Terence Williamson

Terence Williamson

School of Architecture and Civil Engineering

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Dr Terry Williamson was educated in engineering and architecture in Australia, and is Associate Professor of the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide. He has taught, researched and published in areas of energy, thermal performance and sustainability related to the built environment, and is the author (or co-author) of over one hundred publications including books, journal articles and conference papers.

Dr Williamson's earlier research was concerned with the basic issue of providing relevant design advice for improving the thermal and environmental performance of buildings. He developed a variety of research tools and techniques to provide information to backup arguments regarding these issues including, computer simulation software, householder surveys and interviews, the recording of occupant behaviour (eg. Comfort Vote Logger) and building performance monitoring (eg temperature and energy consumption).

An ARC Discovery project awarded in 2002 Building and Ethics: Understanding A Corpus of Contemporary Australian Award-Winning Houses as Responses to Ecological, Social and Built Contexts broadened research interests into the general area of the design of sustainable building. Early output of this research was a book Understanding Sustainable Architecture (Williamson, Radford & Bennetts, 2003) which is a concise review of the assumptions, beliefs, goals and bodies of knowledge that underlie the endeavour to design environmentally (more) sustainable buildings and other built developments. It shows that much of the available advice and rhetoric about sustainable architecture begins from positions where important ethical, cultural and conceptual issues are simply assumed.

Recent and continuing research has concentrated on two issues. First, data has been collected with the objective of corroborating the operation of the Building Code of Australia's energy-efficiency provisions, in particular the effectiveness of the NatHERS Star Rating Scheme for dwellings. In 2004 Terry made a major submission to the Productivity Commission's enquiry into Energy-efficiency in the Australian economy. Subsequent papers have also investigated this issue and questioned the efficacy of the scheme.

The second research area concerns the urban mirco-climate. In collaboration with Dr Evyatar Erell of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel the urban mirco-climate model CAT has been developed and evaluated on the basis of field measurements. The model predicts hourly air temperature in an urban street canyon for extended periods in a variety of weather conditions, on the basis of meteorological time series recorded at an open site exposed to the same meso-scale conditions, taking into account the geometry of the two sites and the thermal properties of their respective surface materials. This model is used to study design implications in relation building energy consumption associated with factors such urban density and street geometry.

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2023 Co-Supervisor Enhancing Natural Ventilation to Improve Indoor Air Quality: An Investigation of Occupants’ Window Opening Behaviour in Aged Care Facilities Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Ali Malekpour
    2022 Co-Supervisor Finding the Most Suitable Machine Learning Method to Anticipate Actual Occupancy Adaptive Behaviours in Older People with Low Socio-Economic Backgrounds Concerning Wellbeing and Comfort Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Shadi Jamialahmadi
    2019 Co-Supervisor Thermal Comfort and Adaptive Behaviour in Housing in Tropical Climate Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Siti Aisyah Damiati
    2018 Co-Supervisor Understanding Comfort and Wellbeing of Older Australians Using Occupant-Centric Models Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Larissa Arakawa Martins
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Occupant Thermal Comfort and Behaviour for House Energy Rating: A Case Study of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Siti Aisyah Damiati
    2018 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Smart building façades using nanoparticle thermochromic technology:
    From fabrication to implementation
    Doctor of Philosophy under a Jointly-awarded Degree Agreement with Doctorate Full Time Miss Marina Aburas
    2018 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Understanding Thermal Comfort and Wellbeing of Older South Australians Using Occupant-Centric Models Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Larissa Arakawa Martins
    2014 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Addressing the relationships between ageing, thermal comfort, house design and health: A study in South Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mrs Rachel Desley Bills
    2014 - 2023 Principal Supervisor The Nature and Determinants of Indoor Environment Quality in High-Rise Apartments of Melbourne, Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Andrew Stephen Carre
    2013 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Energy Independent Residential Development for Dhaka City, Bangladesh Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Rehnuma Parveen
    2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Thermal Mavericks in Australia: A Study of Occupant Preferences in Dwellings of Atypical Construction Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time APrf Lyrian Rose Daniel
    2012 - 2016 Co-Supervisor High-rise Residential Buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Strategies for Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Practice Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Tahmina Ahsan
    2011 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Earthship Architecture: post occupancy evaluation, thermal performance and life cycle assessment Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Martin Freney
    2011 - 2016 Co-Supervisor How primary schools really work: Architecture, use, and perspectives Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Linda Pearce
    2008 - 2011 Co-Supervisor Development of A Sustainability Assessment Framework for Malaysian Office Buildings Using A Mixed- Methods Approach Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Zalina Shari
    2008 - 2014 Co-Supervisor Green Commercial Office Buildings: Environmental Performance and User Perceptions Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Vanessa Menadue
    2007 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Spatio-Temporal Indoor Human Exposures in Homes Affected by Chemical-Contaminated Soil and Groundwater Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Leonid Turczynowicz
    2003 - 2005 Principal Supervisor Building Climatology and Thermal Comfort Thermal Environments and Occupant (Comfort) Responses in Philippine Office Buildings Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Mary Andamon
    2003 - 2008 Principal Supervisor Towards Safer and Congruent Prison Environments for Male Aboriginal Prisoners Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Elizabeth Grant
    2001 - 2005 Principal Supervisor PREDICTING AIR TEMPERATURES IN CITY STREETS ON THE BASIS OF MEASURED REFERENCE DATA Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Evyatar Erell
    2000 - 2004 Principal Supervisor Dimensions of sustainability: Case study of new housing in Adelaide and Hanoi Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Viet Nguyen
    1999 - 2008 Principal Supervisor The Spatial Representation of Embodied Energy of Residential Areas in the Urban Environment Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Stephen Frederick Pullen

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