Giuliano's experiences

"Architectural Engineering combines architecture, civil and structural engineering, and mechanical engineering modules; a mix that gives an accurate understanding of the architectural and structural performance of buildings. I had a stimulating and varied workload with many opportunities for team work, enriched by lab work, seminars with great visiting professors and various trips.

Thanks to the course I stretched my limits and sharpened my problem solving capabilities, team work and networking.

Undoubtedly, the built environment is a challenging sector where delivering sustainability and efficiency is not as easy as it seems, especially now we also need buildings designed for well-being and productivity. In this context, the skills and the knowledge I developed are the perfect starting point to understand the challenges in the development of innovative solutions to make safer, more sustainable and high-performance buildings.

Thanks to the University and the many opportunities found on ‘Career Connect’, I joined Cundall for an internship in their sustainability department. During that work experience, I had the chance to apply my competencies and skills when researching the relationship between productivity and indoor environmental factors. I developed a productivity mapping tool capable of predicting the cognitive and economic losses in offices by using data on carbon dioxide concentration, thermal and visual comfort of building occupants. I also studied and researched a method to overlap the effects of the different indoor environmental factors. Eventually, I prepared an office experiment to assess how the cognitive performance of employees is affected by the indoor environment in order to verify the accuracy of the tool developed. The skills and knowledge I developed during my studies were fundamental to comprehend the relationships between buildings, people's well being and productivity.

After graduating I joined Arup as a graduate engineer in their sustainability team. It is unbelievable how many things engineers can do to improve people's lives and add value to society. Of course, it’s important to achieve this social usefulness through responsibility, a humanitarian attitude, integrity, and enthusiasm. At the University of Sheffield, I was inspired by this philosophy, which is absolutely necessary to tackle future challenges in the energy and sustainability sector."