Sustainability in Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction

Universitat Politècnica de València via edX

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Details

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Provider

edX
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Certificate

$39.00 Certificate Available
Duration & workload

4 weeks, 3-4 hours a week
Sessions

On-Demand
Level

Intermediate
Subtitles

English

Found in

Part of

Interdisciplinary Sustainable Architecture Assessment

Overview

This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to sustainabilityin Architecture. Learners will be introducedto the basic elements of sustainability assessments (first model layer), as well as trends informing the space today.

The coursework enables students to develop a conceptual neighborhood model for assessing performance and urban policies.

In the first week,participants willlearn todevelop a conceptual model from the architectural elements of buildings; the basic building blockof which will be theperformance of materials. The second weekexploresmethods of optimizing performance. Coursework willdetail the needs and constraints inherent in selecting materials and neighborhood urban elements (the second model layer for green, blue and grey infrastructure).

In the third week, learners will developthe basic tools for introducing energy and measuring the potential impact on climate change (CO2). A new layer (third) on our neighborhood stainability model, this will be approached from a global perspective. In the fourth and finalweek, the course will explore techniques for a joint assessment directly connected to policy issues.

Syllabus

Week 1: Materials relevance in buildings
Week 2: Buildings, performance, functions,and materials
Week 3: Efficiency, sustainability,and architecture
Week 4: Integrated design and Business Models

Taught by

Javier Orozco-Messana, Maria Valles-Planells, Elena de la Poza-Plaza, Dai Morgan, Naoko Ellis, Edmond Byrne and Kas Hemmes

Reviews

3.8 rating, based on 116 Class Central reviews

4.1 rating at edX based on 35 ratings

Start your review of Sustainability in Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction

Anonymous

La idea del curso y el contenido planificado me resultó interesante al inicio. Sin embargo, las expectativas creadas cayeron a la realidad en el momento de hacer el curso. Los videos, además de no agregar material adicional o al menos un link de ref…

La idea del curso y el contenido planificado me resultó interesante al inicio. Sin embargo, las expectativas creadas cayeron a la realidad en el momento de hacer el curso. Los videos, además de no agregar material adicional o al menos un link de referencia directa, son muy complicados de seguir debido al ritmo de los mismos.

Sugiero que las lecturas sean hechas en el idioma nativo de cada docente (no creo que nadie tenga problemas en leer subtítulos en inglés o en español).

Exponer a los profesionales en hacer los videos en inglés, cuando claramente no están preparados para hacerlo (se notaba que leían de alguna pantalla, pues no era fluido, o que directamente no dominaban el idioma), es algo que perjudicó cualquier intento de contenido profesional.

En otros casos, no era cuestión de idioma o manejo del inglés, pues el video de la profesora de la Universidad de Vancouver tenía un contenido muy interesante, pero también era difícil de seguir debido a que la exponente no había preparado su "clase" y se notaba a la legua que seguía un guión que iba leyendo (y francamente mal)

En algunos casos las diapositivas exhibidas eran ilegibles, y la posibilidad de seguir la lectura se hacía imposible.

Considero que la mejor parte fueron los videos del Dr. Dai Morgan y Ed Byrne. Ambos prepararon sus lecturas, fueron claros en los conceptos e hicieron muy amena la lectura, pese a ser de los videos más extensos.

Sugiero a la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia que revise el contenido de sus cursos, pues su nombre y prestigio se pone en juego con la calidad de cualquier cosa que haga pública, como este curso que dejó mucho que desear.

Les deja un cordial saludo un uruguayo desde los Estados Unidos
Patridge Bhunu Shava

The course is introductory and informative. The lectures were well organised with the theory, practicals, and case studies well articulated. The myriad of topics and lecturers from different universities make for a great course. The first topics pr…

The course is introductory and informative.
The lectures were well organised with the theory, practicals, and case studies well articulated. The myriad of topics and lecturers from different universities make for a great course.
The first topics presentations were good but the actual displays were too faint and small for anyone to follow outside the course. The presentation write up thus were a pain to the eyes. This paused a serious flaw to the otherwise very informed topics. This is an area that needs serious polishing for the course to be highly rated.
The other lecturers were well prepared for their part. Student participation was poor compared to other courses on EDX. Somehow the course coordinators could come up with questions to stimulate participation as this becomes a one-sided show. The more the questions after topics or even before the better to gauge understanding of concepts.
Overall the course is fundamental for business from all sectors of any economy, start-ups and sme inclusive. I did learn a lot from all the topics presented and came out a more informed person ready to understand and stand up for sustainability practices. Thank you for the course.
Anonymous

Providing very detailed information about the importance of sustainability in our field (architecture) and how to implement this knowledge in our designs was extremely helpful. For me, the most important part of this course was how they offered potential tools to enhance creativity and the motivation to explore new trends and ideas to combat climate change, which affects all of us. It is our responsibility as inhabitants of this planet.
Muhammad Emara

It is quite disappointing; I feel that it may have been better if they decided on focusing on a specific topic and giving some real indepth information instead of giving a mere introduction in several topics.
It is like reading several chapter names instead of reading a whole chapter.
Anonymous

it is a very good course that introduce the importance of sustainability and how to achieve it in the field of architecture
Anonymous

As a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, I thoroughly enjoyed this course on sustainability in architecture. For the past two to three decades, sustainability has become synonymous with futuristic architectural designs. I have seen where this sustainabilit…

As a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, I thoroughly enjoyed this course on sustainability in architecture. For the past two to three decades, sustainability has become synonymous with futuristic architectural designs. I have seen where this sustainability has changed the way we do business. As a contract administrator, we are continuously seeking ways to maximize the quality inputs of our projects while at the same time minimizing or eliminating waste, which inevitably harms our environment. Interestingly enough, this course contained many facets from architectural subsystems, green infrastructure, carbon management to life cycle analysis and finally, business models for climate change.
All in all, this course has been an eye-opener, and I believe that our designers should continue to focus their attention on energy efficiency, economy and environmentally friendly designs. There is a dire need to promote sustainability in every way possible. Thanks for your time, and I am deeply indebted to all the lecturers who took the time to prepare and deliver these valuable lessons on sustainability.
Anonymous

An interesting introduction although it seems like much more work needs to be done to improve the coordination of the course material. 1. The downloadable PDFs are sometimes different to the PDFs used in the lecture 2. The ungraded questions at th…

An interesting introduction although it seems like much more work needs to be done to improve the coordination of the course material.

1. The downloadable PDFs are sometimes different to the PDFs used in the lecture
2. The ungraded questions at the end of the lecture are sometimes for the wrong lecture. They ask a question about the lecture that we haven't watched yet. This is also the case for the graded lectures where questions are asked on topics that haven't been covered in that week.
3. some questions are unclear and/or misleading.
4. the course uses lectures from different institutions and different levels so combines sometimes very technical information with no context which is confusing. eg Carbon Management and Energy Systems lectures.
5. there could be more focus on architecture
6. The carbon management lecture is completely different to the PDF. The lecture was quite self-promoting and could have been more informative.
Anonymous

An interesting introduction although it seems like much more work needs to be done to improve the coordination of the course material. 1. The downloadable PDFs are sometimes different to the PDFs used in the lecture 2. The ungraded questions at th…

An interesting introduction although it seems like much more work needs to be done to improve the coordination of the course material.

1. The downloadable PDFs are sometimes different to the PDFs used in the lecture
2. The ungraded questions at the end of the lecture are sometimes for the wrong lecture. They ask a question about the lecture that we haven't watched yet. This is also the case for the graded lectures where questions are asked on topics that haven't been covered in that week.
3. some questions are unclear and/or misleading.
4. the course uses lectures from different institutions and different levels so combines sometimes very technical information with no context which is confusing. eg Carbon Management and Energy Systems lectures.
5. there could be more focus on architecture
6. The carbon management lecture is completely different to the PDF. The lecture was quite self-promoting and could have been more informative.
Anonymous

This course aimed to present an interdisciplinary introduction to sustainability in architecture. However, the information presented was not the best and seemed to be lacking in deeper learning content. Although the basics of sustainability in architecture were covered, they were not covered in enough detail to give a truly comprehensive understanding of the topic.

In addition, the feeling that was left was that more content was needed in general. The information presented felt superficial and not deep, which made it difficult to grasp the concepts at a more advanced level. The course may have focused too much on the introduction and not included enough information to go deeper into the topic.
Anonymous

I'm currently an architecture student and I found this very helpful not only to apply it in architecture itself, but the whole understanding about sustainability itself. This knowledge allows everyone in this course to have a wider view and possible innovative ideas regardless of their expertise..
Anonymous

As a newbie in this area with no prior foundations, I learnt a number of new technical concepts (although not always explained in the videos) and widened my understanding of and perspectives in sustainability within the architecture field. Warning, however: the exams have absolutely no value added, most courses are not well structured, the English tough to understand at times (foreign accent) and the subtitles of the units often inaccurate. I would have preferred to take the course without the certificate but I did learn which was the initial objective!
Anonymous

The biggest takeaway of this course for me is about stretching ourselves to reach further and re-consider what is possible when it comes to designing more caring and thoughtful spaces for present and future generations of this planet's inhabitants, by having more open minds that accommodate interconnections, complexities and collaborations. The topics are very interesting, though some topics would have been even better if they were fleshed out with more detail, explanations, examples, etc. Overall though, it's a very worthwhile course to take :)
Anonymous

Since the topic was so inspirinig I'd expected for the course presentation to be as well. The tone of voice of most of the speakers was simply not keeping my attention. Comparing to the Course I recently took from DelftX (Sustainable topic as well) this one seemed as there was not sufficeint effort made in preparation. Some of the quizes do not correspond to the lectures and I did not felt they were actually testing what you just saw. At the end of the Course I felt it was sufficient just to read prepared slides without waching videos.
Dima Nakashidze

The course was quite basic in some moments and too complicated in another ones. The teachers from Spain had a really bad English so I couldn't understand anything without reading the text. the pictures had low quality so I was searching for the good ones. But the other teachers from another universities were great. So basically it's a good course, but it's still a whole room (or building I would say) for improvement.
Anonymous

I'm currently an architecture student and I found this very helpful not only to apply it in architecture itself, but the whole understanding about sustainability itself. This knowledge allows everyone in this course to have a wider view and possible innovative ideas regardless of their expertise.
Anonymous

The course was such an ideal preparation for those you are planning to shift and study sustainability. This course had prepared me on the possibilities and further enhance my understanding on the concept of sustainability, green infrastructure and other relative studies that would help me further understand the basics of it which will help me to further hone my interest unto the said subject.
Anonymous

The course added a lot of things to my reflections and ways to do as a student of architecture. The video classroom took me more interactive on the course and i liked this. Perhaps the only thing that I would say to manage in the course are the exams or assessments, because there are some questions that dont have an exact resemblance with the subjects. Further more, thank you for the support and the incredible course.
Anonymous

This is by far good introduction on the Sustainability In Architecture as this has been the talk of everyone in our profession. This gives more meaning to what we initially know.
Looking forward to more and comprehensive study about this in the future. Thank you!
Anonymous

Maybe the worse course I had on edx. It was too general that the thoughts were flying from one side to other side. Concentration needed. Some topics were just for saying, and some (energy systems) were too detailed. It was really not well organized.

P.S professors' English required more attention to understand what they say.
Anonymous

Nice course and they added more knowledge to me by teaching me what I really need to upgrade my career to design a eco-friendly sustainable building design as an Architect that will make users comfortable.