1. Course PM

ACE400
Architecture in the Anthropocene
LP1 HT24
10 HP
Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering

2. Contact

Jonas Lundberg (Examiner, Supervisor) jonas.lundberg@chalmers.se
Samuel Norberg (Teacher, Supervisor) samnor@chalmers.se
Kengo Skorick (Teacher, Supervisor) kengo@chalmers.se

3. Purpose

The Contemporary Design Challenge is a small design project that ideally should help develop design skills and abilities related to climate change that would be applicable in subsequent studio projects.  The content cover everything from climate fundamentals, environmental impact of the built environment, adaptation to extreme environments, design for retrofit and adaptive reuse, biodiversity, ecology and passive and active design principles. The course aims for students to develop and demonstrate key technical knowledge, awareness, skills, and abilities related to the design of regenerative architecture with the potential of a positive environmental impact contribution in the age of the Anthropocene. The learning is primarily based around turning knowledge about our climatic predicament into a set of practical and technical skills and abilities, related to the design, testing and performance of architecture. The course enhances previously garnered knowledge and understanding of the paradigms of sustainable architecture to bring it a step further towards regenerative design and the potential of a positive carbon footprint. The course, being both primarily skill based and a compulsory course of the program, is relatively broad to cater to the diversity of design studios contained in the program but offering the students concepts related to the climate change, digital design skills such as design and associative modelling, 3D scanning as well as simulation.

4. Learning Objectives & Syllabus

a. Knowledge & Understanding

+  Discuss how the project work is relevant to contemporary architectural discourse and research related to climate change.
+  Demonstrate the re-iterative design process, that a project undergoes as it is informed and developed from concept to realization, through consultancy, research findings and rigorous testing.
+  Demonstrate the environmental adaptation and performance of a design project.

b. Skills & Abilities

+  Apply skills and abilities related to bioclimatic design
+  Situate a design project in a digital environment using digital design tools
+  Be able to use digital means of analysis and/or simulation and consultancy to inform aspects of the environmental adaptation and performance of a design.
+  Implementing technical research findings in a design project and the public communication and dissemination thereof.
+  Be able to systematically apply knowledge and understanding of environmental, technical and process principles in design.

c. Judgement & Attitude Formulation

+  Formulate early assessments of peer design projects related to the performance and the environmental impact of the proposal and its relation to contemporary architectural discourse and best practice.
+  Interpret, question, and develop given prerequisites based on achieved knowledge and experience and excel by creating unexpected new knowledge and design outcomes.

d. Syllabus

+  See Studieportalen (Link)

5. Course Design

The course is primarily a skill-based course implementing Studio Based Learning (SBL) around two design project assignments devised to transform general knowledge about sustainability and climatic adaptation to specific design skills and digital abilities. The course utilizes blended learning based on a small number of classroom lectures and demonstrations augmented by supervision in design studios and prerecorded software tutorials for individual learning. Please ensure to go through and read or review the information on Canvas and on course literature list and regular check Canvas for changes.  Attendance during both lectures, demonstrations and during design supervision as well as actively learning the new tools and techniques that the course is exposing you to, is paramount in order to maximize the learning in the course. The course is divided into 3 distinct phases:

a. Technology, Research, and Experiments

Technology demonstrations, precedent and material studies and text seminars, design research that targets environmental adaptation and performance to be used in project 1 and 2.

b. Building & Performance

Project 1: Building Case Study
2.5 ECTS

The purpose is to make a comprehensive building analysis an inventory and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of medium scale building. The project is supposed to deploy the digital modelling, simulation, drawing and diagramming techniques techniques introduced in the first part of the course.

c. Context, Environment & Materialization

Project 2: Building Design
5 + 2.5 ECTS

i. Design (5 ECTS)
ii. Technical Report + Performance Analysis (2.5 ECTS)

6. Organisation

a. Technology, Research, & Experiments

+  Introduction, Demonstrations (Weeks 35~36)

b. Building & Performance

+  Project 1 (Week 37~38)

c. Context, Environment & Materialization

+  Project 2 Design (Weeks 39~42)
+  Project 2 Technical Report + Performance Analysis (Weeks 42~43)

7. Learning

The course aims to harness the learning in ACE 380: Sustainable Development and the Design Professions and transform knowledge into design and technical skills and abilities. The aim is also to find a way of integrate some of the requests of the LP2 design studios in the development of digital skills and the in the design project supervision. To ensure continuity in the learning, each design studio is also asked to provide a number of building projects for the building study. The final report and reflection should include a critical reflection on the design, its adaption to two different climates as well as an environmental impact assessment and be a useful document to bring forward to the following design studio course.

8. Communication & Resources 

Course announcements and information are posted on the Canvas platform. Please use the Canvas to communicate with the course tutors. The course is divided into six different studios (ritsalar) and each studio has its own subgroup on Canvas. The course are using the studio spaces on the top floor, 5F in the SB1 building. Each studio (ritsal) will be getting dedicated studio bays at the beginning of the year. We are also using the computers on 5F and in the basement labs at SB1 that have all the required software. All the software are also available for remote access.

9. Examination

Student work during project 1 & 2 are presented and evaluated in reviews with invited guests according to the submission requirements specified in the project assignments made available on Canvas. The final marking is based on a combination of the design reviews of team related design work in combination with an individual illustrated design diary and technical report submitted at the end of the course. A minimum of 80% attendance or participation in lectures, pin-ups, demos, and visits is required to pass the course. The course is marked complete to pass and with the passing marks 3, 4, and 5 (being the top mark). There are a number of assessment rubrics related to the learning outcomes that is available under modules that will be used for the assessment.

If you have met the attendance requirement but are unable to complete the final course submission by the deadline. No result is recorded until you have made the submission and notified the examiner but there is no guarantee that the result will be recorded until the next assessment cycle (in the spring). If your submission is not of passing standard you are able to resubmit it at a later date for a new assessment and again there is no guarantee that the result will be recorded until the next assessment cycle (in the spring). In order to pass the course you also have to attend the final review and if you miss it, a new review is organized with your studio tutor and the examiner. If you are unable to meet the attendance requirement, you need to retake the course the following year.

10. Literature

In addition to the literature below, each project assignment introduced at the beginning of each phase may include additional project specific readings.

+  Sofie Pelsmakers, Elizabeth Donovan, Aidan Hoggard, Urszula Kozminska 2022: Designing for the climate emergency : a guide for architecture students 

+  Kate Franklin, Caroline Till 2018, Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future, Thames and Hudson Ltd

+  IPCC WorkGroup2 (55th Session) 2022, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Cambridge University Press

+  Liedl, Hausladen, Saldanha 2012,  Building to Suit the Climate: A Handbook

11. Schedule

Please check Canvas for the main schedule of events in the course. You are expected to work during your scheduled hours that you can see here on TimeEdit but you are not required to attend when there are no scheduled events but here you may organize your own time.

12. New Changes

+  The LCA workshop is scheduled earlier in the course and the LCA is now carried out on the building study and not done in full on your final design project.

+  The design project has a more clearly defined urban site in Gothenburg and the adaption of your design to a different climate is only done as a shorter study in your technical report.

+  Each studio has more autonomy to form the project assignment to suit the profile and subsequent design studio.

+  We have endeavored to find larger and more suitable spaces for larger course related events or the course is divided in smaller groups adapt to the available spaces and resources.