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Newsletter: Volume Two

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It's been 3 weeks since ECOLIBRIUM kicked off the Summer 2025 Internship Program! Here's everything that's new in the lab:

ECOLIBRIUM is sad to see Nafis leave our team, but thrilled to share that he has accepted a new role with the New York Power Authority as an Assistant Systems Planning Engineer! Nafis made a profound impact on our team this summer, working with the IoT/Tech team on code development for our environmental air quality sensors. While we will miss Nafis’ presence in the lab, we are excited to see what the future holds, and we wish him the best of luck in his new role!

Congratulations Nafis!

What's Going On In The Lab?

The Energy-Modeling & Geospatial Team, comprised of Amber, Erika, Gaudi, and Skylar, is working on creating an energy model for two case studies in the East Village: Loisaida Center and 220 East 10th Street. Using Rhino and Ladybug Tools in Grasshopper, they are simulating the energy performance of these buildings and evaluating energy conservation measures to implement based on our results. The current baseline models serve as starting points for a community-scale model that tackles climate adaptation for multi-family housing in the Lower East Side.

The Media Team, consisting of Amina, Emani, Jacob, Jannatul, Kaylee, Pedro, Taliah, and Yudi, created an edited street interview compilation and a short-form animation to gauge awareness of how climate change impacts agriculture and food production, focusing on the pressing issue of plant disease, specifically Citrus Greening, which has decimated orange production in Florida. Beyond educational pieces, the team documents overall progress around the lab and creates engaging content for our social media platforms and website. Keep an eye out for their videos on the Loisiada YouTube channel.

The Industrial Design Team, formed by Alex and Obinna, created a design for air quality sensor display cases, focusing on cost efficiency and preparing for mass production. Their design consists of seven attachable components, including a touchscreen panel and a battery. Alvee, CJ, Gaudi, James, Justin, Karega, Oscar, and Vincent make up the IoT/Tech Team, which has adapted an existing battery-monitoring project onto the ESP32 microcontroller, which they have programmed to read and receive battery telemetry for use with the sensors. Their next step is to develop a plug-load monitor and smart outlet, as well as a C++ application that interfaces with a thermal camera, enabling live display with real-time temperature readings for later analysis.

The Building Science Team, made up of Alex, Tiffany, and Wilmer from the Stacks+Joules program and Cooper Union Architecture graduates Arthur and Grace, was accompanied by Program Director Paul Garrin and Solar Ambassador Manny Figueroa to visit 377 E 10th Street, a tenement-style residential building, for a site walkthrough to profile the building and its systems. The visit focused on identifying strategies to reduce heat gain in the passive house retrofit, whose heating system is well-suited for wintertime but problematic in the summer without provisions for cooling. The building’s utilities, including electric, gas, heat, and hot water, have been relocated from the basement to the first floor and roof, allowing the basement to flood without disrupting service, a resiliency design measure in response to Superstorm Sandy. Our takeaways from the visit will inform design improvements for future retrofits, as the team looks to engage new residents and involve new buildings in the study.

Did you know that one pound of HFC refrigerants equals a ton of CO₂ in terms of global warming potential? Take these brief surveys to help us assess the amount of harmful refrigerants lurking in our community and identify the need for incentivizing residential appliance replacements.