ARC 384K
Environmental Technology 1: Case Studies
Instructor: Dr. Steven Moore, AIA
Unique Number: 00830

1.0 Course Description

This graduate course is a quantitative and qualitative survey of heating, cooling, ventilating, electrical, plumbing, solar, vertical transportation, and fire safety technologies. Following an introduction to the physical principles of environmental control, students will critically study the environmental control systems of selected cases so as to better understand the architectural, cultural, and ecological implications of the technological choices necessarily made in the process of design.

2.0 General Requirements:

2.1 Assumptions:
The assumption behind this course is that architectural practice requires knowledge that is both quantitatively and culturally responsible. The best way to engage graduate students in the production of such knowledge is through the case study method.

2.2 Background
Technology courses in schools of architecture are commonly taught as how-to courses--how to size a beam, how to size a duct, and ultimately how to pass the NCARB registration examination. The positive aspect of this convention is that students are required to master a few quantitative design skills. Many educators now argue that, without such quantitative skills, the employment prospects of graduate architects will only slide further down the scale constructed by the consumers of design services. In this view, architectural education should re-emphasize quantifiable knowledge of physical systems so that our graduates might compete more effectively against engineers in the marketplace for design services.

One difficulty with this argument is that an emphasis upon knowledge that is always abstract and quantitative fails to reflect the situated and qualitative conditions of architectural practice. In practice, environmental control decisions are not made on the basis of purely quantitative criteria. Rather, such decisions are made in an atmosphere confused by rapidly changing culturally variables and the traditional compositional, or formal concerns of architecture. These conflicting variables include such difficult to quantify categories as habit, regional availability, client preference, environmental impact and perceived benefit. If architects must respond to such unquantifiable pressures it suggests that we need a different knowledge than that required of engineers. The irony here is that most architecture students now receive some quantitative training for which there is a decreasing demand, and no qualitative training for which there is an increasing demand. Scholars in Science and Technology Studies argue that the changing market for design services is proof, not of the contested division of labor between engineers and architects, but of the changing nature of technology itself. In this view, technology has become so complex that even the most optimistic client has developed concern for the unintended consequences of "good" engineering, i.e., sick building syndrome or worker discontent. These clients are, of course, concerned that designers quantify environmental controls efficiently. They are, however, more concerned that designers first critically evaluate the ecological and cultural impacts of technological choices before they are reduced to quantified strategies. There is, in other words, an unsatisfied market for design professionals who possess the skills to evaluate technology in quantitative and cultural terms.

2.3 Objectives:
The objective of this course is for graduate students to learn how environmental control systems are integrated into the design process. Successful completion of the course will give students the critical skills required to predict the environmental and cultural implications of their design decisions. The systems to be investigated include:

2.3.1 The building envelope as the primary environmental control system.
2.3.2 The sizing and integration of mechanical and passive heating, ventilating, and cooling systems.
2.3.3 The organization of building electrical systems.
2.3.4 The organization and integration of plumbing systems.
2.3.5 The integration of building mechanical systems with available natural energy sources.
2.3.6 The organization of vertical transportation systems--elevators and escalators.
2.3.7 Basic fire protection strategies and exiting requirements.