Dr Matyas Gutai

My areas of expertise are:

• Water-filled Glass (WFG) technology, as an innovative approach to glass building envelopes
• Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment of new construction and retrofits
• Entrepreneurship of innovations in the construction industry
• Sustainable Design and Construction
• Energy Simulation and Design of Advanced Façade solutions

Current research activity

• Water-filled Glass (WFG) patents and publications on energy consumption, thermal comfort and Life-Cycle Carbon of WFG
• Water-filled Glass (WFG) pilot projects in collaboration with enterprises (located in the UK, US and Europe) and academia (in UK, Germany, Spain and Japan)
• The Transparency Trilemma (an exploration of changing concepts of architectural transparency in light of the ‘Water/Glass’ prototypes: article in preparation, with Dr. Simon Richards)
• Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment of high-rise timber structures
• Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment of building retrofits

Recently completed research projects 

• Water-Glass panel - Product Development and Market Introduction: Research project in collaboration with enterprises in Europe. Market development and building prototypes of the technology. (Grant: EU Economic Development and Innovation Program – GINOP)
• Water House 2.0 - Hybrid Structural Prototype and New Sustainable Strategy for Tropical Climates: Research project in collaboration with enterprises and Universities in Taiwan and Japan. Market development, constructing experimental building, and making prototypes of the technology. (Grant: Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan - MOST)
• Trans-structure - Water building, Fluid Architecture and Liquid engineering: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Kengo Kuma Lab, The University of Tokyo. Researching Advanced Building Envelopes with ‘embedded responsiveness’ based on material properties. (Grant: Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science – JSPS)
• Allwater Pavilion - Sustainability, Water House and Fluid Architecture: Research project in collaboration with enterprises and Universities in Europe. Constructing experimental building and making prototypes of the technology. (Grant: EU Economic Development and Innovation Program – GINOP)

PhD Supervision

I welcome research proposals on the areas of expertise outlined above, as well as other aspects of Sustainable Construction, Advanced Façade Design and Engineering and Innovation in Construction. I am supervising PhDs on the following topics: New vertical neighbourhoods and their impact on wellbeing and environmental sustainability (ongoing), Mass customization transformation of the housing industry: methodologies for user engagement, digitalization of customer input, and co-creation through computational design technologies (ongoing).

• Gutai, M. Kheybari, A.G., Energy Consumption of Water-filled Glass (WFG) hybrid building envelope. Energy and Buildings 218 (2020) https://doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110050   
• Gutai, M., Lee, S.T., Morishita, Y., Construction aspects of connected hybrid fluid-solid building envelopes. Journal of Façade Design and Engineering Vol. 8. No. 2. (2020) https://doi.org/10.7480/jfde.2020.2.4784   
• Gutai, M. Kheybari, A.G., Energy Consumption of Smart Water-filled Glass (SWFG) building envelope. Energy and Buildings 230 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110508

Visit: https://www.waterfilledglass.com to learn more about our work on Water-filled Glass (WFG).

Undergraduate

• CVA055 Design Studio A and CVA102 Professional Practice (RE, School-wide Design week for architecture and engineering students)
• CVA057 Architectural Tectonics (Lecturer, Introduction to Materials and Construction Technology)
• CVB077 Advanced Technical Investigations (RE and Lead Tutor, Introduction to Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment, Bridging Technical considerations and Architectural Design)
• CVC092 Business of Architecture (Lecturer and Tutor, focusing on Entrepreneurship and business side of architecture practice)
• CVC090 Design Studio C – Graduation Design (RE and Lead Tutor, Bringing together Technical and Design aspects in Architectural Design process)

Current projects  

• Water-filled Glass (WFG) pilot projects in collaboration with enterprises (located in the UK, US and Europe) and academia (in UK, Germany, Spain and Japan)

Recently completed projects

• Water-Glass panel - Product Development and Market Introduction: Research project in collaboration with enterprises in Europe. Market development and building prototypes of the technology. (Grant: EU Economic Development and Innovation Program – GINOP) with: Jüllich Glas
• Water House 2.0 - Hybrid Structural Prototype and New Sustainable Strategy for Tropical Climates: Research project in collaboration with enterprises and Universities in Taiwan and Japan. Market development, constructing experimental building and making prototypes of the technology. (Grant: Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan - MOST) with: Hesung Construction
• Trans-structure - Water building, Fluid Architecture and Liquid engineering: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Kengo Kuma Lab, The University of Tokyo. Researching Advanced Building Envelopes with ‘embedded responsiveness’ based on material properties. (Grant: Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science – JSPS) with: AGC Glass, Mitsubishi Plastics
• Allwater Pavilion - Sustainability, Water House and Fluid Architecture: Research project in collaboration with enterprises and Universities in Europe. Constructing experimental building and making prototypes of the technology. (Grant: EU Economic Development and Innovation Program – GINOP) with: Jüllich Glas, KNAUF insulation

I carried out my doctoral research on energy simulation and design of hybrid building envelopes, with a specific focus on Water-filled Glass (WFG). During my studies, I worked on short, project-based contracts at architecture practices in Europe and Japan, including Alvaro Siza, Arata Isozaki and Shigeru Ban.

After graduating in 2010, I started working at Budapest Technical University, where I taught architecture and led an EU research grant on Water-filled Glass. The project was a collaboration of academia and industry and developed the first prototypes of the technology, a manufacturing process and construction method of WFG. The result was a built prototype house titled Water House 1.0. I patented the technology, which is now grated in Japan and Europe (including the UK). Parallel to teaching and research, I founded an architecture practice that worked on projects with various scale and function in Europe and China.

From 2012 I was granted JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship and joined the Laboratory of Prof Kengo Kuma at The University of Tokyo. I worked together with AGC Glass and Mitsubishi Plastics and developed a WFG prototype tailored for hot climates. After completion of the Fellowship in 2014, I joined Feng Chia University in Taiwan. I continued the research with The University of Tokyo and built a second WFG prototype building titled Water House 2.0.

I joined Loughborough when the architecture program started in 2017. Since then, I am supporting our team's effort in developing the program by bridging our technical and design teaching. In terms of research, I extended WFG to other fields of Sustainable Construction, including Advanced Façade Design and Engineering aspects (e.g. simulation and design of envelopes) and Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment of the built environment. 

Professional affiliations

• The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education (EAUC)

Awards

• “Highly Commended” for ‘Reaching Higher’ Award of Association of University Directors of Estates /AUDE/ (for Food + Wood Summer School)
• Finalist for Green Gown Award for Sustainability (for Food + Wood Summer School)
• Junior Príma Prize (granted for innovation: Water House patent)
• Hauszman Prize for Graduation Design (awarded by Hauszman Foundation)

External activities

I am a Reviewer for the following journals:

• Energy and Buildings (Elsevier)
• Journal of Façade Design and Engineering (TU Delft)
• Sustainability (MDPI)
• Energies (MDPI)

Key collaborators

My research and enterprise activities are conducted with a range of academic and stakeholder partners, including:

• Kengo Kuma Lab, The University of Tokyo
• Department of Applied Mathematics in Aerospace Engineering, Technical University of Madrid
• University of Kaiserslautern
• Budapest University of Technology
• Jülich Glas