Environmental Technology
Courses
* Denotes an elective course
** Denotes a graduate course
48-116 Building Physics
9 units
Instructor: Lam
48-315 Environment I: Climate and Energy
9 units
Instructor: Loftness
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.
48-334 Public Architecture Education: Green Buildings*
9 units
Instructor: Lyons
In Boyer and Mitgang's renowned review of architecture schools in the 1990s, they cited the importance of architects as educators of the public and highlighted the responsibility of architecture schools in the preparation of students as future educators. To this end, students will learn about effective teaching strategies as they develop and pilot lesson plans to educate the public about green buildings. The Green Building Alliance (GBA) will serve as the client for lesson development, identifying target learners (e.g. policy makers, youth, building material manufacturers) and content (e.g. sustainable materials, indoor air quality); GBA will be an active client throughout the semester. Students in this course will teach one of the lessons they developed to a pilot audience at the end of the semester.
48-412 Environment II: Mechanical Systems
9 units
Instructor: Mattern
Mechanical Equipment is a study of the mechanical systems required to heat, cool, ventilate, wire and plumb a building. Students will focus on energy usage and savings for buildings along with a look at the various system types and equipment used ? past, present, and future. The course parallels the AIA review class for the professional license examination, and should become a future study guide for the exam.
48-415 Advanced Building Systems
9 units
Instructor: Hartkopf
Advanced Building Systems is a required course taught in the fourth year with a direct connection to the studios emphasizing system integrations. This course introduces the concept of Total Building Performance , delineating the full range of performance mandates required for today?s architecture, including building integrity. Advanced Building Systems highlights the state-of-the-art and major challenges and innovations in building technologies for structure, enclosure, mechanical, telecommunications, lighting, and interior systems. The course explores the relationships, opportunities, and conflicts of the performance mandates, and the integration of building systems necessary to achieve total building performance.
48-431 Bio Logic_Responsive Building Technology *
9 units
Instructor: Clifford
The intent of this course is to transfer knowledge from biology and ecology to the field of architecture and thereby better understand the porous boundaries between living and non-living systems. Through the lens of responsive material sets and digital fabrication technologies, students work in multidisciplinary teams to develop responsive building technologies that operate in accordance with the biologic condition of homeostasis ?? the ability for an organism to maintain equilibrium in response to fluctuating environmental conditions. The outcomes are working models that demonstrate responsive behavior to environmental fluctuations. Once groups are formed, I work with each team to structure a design-research project based on their skill sets. The course is a creative and intensive open-source collaborative workshop where models are constructed and tested during class time. Open to students of any discipline, no previous design experience is required, simply a sustained commitment to transferring your knowledge stream to the design of the built environment. Please contact me if you are curious to see if your skill sets apply. dalec@cmu.edu
48-587 Architecture Lighting Design *
9 units
Instructor: Limauro
Through hands-on exploration in the light lab, lecture and discussion, students will develop a design process for lighting people and architecture. Topics will include:
- Role of the architectural lighting designer in the collaboration process
- Establishing design goals and a point of view
- Communicating design ideas
- Lighting interiors (retail, restaurants, offices, museums, hotels); Lighting exteriors (landscape, buildings, bridges)
- Technical tools (luminaires, lamps, control and dimming)
A large part of class time will be devoted to hands-on experimentation of light. Students will also spend time in the light lab outside of class preparing realized lighting designs. The final design project will include full scale lighting mock-ups.
48-721 Building Controls and Diagnostics **
12 units
Instructor: Lam
This course introduces the concepts and methods of building diagnostics. It focuses on the empirical evaluation of the built environment (building components and systems, interactions between building, occupants and environmental conditions) in view of multiple performance criteria (thermal, visual and acoustic performance). Field measurement and assessment techniques will be introduced. The empirical methods of building analysis are commonly used to: describe/specify building components; study the real-time behavior of buildings; detect the causes of building failures; and gather data for model validation. The course will address these issues, both theoretically and practically, through the application of: field measurement techniques; physical modeling methods; and computer-aided building modeling. Computer-aided data processing techniques will be applied for the analysis and interpretation of the results of model and field studies. The role of building performance simulation in the area of building diagnostics will be investigated. 48-722 Building Performance Modeling **
12 units
Instructor: Lam
This course introduces fundamentals and computational methods in building performance modeling. Topics include: modeling and design, overview of thermal, visual, and acoustical domain knowledge, integration of performance simulation in computer-aided design, introduction to the application of advanced computational building simulation tools, case studies and design assignments on the application of simulation in the evaluation and improvement of building performance.
48-723 Performance of Advanced Building Systems **
9 units
Instructor: Hartkopf
Advanced Building Systems Integration This is a graduate level course that focuses on commercial building performance achieved through systems integration. In lectures, class discussion, and student projects, we will explore the topic of building performance, the design and technical strategies that support sustainable high performance; the design, construction and operation processes that are likely to produce sustainable high(er) performance buildings; and the current state of theory versus practice. The course assumes a basic understanding of buildings? impact on the environment, of building design and materials performance, and the calculation of building heating and cooling loads. On that foundation, we will examine the concept of systems integration and how this approach can sustain the occupants and the environment far better than conventional design, construction and operation. Although US climate, building conventions and codes will be our reference point, we will broaden our discussion by using examples and data from many other countries. An essential aspect of our exploration will be identifying successful built projects and examining the factors that may have allowed those projects to succeed. If this course meets its objectives, students who successfully complete the material will understand and be able to discuss sustainable building performance characteristics, will understand the systems integration approach and how it differs from conventional approaches to building design, and will know how to positively affect architectural and engineering decisions to support the design, construction and operation of sustainable high performance buildings. 48-728 Special Topics in BPD: Redesigning our Built Environment**
9-12 units
Instructor: Cochran, Epley
The course includes an overview of various real life concepts to implement "Value Added Propositions" for buildings. The goals are to: 1. Provide energy efficient and sustainable designs and processes for existing residential, educational and office buildings. 2. Gain basic understanding of building science, renovation technologies, and techniques used in today's construction industry. 3. Learn how a scope of work is developed for a Green Building through building diagnostic techniques and energy modeling. 4. Examine energy efficiency financing opportunities.? ? Students will work with industry, manufacturers, and government to help identify the challenges and barriers facing the industry and provide new efficient solutions and strategies. 48-729 Productivity, Health and the Quality of Buildings **
9-12 units
Instructor: Loftness
Given the growing demand for green buildings by federal and private sector clients, professional practices are tooling up all over the world to deliver high performance, environmentally responsive, green buildings and communities. However, investments in green, high performance building solutions and technologies are still limited by first cost decision- making, and life cycle tools are still largely inaccessible to professionals. A new building investment decision support tool BIDS - has been developed by the NSF/IUCRC Center for Building Performance at Carnegie Mellon University, with the support of the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium. This cost-benefit decision support tool presents the substantial cost-benefits of a range of advanced and innovative building systems designed to deliver privacy and interaction, air quality, ergonomics, lighting control, thermal control, network flexibility, and access to the natural environment - from field case studies, laboratory studies, simulation studies, and other research efforts. This course will explore the relationship of quality buildings, building systems, and land-use to productivity, health, and well-being. The course will engage students in the literature relating building design decisions to ten cost/performance impacts: energy, facilities management, organizational change, technological change, attraction/retention (quality of life) of employees, individual productivity, organizational productivity, salvage/ waste, tax/insurance/litigation, and health.