About me
Juan Vallejo is an architect graduated from the School of Architecture of the University of Granada in 2010. He completed his postgraduate studies in Sustainable Environmental Design in the AA School of Architecture in 2013 and was awarded PhD at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham in 2018. His expertise lies in the field of building environmental simulation software tools, natural ventilation and passive evaporative cooling.
Juan is Visiting Lecturer in Architecture and Environmental Design (MSc) at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment of the University of Westminster and collaborates with the School of Sustainability (SOS) Team founded by Mario Cucinella Architects in Bologna (Italy), where he regularly lectures on environmental design principles, passive design techniques and building simulation tools. Since 2013 he has also been working in Naturalcooling Ltd as an environmental consultant on projects in the UK and abroad, performing feasibility studies, dynamic thermal performance analysis and detailed design evaluation.
Teaching
Juan’s teaching experience dates back to September 2014 with the start of the postgraduate course MSc Architecture & Environmental Design at the University of Westminster. Over these years, he was responsible for the delivery of technical sessions using environmental software simulation tools and the provision of methodological guidance for design & research processes. His technical sessions focus on the optimisation of the analytical process by using simple and advanced tools at the right time. In these sessions, feasibility studies, strategic design decision-making, sizing & optimisation are performed as part of the environmental design process. Some of the contents include the basics of passive & bioclimatic architecture (e. g. climate response, solar control, daylighting, natural ventilation); building monitoring and building energy modelling using dynamic thermal simulations and computational fluid dynamics.
In October 2015, Juan was involved in the development of the course program for the School of Sustainability (SOS) founded by Mario Cucinella Architects in Bologna (Italy), where he regularly lectures as part of the external expert team the principles of environmental design, passive design techniques and building simulation tools.
Specialised in natural ventilation and passive evaporative cooling, Juan has also been guest lecturer of multiple postgraduate courses in the UK (i.e. AA School of Architecture, University College London, University of Nottingham, University of Cambridge, University of East London, Sheffield Hallam University), where he has delivered the principles of natural ventilation and introduced to methods for testing and sizing natural ventilation strategies.
Research
Born in a hot, dry climate, Juan’s research interest lies in the field of passive cooling techniques and extends to the fields of air quality control measures, parametric design optimization and data processing & visualization techniques.
In 2015, Juan developed in collaboration with Pablo Aparicio (Dipl. Eng, MSc, PhD, University of Seville) and supervised by emeritus professor Brian Ford (U. Nottingham, NaturalCooling Ltd) the software Optivent 2.0, a natural ventilation steady-state calculation tool to support strategic decisions regarding the feasibility of natural ventilation during the early design stage. This tools is now used by postgraduate students from several universities in UK and abroad.
Juan’s PhD research titled Design Integration of Novel Porous Ceramic Evaporative Cooling Systemsresponded to a context characterised by the rise in demand of air conditioning. It focused on the design and manufacture of a novel passive cooling system that combined the principles of passive cooling with the inherited use of ceramics in architecture to create an aesthetic and optimised wetted Porous Ceramic Cooling (PCC) screen that improves comfort conditions in indoor, transitional and outdoor spaces. The optimisation focused in the geometrical characteristics of the ceramic element and in the water supply method, and was informed by a continuous performance monitoring for several manufactured prototypes. In addition, a new steady state and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model (including the phase change process taking place on the ceramic surface and the subsequent mass transfer from liquid to vapour state) were developed by Juan to assist in the sizing and performance prediction of PCC systems in early and late design stages.
Research Appointments
As associate of Passive Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) organisation, Juan regularly attends and contributes to PLEA conferences, while also contributes to the peer reviewing process of the submitted conference papers.
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.