Environmental Behavior & Design Intelligence

Catalog description

This course, ARCH 755, introduces concepts, computation, and tools with capacities to affect environmental qualities. Students will be introduced to a toolbox that can be applied to the measurement of people-based environmental attributes, daylight and artificial light, color, temperature, air quality, flows, and other environmental properties and their processes, as well as a set of skills that simulate environmental behaviors in space. In a series of technical software tutorials, methods are introduced for simulating options in relation to varying criteria and constraining parameters to map out a solution space of possibilities rather than a single optimal solution. Introducing students to environmental qualities and their impact on human well-being, these notions are key concepts to base innovations in the architecture and design of healthcare spaces. In addition to learning simulation software applied to environmental qualities, this course is pedagogically organized to include seminar discussions around particular themes and readings, including nature, environments, atmosphere, and design intelligence, as well as problem-based short design exercises on case studies, worked on in groups of students.