DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

THAYER SCHOOL of ENGINEERING

ENGS 44:  Sustainable Design

 

 

Design for pollution prevention should be a key feature of the education of the next generation of engineers.  (Sheldon K. Friedlander, National Academy of Engineering, 1994)

 

The next industrial revolution is the design revolution. (...)  Let’s design buildings, products, cities--literally everything--so no harm is done.  (William McDonough, 2000)

 

The only way to make change is to make that which you hope to change obsolete. (Buckminster Fuller)

 

An interdisciplinary introduction to the principles of design for sustainability, with emphasis on the built environment. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and a major design project, students will learn to design buildings and other infrastructure with low to no impact on the environment.  Emphasis is on creative thinking, strategies for managing the complexity of the product life-cycle of the infrastructure, and the thorough integration of human and economic aspects in the design.  Homework and project activities provide practice in relevant engineering analyses.

 

Prerequisites: ENGS-21 (Introduction to Engineering), and

 ENGS-22 (Systems) or SART-65 (Architecture 1)

Distributive type: TAS (Technology & Applied Science).

Enrolment cap: 20

 

 

Instructors:

 

Benoit Cushman-Roisin (environmental engineering)

Karolina Kawiaka (architecture)

 

Teaching assistants:

 

Zoë Acher

Hannah Dreissigacker

Lucas Schulz

Brian Mengwasser

 

 

Textbook: (required)

 

Green Building Fundamentals, by Mike Montoya

Pearson © 2010, 192 pages, paperback

 

Other resources:

 

Sustainable Construction – Green Building Design and Delivery, by Charles J. Kibert, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, 2nd edition, by Sandra Mendler, William Odell and Mary Lazarus, John Wiley & Sons, 2006

Okala Ecological Design, course guide by P. White, L. St.Pierre and S. Belletire, 2004

 

Student activities:

 

Term-long design project (see separate description)

Critical readings (semi-weekly, leading to in-class discussions)

Homeworks (problem sets based on main lectures)

Site visits (see schedule)

 

Grading:

 

  15%      Homework

  10%      Reading critiques (1 reading per week)

  75%      Main project

                     20% first progress presentation

                     20% second progress presentation

                     30% final project presentation and written report

                     5% critique of others’ projects

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