Sustainable Buildings

This subject provides a multi-disciplinary overview of the design of sustainable buildings and considers the design from an architectural, services engineering, facade engineering, environmental engineering and structural engineering, tenants and owners perspective. A number of industry based case study examples will be introduced to complement the lectures. This subject uses a project based learning project where students work in teams to design a new or refurbished commercial building to improve the environmental and social performance of the building. Students learn to apply sustainability-rating tools used in industry to their solutions. Students in the subject come from different disciplinary backgrounds, principally engineering and architecture, and are expected to share their knowledge and learn from each other to successfully complete the project work. This stands them in good stead for entering professional practice in the area of sustainability.

• 1Identify the critical sustainability issues that should be addressed in planning a building or new development
• 2Estimate the green star rating of a new building
• 3Identify the issues effecting indoor environmental quality
• 4Select different heating and cooling ventilation systems and justify the selection
• 5Calculate the embodied energy of different structural systems including recycled material
• 6Calculate the utilisation energy and greenhouse gas production of different building conceptual designs
• 7Carry out conceptual designs for the design of a water supply system for a building with a focus on water conservation and recycling measures and estimate the expected water consumption requirements
• 8Undertake cost studies of different green star rated buildings using life cycle cost analysis techniques.