Environmental Systems: Climate & Energy in Buildings
This course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation and natural conditioning, human comfort, and the site-specific dynamics of climate.
design decisions are critical for climate and energy, resiliency and equity.
Our commitment to designing net zero energy and indeed carbon positive buildings and communities is critical to environment equity and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation and natural conditioning, human comfort, and the site-specific dynamics of climate. The state of the art in building energy conservation and passive heating and cooling technologies will be presented in lectures and supported by readings and assignments. An overview of energy flows in buildings and energy design standards is illustrated by lectures on building energy conservation successes, and emerging demands for a broader definition of sustainability. To understand the significance of architectural design decision-making on energy consumption and comfort, students will compile a professional energy consultant's report for a residential-scale building, 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.