B018896 - ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

INGLESE

The course focuses on architectural buildings able to meet human needs while preserving environmental resources. The course teaches a comprehensive design approach concerning decision-making process delivered as a scientific research based on digital modeling in order to materialize physics, alternative solutions and acquire shareable awareness on effects. Since their impact on sustainable effectiveness Massing Optimization in the Early Stage and Building Enve-lope Prototyping will be explored.

Bibliography, reading materials, lecture integrations, tutorials to assist assignments and other resources including Syllabus and Class Schedule are available online at Mailab.biz. The student is required to access regularly the website to check news and resources update.

Upon completion the class, students are expected to acquire knowledge, awareness and design-ing skills on:
• environment as an intra-system between humans, nature and buildings
• performance design, green metrics and energy assessment
• decision-making process based on data evidence
• performance-driven computational work-flow
• architectural mass modeling and numerical simulation of environmental conditions
• high-energy architectural envelopes and passive-energy solutions
• smart technologies and materials for sustainable architectures
• digital prototyping and industrial manufacturing of building envelopes.

Student attending the class is required to have completed Architecture and Structure Design Lab, to have a basic knowledge and skills on BIM and Computational Design, and to have her/his laptop with preinstalled 3D CAD software, raster/vector graphic programs and any other digital tools for visual communication and public presentations.
More in detail, before the class enters in the lab activities it is strongly recommended to get the educational version of software from Autodesk such as Revit, Insight 360, Flow Design, and from Trimble SketchUp and optionally Sefaira. Open Studio from Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC is also mandatory required. Otherwise these software, their installing guides, other free software and plug in will be provided in class. Students that don’t have any experience on solid modeling are strongly recommended to get supplementary teaching courses or webinars.

Learning is conceived as a scientific research based on computational modeling and as a craftsmanship activity where students are asked to learn and to adapt multiple tools and tech-niques in order to materialize, test, give evidence of their assumptions and ideas; exchange expe-riences, and acquire knowledge as well.
Therefore teaching is carried out as a fab-lab developed through in-class design assignments, case-study analysis, and assisted baseline exercises involving use of state of the art architectural modeling, energy simulation/assessment software, and CNC prototyping technology as well.
Activities are also supported by lectures, discussions, intermediate individual/collective reviews presentations, and by the Department's Architectural Models Laboratory (LMA) and MAILAB – Multimedia Architecture Interaction.

Student work evaluation is based on attendance, and credits get during the semester. Class poli-cy establishes that if the student is not attending compulsory classes (see the Class schedule) or has collects more than three absences fails the exam. In any case, the professor is not responsible for students who are not receiving information due to their truancy.
Evaluation is expressed on the assignments' results and graded in thirty taking in consideration originality, creativity, refinement, dedication, attention, completeness, correctness:
• 30L- 29 exceptional evaluation, awarded to students whose work is outstanding
• 28-27 distinguished evaluation, awarded to students whose work is good
• 26-24 average evaluation, awarded to students whose work is adequate
• 23-18 low evaluation, awarded to students whose work is sufficient but not completely
satisfying in all the aspects
• <18 insufficient, awarded to students whose work failed in several aspects
• NC «not classified», awarded to students whose work is missing or presents severe lacks.
Students failing the course need to start a new course with no credits recognized.

Computational Materiality for Sustainable Architectures and Comprehensive Skins
With «Building System Design» (first year), this course represents the disciplinary contribution of «Technology of Architecture» to the Master. Both are focused on architectural project and compu-tational design embedding the decisional process, communication and designing as well: pro-cesses dealing with willness and facts, with "un-materiality" formalized, computed, and extracted through digital technologies in order to obtain valuable/reliable architectures.
The philosophy of the two classes is to jump over the software generated free-forms, or the preva-lent use of design technology for calculation, visualization, and rendering. Vice versa the goal is pursue a coherent and interoperable process and to promote a research attitude based on digital materiality.


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Course Outline. The course focuses on architectural buildings able to meet human needs while pre-serving environmental resources. The course teaches a comprehensive design approach concern-ing decision-making process delivered as a scientific research based on digital modeling in order to materialize physics, alternative solutions and acquire shareable awareness on effects. Since their impact on sustainable effectiveness Massing Optimization in the Early Stage and Building Enve-lope Prototyping will be explored.

Language: English.
Methodology. Learning is conceived as a scientific research based on computational modeling and as a craftsmanship activity where students are asked to learn and to adapt multiple tools and tech-niques in order to materialize, test, give evidence of their assumptions and ideas; exchange expe-riences, and acquire knowledge as well.
Therefore teaching is carried out as a fab-lab developed through in-class design assignments, case-study analysis, and assisted baseline exercises involving use of state of the art architectural modeling, energy simulation/assessment software, and CNC prototyping technology as well.
Activities are also supported by lectures, discussions, intermediate individual/collective reviews presentations, and by the Department's Architectural Models Laboratory (LMA) and MAILAB – Multimedia Architecture Interaction.
Learning Goals. Upon completion the class, students are expected to acquire knowledge, aware-ness and designing skills on:
• environment as an intra-system between humans, nature and buildings
• performance design, green metrics and energy assessment
• decision-making process based on data evidence
• performance-driven computational work-flow
• architectural mass modeling and numerical simulation of environmental conditions
• high-energy architectural envelopes and passive-energy solutions
• smart technologies and materials for sustainable architectures
• digital prototyping and industrial manufacturing of building envelopes.

Text books. Bibliography, reading materials, lecture integrations, tutorials to assist assignments and other resources including Syllabus and Class Schedule are available online at Mailab.biz. The stu-dent is required to access regularly the website to check news and resources update.
Prerequisites. Student attending the class is required to have completed Architecture and Struc-ture Design Lab, to have a basic knowledge and skills on BIM and Computational Design, and to have her/his laptop with preinstalled 3D CAD software, raster/vector graphic programs and any other digital tools for visual communication and public presentations.
More in detail, before the class enters in the lab activities it is strongly recommended to get the educational version of software from Autodesk such as Revit, Insight 360, Flow Design, and from Trimble SketchUp and optionally Sefaira. Open Studio from Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC is also mandatory required. Otherwise these software, their installing guides, other free software and plug in will be provided in class. Students that don’t have any experience on solid modeling are strongly recommended to get supplementary teaching courses or webinars.
Academic integrity and honesty. The class is against plagiarism and dishonesty. Cheating, appropri-ation of materials from other authors without crediting them and re-using researches or projects done in previous course without appropriate authorization is a violation of the University's code of academic integrity. Penalties for such violations can result in loss of credits, to fail the course and, in severe cases, to incur legal actions. For any text and image used, students are required to place clearly source references and credits in appropriate way using standard conventions.
Type of Assessment. Student’s work evaluation is based on attendance and credits get during the semester. Class policy establishes that if the student is not attending classes and has collected more than three absences fails the exam. In any case, the professor is not responsible for students who are not receiving information due to their truancy. Evaluation is expressed on the assignments results and graded on thirty taking in consideration originality, creativity, refinement, dedication, attention, completeness, correctness. Below is the grading criteria.
• 30L- 29 exceptional evaluation, awarded to students whose work is outstanding
• 28-27 distinguished evaluation, awarded to students whose work is good
• 26-24 average evaluation, awarded to students whose work is adequate
• 23-18 low evaluation, awarded to students whose work is sufficient but not completely satis-fying in all the aspects
• <18 insufficient, awarded to students whose work failed in several aspects
• NC «not classified», awarded to students whose work is missing or presents severe
• lacks.
 
Assignments and Grade. Final student grading is based on individual evaluation as a result of dif-ferent credits and specific weight acquired on the following assignments.

Credit Assignment Weight
1 Conceptual School Building Energy Assessment 30%
2 Personal Taccuino for Proposal 20%
3 Schematic Proposal for Approval 20%
4 Envelope Prototype Manufacturing 30%

Although grading is based on individual evaluations, students are allowed to develop assignments #3 and #4 in groups not bigger then 3 members. Vice versa assignments #1 and #2 must be carry out individually.

Class Scheduling. Arguments of the class are developed as an integrated contribution inside the «Architecture and Environment Design Lab» course where students are asked to provide a sche-matic design of a school building in a Mediterranean context.
Inside this frame, the class covers different aspects of Environmental Design in different phases of the project according with the «Architectural Design III» class program and fully integrated with the «Environmental Control Techniques» class activities.
As shown on the next page, the «Environmental Design» program involves a progressive devel-opment from conceptual to detailed design where the focus, in the final phase, will be on the ar-chitectural envelopes.