Associate Professor Riccardo Paolini
Riccardo by training is a building engineer and he received a Ph.D. in Building Systems Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2011. He joined UNSW Built Environment in February 2017. He is an Associate Professor in the High Performance Architecture research cluster, where he is also the manager of the HPA Lab. Riccardo is also an affiliate of the Heat Island Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA. Previously, he had an appointment as post-doc at Politecnico di Milano, Italy (2011-2017). He had been teaching heat and moisture transport in building envelope applications at Politecnico di Milano at postgraduate level for six years. He now teaches in the Architecture Program at the School of Built Environment.
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Riccardo has been a chief investigator in research projects funded by the Australian Research Council, the Department of Energy of the Australian Government, the CRC for Low Carbon Living, Local Governments, and industry. The total apportioned income in Australia exceeds 1M$ (more than 3M$ unapportioned). Previously,Riccardo contributed to research project projects funded by Italian Ministries for Research and for Economic Development, the EU Commission and the State of California, USA. He extensively researched the impact of weathering and soiling on the optical-radiative performance of building skins.
A selection of more recent projects include:
ARC Discovery Projects
Ranzi, G., Paolini, R. (2023-2026).DP230103050: Adaptive daytime radiative cooling and heating for buildings | Funded by: ARC Discovery Project:$567,630
Santamouris, M., Ranzi, G., Paolini, R. (2022-2025).DP220100318: Fluorescent daytime radiative cooling for urban heat mitigation | Funded by: ARC Discovery Project:$570,000
Ranzi, G., Santamouris, M., Paolini, R. (2018-2021).DP180101589:Elastocaloric cooling systems for buildings and the built environment | Funded by: ARC Discovery Project:$362,734
Federally funded research
Santamouris, M., Prasad, D., Paolini, R., Haddad, S., Vasilakopoulou, K. (2021-2022)Energy Efficiency and Training Information Project on Commercial Buildings| Funded by: Australian Government - Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
Santamouris, M., Prasad, D., Ding, L., Osmond, P., Paolini, R., Haddad, S. (2021-2022) Cool Roofs Cost Benefit Analysis| Funded by: Australian Government - Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
Rajagopalan, P., Santamouris, M., Andamon, MM., Carre, A., Edirisinghe, R., Synnefa, A., Paolini, R. (2017-2021).CSG55969: Scientists work with communities to improve urban microclimate| Funded by: DIIS Citizen Science Grants Shared Grant.
Projects on urban heat, its impacts and mitigation, funded by Local Governments or other sources
Paolini, R., Pfautsch, S., CIs: Nazarian, N., Hart, M. Wujeska-Klause, A., Chan, HLC, Woolley, N., King, L. (2023-2024).Too hot to play: quantifying the impacts of urban climate change on playground activity| Funded by: UNSW-WSU Alliances - Project Mezze: $49,991 -
Pfautsch, S., Morrison, N., Paolini, R., van den Nouwelant, R., Hird, W., Isedale, G. (2021) | Funded by: SPHERE (Maridulu Budyari Gumal) Healthy Urban Environments Collaboratory Seed Funding Shared Grant
Santamouris, M., Paolini, R., Pignatta, G., Haddad, S. (2019-2021)Evidence Based Interventions for Urban Cooling| Funded by: Blacktown City Council - Local Government NSW - Increasing Resilience to Climate Change Program
Santamouris, M., Pignatta, G., Haddad, S., Brozzetti, M., Paolini, R., Nazarian, N., Bartesaghi Koc, C. (2018-2019)Preliminary Design of a Smart Climatic Road in Phillip St Parramatta| Funded by: CRC for Low Carbon Living & City of Parramatta Council
Santamouris, M., Yenneti, K., Synnefa, A., Paolini, R. (2018-2019)Parramatta Urban Overheating Study| Funded by:City of Parramatta Council
Santamouris, M; Synnefa, A; Paolini, R; Haddad, S (2018) RP1040:Advanced hybrid ventilation systems for schools| Funded by: CRC for Low Carbon Living.
- UNSW Faculty of Built Environment – Learning & Teaching Award 2020 for COVID-19 Course Design
- UNSW Faculty of Built Environment – Research Excellence Award 2018 for level C (16/11/2018)
- Best Paper Award-Runner up (for the paper written best), December 2018, R. Paolini, S. Haddad, A. Synnefa, S. Garshasbi, M. Santamouris. (2018). Electricity demand reduction in Sydney and Darwin with local climate mitigation. In P. Rajagopalan & M.M. Andamon (Eds.), Engaging Architectural Science: Meeting the Challenges of Higher Density, Melbourne, Australia.
- "Pietro Natale Maggi" Award. July 2014, Italian National Conference ISTeA 2014 "Energy, Sustainability and Building Information Modelling and Management", Best paper: Paolini, R., T. Poli, G. Terraneo, M. Zinzi, E. Carnielo, A.G. Mainini, "Building envelope's optical-radiative performance over time: natural exposure in urban environments, and accelerated weathering and soiling".
- Best paper award. May 2008, 11th International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components, Istanbul, Turkey, Daniotti, B., Lupica, S., Paolini, R. "Climatic Data Analysis to Define Accelerated Ageing for Reference Service Life Evaluation".
Riccardo's main research interests concern cool materials for urban heat mitigation and shortwave radiation in the built environment. More broadly, his interest is in building physics and its applications to the design ofbuildingand urban envelopes, with a specific focus on the hygrothermal performance over time, namely during the service life ofbuildingand urban assets, and the mutual influence between buildings – and their energy needs – and the urban microclimate.
My Teaching
Teaching in the Architecture Program of the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW
2018 – present Course convenor of ARCH7809 “Architectural Environment and Building Services”, Master of Architecture, School of Built Environment, UNSW
2018 – present Lecturer and course convenor (i.e., full course coordination) of ARCH7213 “Performance over Time of Building Systems”, Master of Architecture, School of Built Environment, UNSW
Tutorials and guest lectures in the Architecture program in ARCH1261, ARCH1161, ARCH7218, ARCH7112/3.
Teaching in the Doctoral Program at Politecnico di Milano
2016 Lecturer and coordinator – PhD module of 40 hours “Heat and Moisture Transport Fundamentals and Applications in Building Envelope Design”, Doctoral programme ABC, Politecnico di Milano, Italy (http://tinyurl.com/hyabkqz).
2015 Lecturer and coordinator – PhD module of 40 hours “Building Performance Based Design - Heat and Moisture Transport Modelling Applications in Building Envelope Design”, Doctoral School of Politecnico di Milano, Italy (http://tinyurl.com/pqe4b9x).
2014 – 2015 Lecturer – PhD module of 40 hours “Building Performance Based Design - Radiative-Convective Modelling of Urban Microclimate”, Doctoral programme ABC – Politecnico di Milano, Italy (http://tinyurl.com/pqe4b9x).
Other teaching experience at Politecnico di Milano
2008-2016 Tutorials in Technical Architecture (Architettura Technica), Building Pathology (Patologia e Diagnostica Edilizia) and module coordination on heat and moisture transport applications for building envelope design.
My former teaching assistants now have lecturer positions at the University of Sydney, University of Wollongong, Central Queensland University, and Leeds Beckett Uni (UK).