SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

SYSTEMATIC SITI (MIA) AISYAH DA MIATI REVIEW

WORDS BY MAXIM BUCKLEY

If you’re anything like me and are chronically at uni you will have at some stage walked past the Polygon Lecture Theatre and thought to yourself “damn, I wonder what’s in that area”. Sufficed to say it’s about as interesting as you can imagine; several offices built sometime in the 1970s that house a number of researchers and academics. However, since I was visiting during December the drab, utilitarian design had been decorated with all kinds of tinsel and other Christmas decorations. Like all buildings at the university, it’s not so much the décor that makes them interesting as it is the people who work in them. Despite this, as an undergrad I had very little idea of the incredible research being conducted right next to the halls I walked every day. So, I’ve decided to try to change that in the hope that it will open the eyes of all students to the incredible work conducted by everyday people.

as simply Mia, is a PhD student who hails from Indonesia. Mia completed her studies in architecture at the Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia’s answer to MIT. “In Australia architecture degrees are more toward design whereas my degree was more toward engineering and science. Actually, when you translate my degree into English it comes out as a Bachelor of Science”. For a time after her studies Mia worked at an architecture firm “I just feel like it’s very dry. I learnt many things from working at the firm however I felt like I could do more if I learnt more. I really want to be able to build an argument for change”. Mia later began a masters by research in a joint program between Malaysia and Japan, getting to spend time studying in both countries, which led Mia to Australia. “I heard about this project here in Australia and I felt like, oh, it’s related to what I’m doing in Malaysia! So I applied for it and I got it”. Mia believes that being involved in her academic community is what really kickstarted this opportunity for her.

Mia’s research is all about thermal comfort. I grew up in Alice Springs so this is something I’m very familiar with. “My research is about occupant behaviour and how they change their thermal environment to stay comfortable. Most of the previous research has been conducted in cooler climates so there’s definitely a need to track warmer climates like Darwin”. Mia wants to know what makes people comfortable, and so participants complete a short survey every day that asks them questions about their comfort such as if they have a fan on, if they have the air conditioner running, and even the amount of clothing they’re wearing. Mia found it funny that when she first was receiving feedback from the survey a number of people were saying they were in their underwear or completely naked but there wasn’t an option that represented that.

Along with people’s self-reported comfort Mia is also taking objective measurements of their surroundings. Each of the 38 houses in the study has a small white box. The box comes with a whole slew of bells and whistles such as a dry bulb thermometer, a sensor for humidity, a sensor for airspeed, and something called a globe thermometer. I had to look that last one up, essentially it measures the average temperature of surfaces that surround a particular point, so the walls, floor, ceiling etc. Each of these sensors takes a reading every 30 minutes, so each sensor records 48 data points every single day. So, 4 sensors taking 48 recordings each day at 38 houses for 11 months, you can just imagine the size of the data set. All this data is remotely uploaded to a server where Mia can access it, though it’s not always 100% reliable. “I can check the data every day, but I usually check once a week. If there’s an issue I don’t want to bother them too much”.

Mia says she owes some of her success in Darwin to the local ABC radio station. “I don’t know how they found out but apparently one of the producers for the breakfast session found the flyer for the study. They called me up to ask if I was interested in talking. I was so nervous, I felt so unprepared. My supervisor was very happy so I 21

must have done something right”. All told, Mia ended up receiving 263 responses to her survey.

“From there I found my 38 participating houses. They’re not all one design either. I have some apartments and then I have what I call lightweight and heavyweight houses. Lightweight houses are a more traditional design in Darwin. They’re off the ground, they have louvre shutters, they may have a tree over the top of the house to provide shade. Occupants of these houses love to let the weather flow through their house. Heavyweight houses on the other hand don’t have much internal temperature change but the temperature difference between inside and out is a lot”.

A question we as researchers are constantly posed is who or what is your research for. For people like myself doing basic science it can be a quite difficult question to answer since the outcomes aren’t always so obvious at the time. Mia’s answer was easy: make change. “I hope that this data will influence the way buildings are designed. I’ve met with many people during my work and some of them were companies that build houses, and they often prefer a cookie cutter approach. Those houses aren’t necessarily right for the environment and so we need to know what is. Hopefully my research will influence future building design and influence it for the better”. Mia is currently writing her thesis and she hopes to be done with her PhD soon. She’s unsure what’s next for her but she hopes something rewarding.

Systematic Review is an ongoing series that I hope will showcase some research from each faculty in a number of disciplines. Mia hails from engineering and so I won’t be doing any more articles in that space, but if you’re keen on having your research featured please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at maxim.buckley@adelaide.edu.au