Technical papers exploring hybrid ventilation, future weather predictions, dynamic modelling, digital twins and domestic energy use were recognised with CIBSE awards. Authors of winning papers, which appeared in Building Services Engineering Research & Technology (BSER&T) journal in 2024, were handed medals at the CIBSE President’s Awards Dinner last month.
The inaugural Brian Moss Fan Makers Award was won by Daniel Godoy-Shimizu, Ivan Korolija, Yair Schwartz and Dejan Mumovic (University College London), for the paper ‘Producing domestic energy benchmarks using a large disaggregate stock model’. This presents an analysis of metered gas and electricity use from more than 800,000 dwellings and new gas and electricity benchmarks have been produced based on the rich database.
The new award grants a bursary of £5,000, and was launched in 2025 to support innovation and learning in building services, and celebrate the legacy of CIBSE Past President Brian Moss OBE.
The other awards for technical papers were the:
Dufton Silver Medal for fundamental research in building services research and development, presented to Matthew Waterson and Gary R Hunt for their paper ‘Night cooling by hybrid supply ventilation – analytical predictions of airflow rates and the hybrid ventilation triangles’. The paper investigates hybrid ventilation – specifically the rates of airflow achieved by the simultaneous combination of ‘stack-driven’ natural displacement ventilation and a mechanical supply.
The results challenge the perception that a hybrid approach is superior to solely natural, and mechanical strategies.
Barker Silver Medal for an outstanding paper on application and development, won by Matthew E Eames, Hailun Xie, Anastasia Mylona, Jake Hacker and Ruth Shilston for their paper ‘A revised morphing algorithm for creating future weather for building performance evaluation’.
The study describes an improved method of predicting future weather data as ‘bounded morphing algorithms’. The approach was found to be more reliable in producing future weather data that preserves the underlying climate signals, and ultimately produces more plausible future weather conditions.
Carter Bronze Medal for the most highly rated paper, awarded to Nishesh Jain, Esfand Burman and Dejan Mumovic, for their paper ‘CIBSE TM54 energy projections III: a case study using dynamic simulation with detailed system modelling’.
The paper explores important aspects described in the revised TM54, which recommends three modelling approaches that a project can follow depending on its scale and complexity: quasi-steady state tools; dynamic simulation with a template HVAC system; and dynamic simulation with detailed HVAC system modelling.
Napier Shaw Bronze Medal for the most highly rated research paper, awarded to Mariam Elnour, Ahmad M Ahmad, Shimaa Abdelkarim, Fodil Fadli and Khalid Naji for their paper ‘Empowering smart cities with digital twins of buildings: applications and implementation considerations of data-driven energy modelling in building management’.
The study proposes deploying data-driven digital twins for smart buildings by using the available building’s technology and IT infrastructure to complement and augment existing functions.
CIBSE members can read BSER&T for free at www.cibse.org/knowledge