Dr Giridharan Renganathan

Qualifications: B.Arch(IIT); M.Ur. Dgn (HKU); PhD (HKU); AIA (SL)

Giridharan Joined University of Kent in 2012. He received his B.Arch (1994) degree from IIT Kharagpur, India. He did his M.Ur.Design (1997) and PhD (2005) degrees at the University of Hong Kong. He has both academic and professional consultancy work experience. He has held research appointments at University of Hong Kong (2006), Brunel University (2007) and Loughborough University (2009). Prior to taking up the academic career, he had worked for organisations such as State Engineering Corporation, Urban Development Authority and Avant Garde Urban Design Partnership in Sri Lanka. In practice, he has designed personalised houses as well as large scale institutional and commercial projects. He also designed small scale interventions in towns to mega urban development projects in Sri Lanka.

His research focus is on Urban Morphology and Climatology (environmental design), with specific interest in Urban Heat Island effect and indoor overheating. He has secured large research grants from RGC (Hong Kong SAR) and EPSRC (UK), and small grants from European Union Regional Development Fund (EU), Herritage lottery fund/Kent County Council (UK) and University of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka). He has over 25 peer reviewed publications and 3 book chapters. He has also reviewed research papers for journals such as Building and Environment, Energy and Buildings, Building Research and Information, habitat International, Urban Forestry, Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Environmental Management, International Journal of Climatology, Theoretical and applied climatology, Energy for Sustainable Development and Environmental Engineering Science.

His research focus is on Urban Morphology and Climatology (environmental design), with specific interest in urban heat island effect, urban albedo, outdoor thermal comfort, summer time over heating in buildings, passive ventilation strategies, use of cool materials, urban albedo and dynamic thermal modelling. Giridharan Renganathan welcomes applications from any potential PhD students interested in the aforementioned areas.

Research grants

• University of Moratuwa Senate Research Committee long term grants, 2020. Design Considerations for Adaptive Behaviour and Adaptive Thermal Comfort in Naturally Ventilated Affordable High-rise Housing in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount SLRs 1,500,000; Duration: 3 Years. 
  
• Eastern Arc Fund, 2020. Human rights and climate change: From conceptual to practical aspects. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: £3000; Duration: 1 year.
• EU MSCA -TN-EID, 2019 “SOLOCLIM, Solutions for outdoor climate adaptation”. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: €205,000 (overall project amount: €1.7 million); Duration: 4 years. 
  
• EPSRC Grant, 2017. Urban Albedo computation in high latitude locations: an experimental approach. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: £900,000.00; Duration: 3 Years
• University of Moratuwa Senate Research Committee short term grants, 2016. Thermal Comfort in Tsunami Housing Developments in Southern Coast of Sri Lanka. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount SLRs 250,000.00; Duration: 1 Year.
• Heritage Lottery Fund / Kent County Council Grant, 2015. Environmental monitoring of large Victorian house in Dalby Square, Margate. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: £73,550.00 (overall); Duration: 1 Year.
• European Union regional development fund, Environmental innovation network grant, 2015. Detailed thermal simulations of a heritage townhouse. Capacity: Principal Investigator; Amount £700.00; Duration: 1 Year.
• Hong Kong SAR Government Research, 2004. Urban design approach to lower the space conditioning energy in inner city mixed use residential street blocks in Hong Kong. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: HK$ 1.1M; Duration: 3 Years.
•  Hong Kong SAR Government Research Grant, 2003. Urban design approach to lower the space conditioning energy in coastal area residential developments in Hong Kong. Capacity: Co-Investigator; Amount: HK$ 1.2M; Duration: 3 Years.

Research Projects (member of research team)

• Local Urban Climate Model and its application to the Intelligent Development of Cities (LUCID-London). EPSRC funded. June 2007 - May 2009.
• European Cool Roof Project. European Council funded. June 2009 to October 2009.
• Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environment in a Changing Climate (DeDeRHECC). EPSRC funded. November 2009 to October 2012.
  

PhD Supervision

• Koutheir Brigui
• Parin Mohajerani
• Sukanya Ravi
• Mohamed Telli
• Leonidas Tsichritzis

Appointments and affiliations

• Associate member of Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (Chartered Architect, SL)
• Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK
• Member of European Cool roof Council
• Member of International Association of Urban Climate
• Editorial board member of Atmosphere journal (since June 2020)
• Editorial board member of Architecture journal (since March 2021)
• Panel member of Natural Environment Research Council, UK, 2020
• Peer reviews for EPSRC (UK), MRC (UK), NERC (UK), Royal Academy of Arts and Science (Netherlands), Israel Science Foundation, Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and National Centre for Science and Technology (Kazakhstan). 
• External examiner (PhD/MPhil): University of Cambridge (MPhil), Loughborough University, Robert Gordon University and University of Moratuwa
• External examiner (PGT): MUrCS- Glasgow Caledonian University (2022-26)
• Associate Editor of Frontiers in Built Environment journal (since Aug 2022)

Prizes and Honours

• Carter Bronze Medal (2016) by Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE)
• Research Paper of the Year (2015), 'Highly Commended Certificate', Loughborough University Energy Medal, Loughborough University
• Asian Development Bank Scholarship (1995)