Luisa Caldas

Luisa Caldas

Architect Faculty Scientist/Engineer

Bio

Luisa Caldas is Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley and Joint Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). She holds a Ph.D. from MIT in Architecture: Building Technology, and an M.Sc. in Environmental Design and Engineering from the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (UCL), after having trained as an architect at the Technical University of Lisbon.

Her research interests focus on evolutionary computation, generative design systems in architecture, thermal and day lighting behavior of buildings, and development of new construction materials in collaboration with the industry. She is the author of GENE_ARCH, a generative design system integrating Pareto Genetic Algorithms and Energy Plus.

At UC Berkeley, she is a member of the Center for the Built Environment and of the Building Science group. Her teaching activities focus on the integration of sustainability and energy dimensions into the design process.

At LBNL, her research concentrates on generative design systems applied to multiple design scales, from facade elements to buildings to urban design. As part of her bridging role between LBNL and the Department of Architecture at UC Berkeley, she is interested in the integration into the architectural design process of several energy simulation tools developed at LBNL