Course syllabus for Integrated sustainable building design, architects

Course syllabus adopted 2024-02-02 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).

Overview

  • Swedish nameIntegrerad hållbar design av byggnader, arkitekt
  • CodeACE560
  • Credits15 Credits
  • OwnerMPDSD
  • Education cycleSecond-cycle
  • Main field of studyArchitecture
  • ThemeArchitectural design project 15 c
  • DepartmentARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING
  • GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail

Course round 1

  • Teaching language English
  • Application code 17121
  • Maximum participants35 (at least 10% of the seats are reserved for exchange students)
  • Minimum participants8
  • Open for exchange studentsYes
  • Only students with the course round in the programme overview.

Credit distribution

0123 Project 15 c
Grading: TH		 15 c

In programmes

Examiner

Go to coursepage (Opens in new tab)

Eligibility

General entry requirements for Master's level (second cycle)
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Specific entry requirements

English 6 (or by other approved means with the equivalent proficiency level)
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Aim

The course is a close to practice course, that is giving knowledge and training skills and competences for sustainable building and transformation. Transformation of existing structures is an imperative for climate responsive building strategies, simultaneously in many countries it represents the majority of building activities, exceeding new buildings and therefore requires architects who are fit for these challenges. Transformation might include horizontal and vertical extension, new fill ins and in some cases partial demolition with reuse of demolished components.

The course is connected to the parallel course 'Integrated Sustainable Building Design – Engineers' and the architecture students in collaborate with engineering students in the parallel course in an integrate design team, the way how it happens in advanced practice.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)

Knowledge and understanding
  • describe and analyze the basic features in sustainable building, in particular in sustainable building transformation
  • describe and analyze the potentials and challenges of sustainable building
Competence and skills
  • design sustainable architecture
  • visualize the performance concerning energy, environment and indoor climate in a building
  • find new programs for a building
  • design systems for good indoor climate and energy efficiency
  • prepare and perform a professional presentation
Judgement and approach
  • cooperate across disciplinary boundaries in design processes

Content

The course supports innovation and speculative ideas for a creative spatial program and building proposals, which are grounded on thorough investigations, different calculations and simple simulations concerning daylight, energy, green-house gases and global warming potential, water, life cycle costs etc. The goal is to design an architectural project in an existing but partly unused or misused building, based on investigation and with support of these tools

Organisation

The focus for the course is a design project. The design work is supported by workshops on daylight, ventilation strategies and energy/life cycle tools according schedule. You learn and exercise these tools for daylight investigations as well as for preliminary energy calculations and an approximate Life Cycle Assessment of your proposal.

Literature

Literature will be handed out when the course starts.

Examination including compulsory elements

The final delivery is a coherent program for the whole building, an architectural project of high aesthetic quality. Drawings on scale 1:200 for parts of the building (minimum 3 posters) as well as some key details of this design, connected to a technical report which is edited in collaboration with the engineering students in the parallel course.

The project will be continuously discussed and assessed during the whole design process.
The specific content of this presentation (the content of your posters and report) will be specified by the examiner after midterm crits in written form on Canvas, according to your proposal. All deadlines in the calendar for deliveries of workshops, midcrit and final crits are mandatory. The course requires active participation in common activities, lectures, seminars, and reviews. It ends with a hand-in of all student work during the course period on Canvas, which will be presented and discussed in a final review.
The specific components of these deliveries will be announced in advance and will be based on the site-specific building project as well as in the student's design strategy. In any case, they include explanatory diagrams for reprogramming, relevant plans, and sections as well as selected detail-sections (decided based on the design).
A calculation of the environmental impact resp. greenhouse gas savings is mandatory, in comparison to the same building/components thought as a newly built structure.

The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.