Environment I: Climate & Energy

Environmental Systems is a required course taught in the third year. This course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation, human comfort, and the site-specific dynamics of climate. Students are expected to combine an understanding of the basic laws of comfort and heat flow with the variables of local climate to create regionally appropriate energy design guidelines for their design projects. The state of the art in building energy conservation and passive heating and cooling technologies, as well as the emerging field of sustainable design are presented, with take-home readings and assignments. To stress the significance of architectural design decision making on energy consumption and comfort, full design specifications and hand calculations are completed individually by each student for a residential-scale building. Students compile a professional energy consultant's report, designing the most viable energy conservation retrofit measures for their client from: siting, massing, organization, enclosure detailing, opening control, to passive system integration and management. An overview of world energy consumption in buildings and energy design standards is challenged by lectures on building energy conservation successes and competitive challenges of sustainability. The course ends with a focus on the design integration of natural conditioning systems and the potentially dynamic interface of mechanical systems in small- and large-scale buildings.