Shady Attia

🏆 Outstanding Presentation Award | 6th International Symposium on Urban Climate and Urban Design | Xi'an, China

I was honored to receive the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 6th International Symposium on Urban Climate and Urban Design in Xi'an, China, among nine selected presentations (17.05.2026). While the award is deeply appreciated, what makes it particularly meaningful is the community behind it.

This was my third participation in this conference series. Over the years, I have seen it grow into one of the most dynamic platforms for exchanging ideas on urban climate, sustainable urban design, building energy systems, resilience, and decarbonization. What distinguishes this conference is its strong emphasis on scientific dialogue, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the active involvement of PhD students and early-career researchers. Many of the most innovative ideas presented this year came from doctoral researchers who will shape the future of our field.

My presentation, "Zero Carbon Buildings Under Urban Heat Stress: How Urban Microclimate Redefines Decarbonization Pathways," challenged a central assumption in current net-zero frameworks: that annual energy balance alone is sufficient to define building decarbonization. The key message was simple:

👉 A building certified as net-zero under standard climate assumptions may no longer perform as a true zero-carbon building when exposed to real urban microclimates. The work proposes a new framework integrating: • urban heat island effects • time-dependent carbon emissions • district-scale energy interactions • pedestrian thermal livability

Beyond the presentations, the conference provided exceptional opportunities for networking and scientific exchange. Some of the most valuable discussions happened during coffee breaks, dinners, and informal conversations with colleagues working on urban climate, public health, blue-green infrastructure, urban morphology, energy systems, and climate adaptation. These conversations often become the seeds of future collaborations.

I would like to sincerely thank Prof. Chunping Miao, Prof. Baojie He, and the organizing committee for creating such a stimulating environment for scientific exchange. Special thanks to the session chair for the insightful moderation and constructive discussion. I also want to congratulate all presenters Xue Zhong, Lutz Philip Hecker, Xu Juan, and Yuping Wang, especially the PhD students and young researchers, whose enthusiasm, rigor, discipline, and creativity were at the heart of this conference.

A special note of appreciation to Prof. Pengyuan Shen and colleagues at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS). During the closing ceremony, the conference flag was officially handed over to Shenzhen. I am already looking forward to continuing these discussions in June 2027, when the next edition will bring together another generation of researchers working toward more resilient and sustainable cities.

🎥 For those interested, here is a documentary from last year's conference (2025) in Chongqing, which captures the spirit of this growing scientific community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grgXQxNWk-8

📄 Presentation paper: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/344693
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📽️ [Video] You Got Published: Now What?

Your paper is accepted. That is a major milestone. But publication is not the end. It is the beginning of your paper's life. I have served as an editor, reviewer, and author for over a decade. One pattern repeats constantly: most researchers celebrate acceptance, file the paper away, and move to the next submission. This is a strategic error. What the data shows, studies on academic impact reveal a clear pattern:

👉 Papers that are actively promoted receive 3–5x more citations than equivalent papers left unshared

👉 Only 15–20% of published papers are ever shared by their authors beyond their immediate network

👉 Reviewer feedback is archived and never revisited by approximately 70% of researchers

👉 The half-life of a paper's visibility without promotion is roughly 6 months

These numbers are not abstract. They represent missed opportunities for your career and for science. What I have learned from editorial experience:

After handling hundreds of manuscripts as an editor and reviewing thousands as a peer reviewer, I have observed what separates researchers who build lasting impact from those who do not:

They reflect on success: When a paper is accepted, they do not just celebrate. They ask: Why was this paper accepted? What worked in the methodology? What convinced the reviewers? What made the contribution clear? They document these answers and reuse them.
They archive reviewer feedback systematically: Reviewer comments are gold. Even after acceptance, the feedback reveals weaknesses you missed, strengths you should emphasize, and framing that worked. I have seen researchers reuse reviewer insights to strengthen three or four subsequent papers. Most researchers read the comments once and never open the file again.
They promote actively, not passively: Visibility does not happen automatically. A paper buried in a journal's website with no promotion will average 10–20 reads per month in its first year. A paper shared strategically on LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Twitter/X, institutional repositories, and email lists can reach 500–1000 reads in the same period. Citations follow reads.
They track impact beyond the journal: Citations matter, but they are not the only metric. Policy documents, industry reports, blog mentions, and research uptake in teaching all count as impact. Researchers who build lasting influence track these and use them in promotion dossiers and funding applications.
They build forward: Every paper should strengthen the next one. The literature review from a published paper becomes the foundation for a grant proposal. The methodology becomes a template for a follow-up study. The reviewer feedback becomes a checklist for the next submission. Strong researchers do not start from zero each time.
A concrete example from experience: One early-career researcher I worked with published a solid but not spectacular paper in a mid-tier journal. Instead of moving on, they:

-Shared the paper with 12 colleagues and asked for feedback on promotion strategies

-Wrote a plain-language summary and posted it on LinkedIn and ResearchGate

-Emailed the paper to three research groups working on similar topics

-Added the paper to their institutional repository and ORCID profile

-Tracked citations monthly and reached out to authors who cited related work

After 18 months, that paper had 85 citations – more than several papers in higher-impact journals from the same year that were never promoted.

What this video covers

01:09 – How to celebrate and reflect strategically

01:41 – How to analyze why your paper was accepted

03:35 – How to archive and reuse reviewer feedback

04:48 – How to promote your paper effectively

07:34 – How to track citations and impact

09:48 – How to apply lessons to future publications

12:35 – Key takeaways

Key takeaways from research and practice

Acceptance is not the finish line. It is the starting point of your paper's impact.
Understand why your paper succeeded. Capture what worked. Reuse it.
Promote your work actively. Visibility does not happen automatically.
4. Track your impact: citations, reads, policy mentions, and teaching use all count.

Build forward. Every paper should make the next one stronger.
💬 The core message: A published paper that is not promoted is a missed opportunity. A paper that is reflected upon, archived, promoted, tracked, and built upon becomes a career asset.

📚 Part of the playlist: Reviewers & Editors: Roles and Responsibilities

🎥 Watch the video: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGDWGTX9p

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💬 What is the first thing you do after your paper gets accepted?

AcademicPublishing

[Article] Are Net Zero Energy Buildings Really Net Zero Carbon Buildings?

For nearly two decades, the building industry has pursued a simple objective: Reduce annual energy demand. Produce renewable energy onsite. Achieve Net Zero Energy.

But what if annual net-zero energy does not mean annual net-zero carbon?

In our recent paper published in Building and Environment, we tested a fundamental assumption behind many Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs): Does balancing annual electricity consumption with annual renewable electricity generation automatically result in zero operational emissions? The answer is no.

Using hourly dynamic grid emission factors across major G7 cities, we found that identical net-zero energy buildings can exhibit markedly different carbon outcomes depending on when electricity is consumed and produced.

📌 Key finding:
A building can be net zero in energy while still generating operational carbon emissions. Why? Because electricity grids are dynamic. The carbon intensity of electricity changes every hour depending on the generation mix, renewable availability, storage deployment, imports, exports, and fossil fuel backup generation. Our analysis showed that conventional annual emission accounting can significantly misrepresent building performance. In some locations, static annual carbon factors underestimated operational emissions by more than 100%. In others, they overestimated emissions by a similar magnitude. This has important implications.
As Europe accelerates electrification through heat pumps, district energy systems, electric mobility, and renewable integration, annual energy metrics alone are becoming insufficient. The next frontier is no longer "How much energy does a building use?" but rather "When does a building use energy?" "How carbon-intensive is the grid at that moment?" "Can the building shift demand to cleaner hours?" This is exactly why concepts such as
✔ 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy ✔ Hourly Carbon Accounting ✔ Demand Flexibility ✔ Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings ✔ Building Energy Storage ✔ Vehicle-to-Building Integration
are rapidly gaining attention across Europe and North America. The future low-carbon building will not simply be energy efficient. It will be carbon-aware. It will respond to real-time grid conditions. It will store energy when carbon intensity is low and avoid consumption when carbon intensity is high. In other words, the transition from Net Zero Energy Buildings to Net Zero Carbon Buildings requires moving from annual performance metrics to hourly carbon intelligence. The future of net-zero buildings is not balancing annual kilowatt-hours, but matching energy use to low-carbon electricity every hour of the year.

📌 This paper was developed by Deepak Amaripadath, David Sailor, Aurora Luigia Teresa Bertini, Mike Barker, Shady Attia 阿提亚 沙帝, S. (2025). Are net zero energy buildings necessarily also net zero emission buildings? Time-integrated analysis using dynamic grid emission factors. Building and Environment, 283, 113367.
📘 Full article: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/334041
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NetZeroCarbon

📢 Rencontre Alumni Ingénieur Architecte – ULiège, 24 juin 2026 - 🕠 17h30 – 20h00

Le programme Ingénieur Architecte de l’ULiège entre dans une phase importante de réflexion et d’évolution. Dans un contexte de transformation rapide des pratiques, notamment avec l’intégration de l’intelligence artificielle, les retours des diplômé·e·s deviennent essentiels. Nous invitons donc les alumni à une rencontre dédiée autour du thème :

🎓 IA en architecture : pratiques, compétences et évolution du programme

🗓 24 juin 2026 - 🕠 17h30 – 20h00 -📍 Sart Tilman, Bâtiment allée de la Découverte, Quartier Polytech. 4000 Liège, https://share.google/XHqLMuZ2OHtLLWMUk

👥 En présentiel uniquement. Cette rencontre est particulièrement importante pour trois raisons :

• mieux comprendre l’évolution réelle des métiers et des pratiques professionnelles,

• identifier les compétences aujourd’hui attendues des jeunes diplômé·e·s,

• alimenter la réforme et l’adaptation future du parcours Ingénieur Architecte à l’ULiège.

Votre expérience de terrain et votre regard critique sont essentiels pour construire un programme pertinent, ambitieux et connecté aux réalités du secteur.

👉 Inscription : https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=hDvhYmAZYkWMf3JHKVHaj6ZlZgQST2BMt4w6LltJYSBUQTEzS1EwOEpMNUFDM081Q1ozVDFCUjRQVy4u

⏳ Date limite : 19 juin 2026

Avec la participation de de Boissieu.

🔁 Merci de partager cette invitation avec d’autres alumni Ingénieur Architecte de l’ULiège.

📸 To the Department of Architecture at Fine Arts Cairo | Returning to Thank the Professors Who Formed Us

This photo was taken in 2013, when I returned to the Department of Architecture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University in Cairo after completing my PhD abroad. I came back for a simple reason: to thank the professors who shaped us.

Looking at this image today reminds me of how fortunate I was to begin my academic journey surrounded by a remarkable generation of professors and teachers. These were not only architects, urban designers, and academics. They were intellectuals with deep cultural grounding, strong ethical values, and a profound belief that architecture was a civilizational responsibility.

Architectural education at Fine Arts was, and thankfully remains in Egypt, a rigorous five-year formation rooted in studio culture, long-duration mentorship, and disciplinary immersion. The studio culture was demanding. Long nights, difficult juries, hand drawing, theory, urbanism, structures, and composition were inseparable parts of the architect’s formation. And yes, many of us failed courses—especially the studio.

I still remember the strange dark humor after difficult juries. We would take our drafting boards wrapped with Canson paper and, with the help of Uncle Lotfy and Uncle Saied, organize symbolic mourning ceremonies for failed studio projects, almost like architectural funeral tents. Looking back today, it sounds surreal. But those moments created something powerful: solidarity, humility, resilience, friendship, and collective identity.

We were not isolated individuals optimizing personal satisfaction. We belonged to a generation that grew together through shared struggle, criticism, long nights, and collective pressure. The studio was not only a place of production. It was a social and intellectual community.

We were educated in a system that believed architecture could not be learned through comfort, continuous reassurance, or transactional educational relationships. Students were expected to struggle, fail, repeat studios, accept difficult criticism, and grow through discipline and resilience. Respect for professors did not emerge from fear alone, but from recognition that knowledge, experience, and culture required humility before mastery. We did not enter the studio as clients seeking satisfaction. We entered as apprentices, being formed into architects.

What made that generation of professors exceptional was also its true international intellectual diversity. Many had studied in France, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. Different architectural cultures coexisted inside the department. It was genuine internationalization rooted in intellectual exchange, not institutional self-reproduction.

Most importantly, they believed in values larger than themselves: • architecture as culture • education as mentorship • rigor over popularity • discipline with humanity • transmission across generations

Grateful to: Prof. Mohamed Tawfik Abdelgawad, Prof. Ahmed Helal, Prof. Mahmoud Teelab, Prof. Talat El , Prof. Ahmed Radwan, Prof. Elghazali Kesseiba, Prof. Aly Al Arrousi, Prof. Sadek Shash, Prof. Moshira El Rafey, . Mohamed Magdy Abulnour, Prof. Yehia El Zeiny, and Prof. Ahmed Anani.

And also remembering colleagues and friends from that formative period: Mahmoud Ghoneem, Alia Amer, Amin Amin, and Eman Abdelazem.

Looking back today, I realize that much of what shaped me academically did not come only from courses themselves, but from the seriousness of the educational culture surrounding them. Academic institutions are ultimately remembered through people, values, friendship, struggle, and intellectual atmosphere, not only buildings or rankings.

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[Vlog] Tianjin – China’s Northern Gateway Between Memory, Industry, and Modern Power

Some cities impress you visually. Tianjin confronts you intellectually. I stayed there for three days. I walked through the city center, the Haihe River waterfront, the old town, industrial districts, colonial concessions, museums, and transport infrastructure. Slowly, Tianjin revealed itself not simply as another Chinese megacity, but as a place where infrastructure, historical trauma, geopolitics, and national identity intersect in a very visible way. And honestly, this city changed how I understand modern China.

🌊 Ports shape how you see the world.

Visiting Tianjin immediately felt familiar. The Port of Tianjin is one of the busiest ports on Earth. But what struck me was not simply the scale. It was the integration: • maritime logistics • heavy industry • rail infrastructure • manufacturing systems • regional connectivity • urban expansion. The city operates as a synchronized territorial system. You begin to understand that Chinese urbanization is not primarily about iconic buildings. It is about infrastructure civilization at a continental scale.

🏙️ But Tianjin also carries another layer: memory.

Walking through the Five Great Avenues and the former Italian concession gave me a strange feeling of familiarity. Parts reminded me of Maadi in Cairo. Other moments reminded me of the Bund in Shanghai. European urban forms embedded in northern China. Beautiful, but historically unsettling. Unlike many tourist narratives, Tianjin forces you to confront colonial history directly. The city still carries visible traces of foreign concessions, unequal treaties, military intervention, and fragmented sovereignty. And then came the most important moment of my visit.

🏛️ The Dagu Fort Museum fundamentally changed the way I interpreted contemporary China

Prof. Chunli Chu kindly took me to the Dagu Fort Museum, where I spent nearly half a day. This was not simply a museum visit. It became a geopolitical lesson. For many outside China, the O***m Wars are distant historical events. In China, they remain part of a living political consciousness. The museum is not mainly about military defeat. It is about: • forced trade • narcotics used as instruments of destabilization • foreign intervention justified through “civilization” and “free trade” • unequal treaties • territorial fragmentation • loss of sovereignty

Walking through those exhibitions, I could not avoid thinking about the current geopolitical climate surrounding the USA attacking Iran and NATO's language, sanctions regimes, military positioning, and strategic containment. History partially reproduces itself mechanically. But certain structures felt disturbingly familiar.

In the 19th century, foreign powers justified intervention in China through moral and commercial narratives while simultaneously forcing open markets, controlling trade routes, imposing unequal agreements, and weakening sovereignty. Today, different actors use different language: democracy, stability, security, humanitarian order, and international norms. But when you stand inside the Dagu Fort Museum, you begin to understand why many Chinese intellectuals remain deeply skeptical of interventionist narratives coming from dominant global powers.

And suddenly many dimensions of modern China become easier to understand: • why sovereignty remains almost sacred politically • why territorial integrity and Taiwan are key to Chinese • why the collapse of imperial China still shapes strategic thinking • why the Kuomintang and Communist Party emerged as competing responses to national humiliation and fragmentation • why stability is prioritized so strongly • why anti-drug policy became uncompromising after the O***m Wars • why modern China views geopolitical containment through a historical lens rather than only a contemporary one. You realize modern China cannot be understood only through GDP growth, AI, robots, skyscrapers, or megacities. It must also be understood through humiliation, reconstruction, industrialization, fragmentation, revolution, and recovery.

🚄 What impressed me most as an architect and landscape urbanist

Tianjin also reinforced something I continue observing across China: cities increasingly operate through systems thinking at the metropolitan scale. High-speed rail, ports, flood control systems, industrial corridors, metro systems, logistics platforms, energy infrastructure, and housing expansion are treated as interconnected territorial systems rather than isolated projects. For sustainability researchers and urbanists, this matters enormously. China’s urban transition is not only technological. It is organizational.

🗺️ What stayed with me

→ Five Great Avenues: colonial urbanism layered into modern China → Haihe River: infrastructure, trade, and identity merging → Tianjin Eye: engineering transformed into urban symbolism → Ancient Culture Street: traditional life beneath modernization → Dagu Fort Museum: probably the most intellectually important museum visit of my China trips so far

💡 What Tianjin taught me

Some cities teach you about economics. Some cities teach you about history. Tianjin teaches you how infrastructure, sovereignty, memory, geopolitics, and urbanization become inseparable. And perhaps understanding cities like Tianjin is essential if we truly want to understand modern China today.

a 📽️ Watch the vlog here: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQgvYJ-kAR8&t=671s

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💬 Have you ever visited a city that revealed its importance slowly rather than instantly?

[Article] Evaluating Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategies through Coupled UHI and Building Energy Modeling

Urban Heat Island (UHI) mitigation is often discussed through isolated interventions: more trees, cool roofs, reflective pavements, or green infrastructure. But cities do not operate as isolated objects. Buildings, streets, materials, vegetation, mobility systems, and atmospheric conditions continuously interact through coupled energy and climate processes.

That is why one of the most important questions today is no longer simply how to reduce urban temperatures, but how to accurately model the interaction between urban climate and building energy performance at multiple scales.

In our recent review, published in Building and Environment, we examine how coupled Urban Climate Models (UCMs) and Building Energy Models (BEMs) are transforming the way researchers evaluate UHI mitigation strategies and urban resilience.

📌 Citation Bahadori, E., Rezaei, F., He, B. J., Heiranipour, M., & Attia, S. (2025). Evaluating urban heat island mitigation strategies through coupled UHI and building energy modeling. Building and Environment, 280, 113111.

🌍 Why this matters: Most conventional building simulations still rely on standard meteorological datasets that fail to capture real urban microclimates. Yet urban overheating directly alters: • cooling demand • peak electricity loads • outdoor thermal comfort • heat stress exposure • indoor environmental quality • long-term urban resilience. The review shows that ignoring urban microclimate effects can significantly distort building energy predictions and underestimate climate risks in dense cities.

🔬 What this review contributes: The paper systematically reviews more than 100 scientific studies on coupled UHI and building energy modeling approaches.

We compare: ✔ Parametric urban climate models such as UWG, UrbClim, CIM, and CitySim ✔ Explicit microclimate models including ENVI-met, SOLENE-Microclimate, SOLWEIG, and Dragonfly ✔ Coupling strategies between urban climate simulation and building energy simulation ✔ The effectiveness of mitigation strategies across multiple climate zones

📊 Key findings

• Urban greenery consistently shows the strongest mitigation potential across climates.

• Coupled UHI-BEM simulations reveal substantial changes in cooling demand compared to conventional weather files.

• In some studies, urban microclimate effects increased annual cooling energy demand by up to 28.2%.

• Urban morphology, albedo, vegetation density, and street geometry strongly influence local thermal conditions.

• The accuracy of urban energy modeling depends heavily on detailed urban morphology and meteorological data.

🌆 A broader shift in urban research

This work reflects a larger transition happening in building science and urban sustainability research. Cities can no longer be studied only at the building scale. The future of climate-responsive urban design depends on coupling: 👉 urban climate 👉 energy systems 👉 morphology 👉 infrastructure 👉 mobility 👉 vegetation 👉 human thermal comfort. In other words, we must move from isolated building simulations toward integrated urban environmental modeling.

🤝 This work builds on international collaboration across architecture, urban climate science, and building performance research. Special thanks to the author team and collaborators from: 🏛️ Chongqing University 🏛️ Politecnico di Torino 🏛️ University of Liège – Sustainable Building Design Lab

📘 Full article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113111

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[PhD Defense] 🎓 Dr. Muheeb Al-Obaidy at ULiège

On May 15, 2025, Muheeb Al-Obaidy successfully defended his PhD at ULiège: “A Circularity Evaluation Framework for Newly Constructed Office Building Design” 👉 The PhD is part of a larger project, DeConstruct, 2020-2024, A circularity evaluation framework for office building design: https://lnkd.in/dhkXJiSi

This research addresses one of the most urgent questions facing the construction sector today: How can circularity move from a conceptual ambition to an operational design framework for real buildings?

Muheeb’s work addresses this challenge by developing an integrated framework for evaluating circular office building design at the early design stage. The research bridges environmental assessment, circularity metrics, and practical decision-making in architectural engineering. Rather than treating circularity as a single indicator, the thesis combines: • life cycle assessment (LCA) • design for disassembly principles • material circularity indicators • adaptability and reuse potential • multi-criteria building evaluation approaches.

The PhD is part of a larger project, DeConstruct, 2020-2024, A circularity evaluation framework for office building design: https://www.sbd.uliege.be/cms/c_11206193/en/sbdlab-project-deconstruct

👉 The central message is clear: Circularity cannot be assessed only through material recycling rates. It must be evaluated as a whole-building design strategy integrating environmental impact, adaptability, reversibility, and long-term resource efficiency.

📊 Key contributions from the research

• Development of a circularity evaluation framework for office buildings • Integration of environmental and circularity indicators into early-stage design assessment • Identification of limitations in current circularity metrics and rating systems • Application of the framework to real building design scenarios • Bridging the gap between academic theory and professional practice

🔬 The thesis combines: • systematic literature analysis • framework development and indicator structuring • comparative building assessment • life cycle thinking and circular design principles • applied case-study evaluation

This creates a strong connection between research, engineering practice, and policy ambitions for the transition toward a low-carbon built environment.

🌍 Why this matters

The European construction sector faces increasing pressure to reduce embodied carbon, resource depletion, and construction waste. Yet many circularity claims remain qualitative, fragmented, or difficult to operationalize during design.

This work helps move from: 👉 generic circularity ambitions → measurable building evaluation 👉 isolated indicators → integrated assessment frameworks 👉 theoretical concepts → practical implementation pathways

👏 Congratulations to Dr. Muheeb Al-ObaidyIt was a privilege to supervise this work and witness its evolution into a rigorous and practice-oriented contribution to circular building design research. Special thanks to Hilde Carens for the partnership and support of Colruyt Group and Joeri Beneens and the Beneens team.

Thanks as well to the jury members and collaborators for their valuable discussions and engagement: Luc Courard, Rafael Passarelli, Ulrich Knaack, and Michiel Ritzen. Supervisor Shady Attia 阿提亚 沙帝

📚 Download and read the dissertation: https://lnkd.in/gDXt_GUB

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