Sponsor: NSF
Our proposed AccelNet at Full-Scale Implementation level will facilitate collaborative research, education, and outreach through an International Network of Networks for Well-being In the Built Environment (IN2WIBE). At the core of IN2WIBE is the shared understanding that well-being is strongly dependent on the links between the built environment and the personal, cultural, economic, and social forces that drive health, productivity, satisfaction, and comfort. Research networks on well-being in the built environment exist, however, they are shaped by their institutional, regional, or social contexts and are mostly locally convergent. Well-being in the built environment is a broad research area, and there exist myriad approaches and solutions that emerge from different disciplinary perspectives. These efforts need to be integrated to foster effective, robust, and widely-applicable solutions. IN2WIBE will connect and educate future building scholars on well-being in buildings while informing better building design, construction, operation, and use. This will be achieved through leveraging resources from 34 existing networks and partners in 5 continents (N. America, Africa, Europe, Australia, and Asia), comprising a total of 17 countries. Through strategically designed activities, we will cultivate and foster connections through the development of community consensus and standards, as well as a shared data repository from buildings globally. The overarching research themes are aligned with three NSF 10 big ideas: (i) Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, (ii) Growing Convergence Research, and (iii) Harnessing the Data Revolution. Four objectives of IN2WIBE are to: 1) facilitate new forms of collaborations by integrating disciplines and networks in building and health fields; 2) engage networks at multiple stages and scales, including networks in South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East; 3) produce innovative human-centric building design and operation strategies that will benefit the larger community of scholars and practitioners; and 4) prepare next generation building professionals with a diverse background. Led by multidisciplinary teams, IN2WIBE will foster collaborative research opportunities by coordinating the networks through a series of focused, cross-disciplinary global activities, including task group development, global database/protocol development, roundtable discussions, scholarly retreats, competitions and exhibitions, intensive summer camps, research Pecha Kucha, demonstration projects, industry showcase, hackathons, TEDx talks, design charrettes, and eight research workshops and conferences with focused themes.