accepted as a poster and pitch presentation, will appear in the symposium proceedings. It draws on the lab’s ongoing research into how occupants experience thermal conditions in aging campus buildings, and what that means as summers get hotter.
He will then join the fifth Experts Meeting of the IEA EBC Human-Centric Buildings (HCB) Network on 6 and 7 October. The network brings together researchers from around the world who study how buildings can be designed and operated around the people who use them. For the ARCH Lab, it’s a chance to compare notes with international colleagues and build collaborations that extend our work beyond the Pacific Northwest.
We thank the School of Design and Construction for its support.
Building for what’s coming. Go Cougs!
ARCH Lab at eSim2026
Dr. Abuimara represented WSU’s School of Design and Construction at eSim2026 (Longueil, QC, Canada), presenting two research papers on occupant thermal comfort and energy retrofit potential in institutional buildings. The conference brought together leading researchers in building performance simulation and offered a valuable opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and collaborators from across the field.
Building for what’s coming.
