CITY (Retro)fit: Supporting Comprehensive Assessment of Urban Built Environment Decarbonization and Electrification Retrofit Strategies
Project overview
In response to Canada's urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and bolster resilience against climate change, this project focuses on enhancing the retrofitting of buildings, a crucial aspect of nationwide decarbonization and community electrification efforts.
Despite these goals, the building sector encounters obstacles in implementing effective measures on a large scale, notably due to the absence of tools for identifying viable retrofit solutions. Factors such as building type, usage patterns, and existing systems further complicate decision-making.
The project aims to address these challenges by developing a city-scale retrofit analysis tool. This tool will empower stakeholders to select the most suitable retrofit measures by providing insights into environmental, economic, and social impacts. By focusing initially on Montreal and Toronto, the project seeks to create archetypes for the building stock, enabling the assessment of retrofitting strategies tailored to these diverse urban landscapes.
Key project details
| Principal investigator | Jenn McArthur, associate professor, Mechanical Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University |
Co-principal investigators |
Ursula Eicker, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Cities and director of the Next-Generation Cities Institute, Concordia University; Mohamed Ouf, assistant professor, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University; Alan Fung, associateprofessor, Toronto Metropolitan University |
Research collaborators |
Helen Stopps, assistant professor, Toronto Metropolitan University; Russell Richman, professor, Associate Chair, Graduate Studies, Building Science, Toronto Metropolitan University; Mazdak Nik-Bakht, associate professor, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University |
| Non-academic partners | National Research Council Canada, NRCan, City of Toronto, Purpose Building, RDH Building Science, Enwave |
| Research Keywords | building archetypes, building retrofit, electrifying built environment, building stock analysis, life cycle carbon emissions |
| Budget | Cash: $250,000 In-Kind: $373,000 |
Publications:
J. J. McArthur, S. Dunne, and S. B. Ivory, “From compliance to convening: the transformation of the Canada Green Building Council,” Social Movement Studies, pp. 1–18, Sept. 2025, doi: 10.1080/14742837.2025.2563731.
H. Bagherzadeh, A. Malekghasemi, and J. J. McArthur, “Retrofitting for the future: Analysing the sensitivity of various retrofits to future climate scenarios while maintaining thermal comfort,” Energy and Buildings, vol. 327, p. 115004, Jan. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.115004.
K. El Mokhtari and J. J. McArthur, “Autoencoder-Based fault detection using building automation system data,” Advanced Engineering Informatics, vol. 62, p. 102810, Oct. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.aei.2024.102810.
M. Fatehijananloo, H. Stopps, and J. J. McArthur, “Exploring artificial intelligence methods for energy prediction in healthcare Facilities: An In-Depth extended systematic review,” Energy and Buildings, vol. 320, p. 114598, Oct. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114598.
F. Rajabi and J. J. McArthur, “Applying OPTICS with and without PCA for fault detection of fan coil units using building automation system data,” Energy and Buildings, vol. 317, p. 114368, Aug. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114368.
M. S. Kandil and J. J. McArthur, “The benefit of noise-injection for dynamic gray-box model creation,” Advanced Engineering Informatics, vol. 60, p. 102381, Apr. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.aei.2024.102381.
Accepted publications in national and international conferences:
C. C. Chai and J. McArthur, “Unsupervised Multimodal Learning for Fault Detection of Fan Coils Units Using Building Automation System Data,” presented at the 42nd International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Montreal, Canada, July 2025. doi: 10.22260/ISARC2025/0120.
M. Kandil, G. Chang, and J. J. McArthur, “Modeling Cooling Tower Fan Speed Using Symbolic Regression,” presented at the 42nd International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Montreal, Canada, July 2025. doi: 10.22260/ISARC2025/0151.
J. J. McArthur, “Development of Granular Archetypes for Canadian Existing Commercial Office and Multi-Unit Residential Buildings in Climate Zone 5.,” presented at the 13th Conference of IBPSA-Canada, June 2024. [Online]. Available: https://publications.ibpsa.org/conference/paper/?id=esim2024_10
J. J. McArthur, “HVAC System Characterization for Enhanced Canadian Existing Building Archetypes for Climate Zone 5.,” presented at the 13th Conference of IBPSA-Canada, June 2024. [Online]. Available: https://publications.ibpsa.org/conference/paper/?id=esim2024_20
Book chapters:
J. J. McArthur, “Full Circle - Leveling Up Building Digital Twins with Videogames,” in Architecture and Videogames, 1st ed., 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003408970-18/full-circle-jenn-mcarthur
Sumin Song: John Molson Business Ownership Case Writing Competition, Concordia University, September 26, 2025.
Research focus
Development of representative archetypes
In this aspect of the research, the focus lies on crafting enriched archetypes that effectively encapsulate the diverse range of building types, sizes, energy systems, and occupant behaviors prevalent in Canadian building stock. These archetypes will serve as representative models for regulators, enabling them to assess the efficacy of existing building codes and regulations. By capturing the nuanced characteristics of different buildings, this research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of building energy performance and identify areas for regulatory improvement and optimization.
Development of city-scale assessment models
This facet of the research project is centered on the creation of city-scale assessment models with multiple objectives aimed at informing policy, identifying feasible low-carbon retrofit strategies, supporting grid planning and operation, enhancing building resilience and facilitating the development of demand response programs. These models will leverage urban building energy modeling (UBEM) techniques to analyze the complex interplay of factors influencing building energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at a city-wide level.
Non-academic partners
Thank you to our non-academic partners for your support and trust.
Volt-Age is funded by a $123-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
