Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2009/10 |
AR40363: Environment and sustainability |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Masters |
| Period: | Semester 2 |
| Assessment:
| CW 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| |
| Description: | Aims: To create an awareness of the physical environment around buildings, and to demonstrate a range of appropriate measures for modifying this environment, through passive and active, visual and technical means. In addition, to introduce principles of sustainable environmental urban design; and develop an awareness and enthusiasm for building design and construction using natural materials, and current methods and techniques. Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this unit the student will have demonstrated: understanding of: * The influences on the contemporary built environment of global issues; * The inter-relationship between people, buildings and the environment and an understanding of the need to relate buildings and the spaces between them to human needs and scale; ability to: * Critically appraise and form considered judgements about the spatial, aesthetic, technical and social qualities of a design within the scope and scale of a wider environment. Skills: Independent research, design, and communication of information. Content: The unit will comprise of lectures covering prevalent landscape and ecological attitudes; principles of sustainability in the urban context; environmental impact of building materials; selected natural alternatives and methods (stone; earth; lime; natural fibres; green oak and round pole construction; bamboo); recycled natural products; natural building materials and building regulation requirements. All the lectures will normally relate to the context of the urban situation being studied in Design Studio 5. Tutorials will develop individual and group responses to such issues by students in the context of design problems that are part of the studio work. |