PhD Position in AI Methods for Smart, Energy-Flexible Buildings

Université Catholique de Louvain offers a fully funded 4-year PhD position within the Architecture and Climate group at the Louvain Research Institute for Landscape, Architecture, Built Environment in Brussels. The researcher will develop and test an AI-assisted recommender system for the participatory design of energy-flexible buildings and communities, combining physics-informed machine learning, multi-energy systems modeling, and large language models. Responsibilities include reviewing state-of-the-art ML surrogate models, building simulation suites, designing LLM recommender frameworks, and running stakeholder co-creation workshops. The project bridges engineering, architecture, and artificial intelligence to tackle real-world barriers in the renewable energy transition.

• Review state-of-the-art machine learning surrogate models and AI recommender systems applicable to sustainable building design.
• Develop and integrate physics-informed machine learning models and multi-energy hubs into a unified simulation suite.
• Design and prototype an LLM-based recommender system combining retrieval-augmented generation and agentic tool use.
• Organize and execute participatory co-creation workshops with real stakeholders and analyze findings using qualitative and statistical methods.
• Publish research outcomes in international peer-reviewed journals and present findings at academic conferences.
• Contribute to departmental teaching activities and assist with academic supervision tasks as required.