The BATir department is embedded in the ‘Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelles’ which is part of the ‘Université Libre de Bruxelles’ (ULB).  It is a multidisciplinary department, held in 2006 by the fusion of 5 laboratories.

The BATir department is in charge of the research and education related to the ‘art of building’ which includes: Civil engineering, Structural engineering, Material engineering, Architectural Engineering and Town planning.
It is composed of 5 research units:

• SMC (Computational Mechanics)
• LGC (Civil Engineering)
• LGM (Geomechanics)
• IUAT (Town Planning)
• AIA (Architectural Engineering)  

The BATir department is currently very active, with 10 full time professors, 1 senior permanent researcher, 6 post-doctoral fellows and 30 PhD students.

The research group of B³-RetroTool is a young academic multi-disciplinary team composed by researchers from IUAT and AIA units, with special interest in the field of built environment sustainability assessment (LCA, Input-Output Analysis, Urban Metabolism, …) and energy efficiency.

BATir-IUAT has developed research activities, for more than 30 years, in the field of Town planning and planning. The current research activities are mainly related to urban regeneration, Sustainable design in city (with a particular focus on energy matters) and History of urban development.

BATir-AIA explores the many fields gravitating around architecture and building engineering. The current research activities are mainly related to architectural theory (notably the question of context), Risk analysis in high-rise buildings, and Sustainable design in architecture (with a particular focus on energy matters).