PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Seeing Heat: Drone-Based Thermal Signatures and Design Strategies for Pittsburgh Housing

Seeing Heat: Drone-Based Thermal Signatures and Design Strategies for Pittsburgh Housing
Project Lead: Azadeh Sawyer, Assistant Professor in Building Technology, Carnegie Mellon Architecture
Project Team: Vivian Loftness, University Professor; Stephen R Lee, Professor Emeritus; Minghao Xu, PhD-BPD student; Tannaz Bakeshloo, PhD-AECM student; Meltem Sahin Ozkoc MSBPD student

This project conducts a full-community infrared (IR) drone scan of the Larimer neighborhood to reveal envelope performance, material behavior, and winter heat loss patterns across its residential building stock. By integrating this thermal imaging with electricity-use data from Duquesne Light Company, we will evaluate discrepancies between energy consumption and actual thermal performance, showing where energy-use-based targeting aligns with architectural envelope failure, and where it misses homes experiencing underheating or material decay. Computer vision techniques will automatically detect thermal anomalies across roofs and facades, enabling scalable analysis of hundreds of structures and identifying the subset of buildings with the most severe envelope issues. 

With the support of this funding, we will activate an existing partnership with a professional drone-imaging team that is prepared to conduct the full-neighborhood IR scan. Funding will enable deployment, data capture, and processing of high-resolution thermal imagery that we cannot carry out without this support.

Findings will inform construction-specific retrofit bundles for Larimer’s three dominant building types — multi-wythe brick, wood-frame with brick veneer, and wood-frame siding — supported by architectural diagrams, typology mappings, and a community-facing “Thermal Map + Retrofit Guide.” This work advances both scientific understanding of thermal envelope behavior and design-driven methods for equitable, high-impact retrofit planning.

Image: Composite created by CMU School of Architecture. External thermal and drone images are adapted from U.S. DOE Energy Saver and European Commission CORDIS resources. All building photographs and construction sections are from the research team’s existing work.