Architecture & Environment

In this module, I learned how Environment and Architecture are connected. We went deep into studying how these two concepts affect each other and how the environment is used to make the most proper and practical way of creating a responsible architectural design of a desired structure. We also were researching on different buildings and cases trying to find put what kind of problems they have in terms of design and how these issues could be solved.

Project 1

Assessing Daylight & Thermal Comfort at Modern Houses (Group)

The biggest problem in modern homes today is daylighting limitations, which necessitate the use of artificial lighting throughout the whole house. Also, the only things that may make you feel comfortable in the state of thermal comfort are mechanical equipment like fans and air conditioners. Due to this situation, users could have to pay more for their utilities. Students will design concepts in groups of FIVE (5) to maximize daylight and thermal comfort in their chosen modern home, which might be either a double-storey corner lot home or a double-storey semi-detached home. Gathering information, collecting observations, and coming up with ideas for how to enhance thermal comfort and daylight distribution as they are now are all part of the fieldwork for this case study. During this fieldwork, students may be expected to collect data using a relevant mobile app.

Self-Reflection

While doing this project my groupmates and I went through a very interesting journey exploring and looking for the problems the house we had chosen had. It was very interesting since we could actually work with the existing building and see all the problems in real life. We went through lots of ideas on how the structures could be changed, lots of ways of solving the problem were listed and quite much of calculations were made.

Project 2

Artificial Lighting Design (Group)

Work productivity will increase and end users will experience more comfortable lighting in a given area of a facility. Yet, certain rooms in buildings may have adequate illumination because there aren't enough lamps in them or because the room has enough overall lighting (space). The purpose of this project is to provide the students a grasp of the fundamentals of designing artificial lighting by using a Lumen Method calculation.

Self-Reflection

For this project we were working with a building which is located in Paris. We had to make research the work of lightning in the space there and its effect on the room, perception of the environment, the problems there space is facing, and the ways those issues could be improved. I found this assignment very interesting since it let us to work and asses the space in the structure and work with the formulas making the calculations needed for redesigning the lightning in there.