Dr. William O’Brien
Principal Investigator
Projects
Environmental Impacts of Housing Form
This project assesses the holistic life cycle environmental impacts of housing forms and evaluates different engineering design, planning, and policies to mitigate them.
Assessing and improving ventilation system performance in Canadian multi-unit residential buildings
Assess performance of the centralized pressurized corridor ventilation system vs. decentralized ERV system in two architecturally similar side-by-side high-rise MURBs in Toronto and investigate methods to improve performance through coupled energy and airflow simulations.
The project aims to develop predictive controls to optimize fan coil control and window shading control using model-based and model-free computational strategies with the objective of improving energy efficiency and occupant comfort, including thermal comfort and visual comfort.
Improving Residential Indoor Environmental Quality to Promote Aging in Place
This project uses surveys, interviews, and field measurements to characterize the indoor environmental conditions (including light, thermal, acoustic and air-quality) in seniors’ homes, to provide targets for improvement.
Developing an Automated Tool for Evaluating Building Thermal Resilience
Create automated tool to translate building performance model into thermal resilience model.
Publications
Journal Publications
Ruiz-Valero, L., Arceo, A., Kesik, T., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W., “Life Cycle Assessment of Housing and Neighbourhoods: A Systematic Review,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review, 210 (2025), 115249. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2024.115249
Arceo, A., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Beyond Density: Examining Overlooked Drivers of Housing and Neighborhood Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Sustainable Cities and Society, 120 (2025), 106131, doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2025.106131
Arceo, A., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. Hong, T., Malik, J. Mayer, M., Peters, T., Saxe, S., Tamas, R., Villeneuve, H., Schmaltz, B., “Ten Questions Concerning Housing Sufficiency,” Building and Environment, 277, (2025), 112941, doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.112941
Siu, C.Y., Brown, S., Brideau, S., Ji, L., O’Brien, W., Ferguson, A., Greco, E., Touchie, M., McLellan, C., Lepage, R., Dmytrenko, N., “Exploring the role of building codes in protecting occupants from overheating – a Canadian perspective,” Energy and Buildings, 338, (2025), 115673, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115673
Arceo, A., O’Brien, W., Touchie, M.F. “Ten questions concerning the environmental impacts of housing built form,” Building and Environment, 256, (2024) 111490, doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2024.111490
Siu, A. Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Development and testing of an automated tool to leverage building energy models for thermal resilience analysis,” Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 1-19, (2024), doi: 10.1080/19401493.2024.2365381
Arceo, A., Derakthi, M., Hinoporos, F., O’Brien, W., Boyle, S., Touchie, M.F., Wills, A., Knudsen, H., “Challenges and Opportunities of Integrating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Building Energy Codes,” Energy and Buildings, 328 (2024), 115190, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.115190
Andargie, M. Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W., Müller-Trapet, M. “Assessment of indoor exposure to outdoor environmental noise and effects on occupant comfort in multi-unit residential buildings,” Building Acoustics, 30(3) (2023) p 293-313, doi: 10.1177/1351010X231194471
Andargie, M. Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W., Müller-Trapet, M. “A field study of the relationship between sound insulation and acoustic comfort in multi-unit residences,” accepted in Applied Acoustics, 206, (2023), 109291. doi: 10.1016/j.apacoust.2023.109291
Siu, C.Y., O’Brien, W., Touchie, M.F., Armstrong, M., Laouadi, A., Gaur, A., Jandaghian, A., Macdonald, I. “Evaluating thermal resilience of building designs using building performance simulation – A review of existing practices,” Building and Environment, 234, (2023) 110124. doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110124
Dong, B., Liu, Y., Mu, W., Jiang, Z., Pandey, P., Hong, T., Olesen, B., Lawrence, T., O’Neill, Z., Andrews, C., Azar, E., Bandurski, K., Bardhan, R., Bavaresco, M., Berger, C., Burry, J., Carlucci, S., Chvatal, K., De Simone, M., Erba, S., Gao, N., Graham, L., Grassi, C., Jain, R., Kumar, S., Kjærgaard, M., Korsavi, S., Langevin, J., Li, Z., Lipczynska, A., Mahdavi, A., Malik, A., Marschall, M., Nagy, Z., Neves, L., O’Brien, L., Pagliano, L., Pan, S., Park, J., Pigliautile, I., Piselli, C., Pisello, AL., Rafsanjani, H., Rupp, R., Salim, R., Schiavon, S., Schwee, J., Sonta, A., Touchie, M.F., Wagner, A., Walsh, S., Wang, Z., Webber, D., Yan, D., Zangheri, P., Zhang, J., Zhou, X., Zhou, X. “A Global Building Occupant Behavior Database,” Scientific Data. (2022), 9:369. doi:10.1038/s41597-022-01475-3
Berquist, J., Cassidy, N., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W., Fine, J. “High-rise residential building ventilation in cold climates: A review of ventilation system types and their impact on in-situ building performance,” Indoor Air (2022) 10.1111/ina.13158
Andargie, M., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Case study: A survey of perceived noise in Canadian multi-unit residential buildings to study long-term implications for widespread teleworking” Building Acoustics, Feb 2021 pp.1351010. doi: 10.1177/1351010X21993742
Stopps, H., Huchuk, B., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Is anyone home? A critical review of occupant-centric smart HVAC controls implementations in residential buildings” Building and Environment, 187 (2020) pp.107369. doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107369
Andargie, M., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “A Survey of Factors That Impact Noise Exposure And Acoustic Comfort in Multi-Unit Residential Buildings” Canadian Acoustics, 48(3) (2020) pp. 25-41
Zhang, S. Fine, J.P., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “A simulation framework for predicting occupant thermal sensation in perimeter zones of buildings considering direct solar radiation and ankle draft” Building and Environment, 183 (2020) pp.107096. doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107096
Andargie, M.S., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “A review of factors affecting occupant comfort in multi-unit residential buildings,” Building and Environment, 160 (2019) pp.106182. doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.106182
Conference Publications
Siu, A., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Leverage Building Energy Models to Perform Thermal Resilience Analysis: A Novel Workflow” in the 2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference, Chicago, IL, January 20-24, 2024
Park, T., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Analysis of IEQ elements that contribute to award-winning multi-unit residential building design and their applicability in a Canadian context” in eSim 2024 Conference, Edmonton, AB, June 5-7, 2024
Zhang, S., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Predicting Discomfort Glare Using Simple Illuminance Measurements – An Experimental Evaluation” in the 2024 ASHRAE Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IN, June 22-26, 2024, doi: 10.63044/s24zha43
Peters, T., Le, T., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Architectural Qualities of Award Winning, Global, Multi-Unit Residential Buildings and Analysis of Barriers in the Canadian Context” in the 4th International Conference on New Horizons in Green Civil Engineering (NHICE-04), Victoria, BC, August 26-28, 2024
Villeneuve, H., Sewraj, K., O’Brien, W., Touchie, M.F., “Understanding Adaptive Opportunities and Indoor Environmental Quality for Aging in Place: A Pilot Study” in the Comfort at the Extremes (CATE) 2024 Conference, Seville, Spain, November 20-22, 2024
Berquist, J., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Modelling of heat and energy recovery ventilators in cold climates using EnergyPlus and TRNSYS” in the ASHRAE and SCANVAC HVAC Cold Climate Conference 2023, Anchorage, AK, March 6-8, 2023
Andargie, M.S., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “Subjective and objective evaluation of impact and airborne sound insulation of multi-unit residential buildings” in the Internoise 2021 Conference, Washington, D.C., August 1-5, 2021
Zhang, S., Fine, J., Touchie, M.F., O’Brien, W. “A Novel Simulation Framework for Comfort-based Assessments of Window Designs,” in ASHRAE 2020 Winter Conference Proceedings, Orlando FL, 1-5 February 2020