Many engineers are puzzled by questions such as: how to shift or reduce peak heating demand to obtain a better match with a smart grid or renewable energy system? What is thermally more efficient: a heavy concrete building or a light timber-frame building? How effective is night ventilation in warm periods? This course will provide you with the answers to these and many other questions related to dynamic thermal behavior in buildings. We start with a recap of the various heat transfer phenomena that affect buildings’ thermal behavior. Then you will learn how to combine them in dynamic energy balances of relevant building elements such as windows, façades, floors, indoor walls and ceilings, air, furniture, and even the occupants. You will be guided step by step through the construction of a differential equation network, enabling you to understand how to model thermal energy demand and temperature levels during the construction and use of existing buildings and new and innovative building systems. Secondly, you will learn how to solve the resulting equations by using either finite difference or response factor methods. As a result, you will be able to discover for yourself the effects of different designs, and also understand the basic principles which underlie well-known Building Simulation Tools and HVAC software like Energy+, esp-r, DOE-2, Carrier-HAP or TRNSYS. Thus will help you to maximize your correct use of these tools in the future. Finally, you will apply your knowledge by building your own test-software in the language of your choice (e.g. Matlab, R, Python) and solving several equation networks in order to answer the questions posed above and to thermally optimize rooms in buildings in terms of temperature and energy efficiency, and even to determine the thermal comfort level for occupants accounting for radiant temperatures.

Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological and political innovations for achieving sustainability. Citizens can be co-creators of sustainable cities when they engage in city politics or in the design of the urban environment and its technologies and infrastructure. In addition, citizens influence and are influenced by the technologies and systems that they use every day. Sustainability is thus a result of the interplay between technology, policy and people’s daily lives. Understanding this interplay is essential for creating sustainable cities. In this MOOC, we zoom in on Amsterdam, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Nairobi, Kampala and Suzhou as living labs for exploring the dynamics of co-creation for sustainable cities worldwide. We will address topics such as participative democracy and legitimacy, ICTs and big data, infrastructure and technology, and SMART technologies in daily life. This global scope will be used to illustrate why specific forms of co-creation are preferred in specific urban contexts. Moreover, we will investigate and compare these cities on three themes that have a vast effect on city life: Water and waste Energy, air, food and mobility Green spaces and food This MOOC will teach you about the dynamics of co-creation and the key principles of citizens interacting with service providing companies, technology and infrastructure developers, policy makers and researchers. You will gain an understanding of major types of co-creation and their interdependency with their socio-technical and political contexts. You will become equipped to indicate how you can use co-creation to develop innovative technologies, policy arrangements or social practices for a sustainable city in your own community. You will demonstrate this by developing an action plan, research proposal or project idea. This course forms a part of two educational programme of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) - AMS Vital and Circular city research themes. It is developed by Wageningen UR and TU Delft, two of the founding universities of AMS Institute, and in cooperation with Tsinghua University. For whom? Basic knowledge of sustainability in urban settings, urban environmental technology and urban management is assumed.

First, we'll begin from the year 1868 with Japan's emergence as a new nation. Its new and increasingly Western-style capital city of Tokyo grew upon the foundations of a far smaller seventeenth-century town called Edo surrounding a feudal castle. Before long, changing building methods and materials foretold a different age. By the turn of the twentieth century, a strong contrast between the old-style, low, wooden, Japanese structures and up-to-date modern buildings, first distinguished by red brick and later by industrially produced materials, was clearly visible to any and all. We'll discuss the intensive process of Westernization set in motion by Japan's imitation of European and American lifestyles. From that angle, we'll see how architects began to seek out their own version of early twentieth-century Modernism. As a starting point, Japanese practice followed the novel rational and "functionalist" innovations of the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and the stripped-down and up-to-date approach of Walter Gropius, director of the famous German art school known as the Bauhaus. Meanwhile, Japan had embarked upon educating its own architects, who were no longer the older skilled master carpenters trained on site. A distinct, if frequently eclectic, style evolved with a few younger Japanese seeking experience abroad. Our course seeks to discuss and illustrate the roots of Modernist building in Japan over approximately three quarters of a century in Part 1.

Il corso affronta lo studio di due discipline solo apparentemente lontane da loro. La prima, la più giovane per codificazione scientifica, avvenuta solo nel XIX secolo, è stata denominata “Archeoastronomia”, ovvero la scienza che studia gli allineamenti astronomici di alcuni particolati edifici del passato e il loro significato. Si registra oggi una crescente importanza di tale disciplina da quando architetti, archeologi e studiosi di astronomia si sono resi conto che l’archeoastronomia fornisce una chiave di lettura spesso nuova e inaspettata della forma e della funzione di molti monumenti del passato. Dopo una parte propedeutica di introduzione alla astronomia, in particolar modo ai modelli geometrici usati per lo studio dei suoi fenomeni connessi alle due discipline oggetto del corso, quali ad esempio il movimento apparente del Sole e delle stelle, vengono affrontati alcuni esempi come casi studio. In particolare il corso propone tre ricerche innovative e inedite sul circolo di pietre megalitico di Callanish in Scozia, sulla chiesa Rupestre di San Nicola di Myra nelle vicinanze della citta pugliese di Mottola e sull’osservatorio astronomico Maya di Cichen Itza, dal 1988 patrimonio dell’umanità UNSECO. La seconda parte del corso è dedicata alla gnomonica, ovvero la scienza per la costruzione degli orologi solari, che si basa sui medesimi processi geometrici analizzati per il moto apparente del Sole. Il corso ne illustra il funzionamento di una larga gamma di diverse tipologie di orologi solari e fornisce quelle conoscenze indispensabili per poter nuovamente leggere la misura del tempo grazie a questi sofisticati strumenti artistici e, al contempo scientifici, del passato. Vengono inoltre descritte alcune meridiane monumentali della città di Napoli, costruite entrambe nel XVII secolo ad opera di eminenti studiosi operanti in quei tempi nel fiorente clima culturale della corte del Borboni, la prima collocata nella Certosa di San Martino e la seconda nel Gran Salone del Museo Archeologico Nazionale_MANN. This course combines two independent subjects whose distance from each other is only apparent. The first, archeoastronomy, was scientifically codified in the XIXth century and it is the study of the astronomical alignments of some peculiar buildings from the past along with their meaning. This discipline has been gaining more and more attention since architects, archeologists and astronomy scholars realized that archeoastronomy permits to have a new and unexpected perspective on the shape and functions of many monuments. After a preparatory introduction to astronomy and to the geometrical models used to study the phenomena connected to these two disciplines such as the apparent motion of the sun and the stars, the students will be presented with three innovative and unpublished researches on the circle of megalithic stones in Callanish (Scotland), on Saint Nicholas from Myra rock church near Mottola (Apulia) and on the Mayan astronomical observatory of Cichen Itza (Unesco World Heritage Site since 1988). The second part of this course is dedicated to gnomonics, i.e. the study of the sundials construction which is based on the same geometrical processes analyzed in the apparent motion of the sun. This MOOC will then show how several types of sundials work so as to enable the students to read the time through these sophisticated artistic and scientific tools from the past. Moreover, the users will also be introduced to two monumental sundials in Naples that were built in the XVIIth century by the eminent scholars that were then active in the thriving court of the Bourbons: the Charterhouse of Saint Martin’s sundial and the one kept in the Great Hall of the National Archaelogical Museum (MANN).

Meeting growing global energy demand, while mitigating climate change and environmental impacts, requires a large-scale transition to clean, sustainable energy systems. Students and professionals around the world must prepare for careers in this future energy landscape, gaining relevant skills and knowledge to expedite the transformation in industry, government and nongovernmental organizations, academia, and nonprofits. The building sector represents a large percentage of overall energy consumption, and contributes 40% of the carbon emissions driving climate change. Yet buildings also offer opportunities for substantial, economical energy efficiency gains. From retrofit projects to new construction, buildings require a context-specific design process that integrates efficiency strategies and technologies. In this course, you'll be introduced to a range of technologies and analysis techniques for designing comfortable, resource-efficient buildings. The primary focus of this course is the study of the thermal and luminous behavior of buildings. You'll examine the basic scientific principles underlying these phenomena, and use computer-aided design software and climate data to explore the role light and energy can play in shaping architecture. These efficiency design elements are critical to the larger challenge of producing energy for a growing population while reducing carbon emissions.

Architecture engages a culture’s deepest social values and expresses them in material, aesthetic form. This course will teach you how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement. Vivid analyses of exemplary buildings, and hands-on exercises in drawing and modeling, will bring you closer to the work of architects and historians. The first part of the course introduces the idea of the architectural imagination. Perspective drawing and architectural typology are explored and you will be introduced to some of the challenges in writing architectural history. Then we address technology as a component of architecture. You will discover ways that innovative technology can enable and promote new aesthetic experiences, or disrupt age-old traditions. Technological advances changed what could be built, and even what could even be thought of as architecture. Finally, we'll confront architecture’s complex relationship to its social and historical contexts and its audiences, achievements, and aspirations. You will learn about architecture’s power of representation and see how it can produce collective meaning and memory. Architecture is one of the most complexly negotiated and globally recognized cultural practices, both as an academic subject and a professional career. Its production involves all of the technical, aesthetic, political, and economic issues at play within a given society. Join us as we examine how architecture engages, mediates, and expresses a culture’s complex aspirations. This course is eligible for American Institute of Architects (AIA) continuing education units (CEUs). Enroll in the course to learn more about options for earning credit.

Are you interested in studying architecture or urban planning? This course will help you understand what spatial design professionals really do, so you can decide if this is the right profession for you. First, we’ll learn about the built environment, and the kinds of challenges and opportunities that architects and planners grapple with. Then we’ll discuss five short examples based on real projects. In each example, we will focus on the role played by different spatial design professionals, including urban planners, urban designers, landscape architects, architects and interior architects. You’ll gain a good understanding of what each spatial design profession does, so you can make an informed choice about what to study. The course will also be useful for anyone who needs to interact with spatial design professionals, and would like an insight into their different roles.

Groundscape is a neologism resulting from the combination two words: ground and landscape. As a new field of research for architects, designers, and urban planners, this unheard-of form of subterranean architecture explores and investigates the universe of possibilities that lie beneath the surface of our cities. The idea of Groundscape proposes a different way of experiencing the earth underground by offering a resilient, responsible, aesthetic, and durable response to the many urban challenges our cities face today. Founded by prof. Dominique Perrault in 2013 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) the SubLab is an academic Think Tank and multidisciplinary research platform dedicated to the investigation of the underside of our cities. Alongside SubLab instructors Richard Nguyen, Ignacio Ferrer Rizzo, and Juan Fernandez Andrino you will participate in an unprecedented design oriented online course, where you will acquire the fundamental skills necessary for the conception of your own underground project. Since 1985 Prof. Dominique Perrault has designed more than 55 Groundscape projects over a period of almost 30 years.

Building design strongly influences the quantity of heating, cooling and electricity needed during building operation. Therefore, a correct thermal design is essential to achieve low energy and low carbon buildings, with good indoor air quality. This course will enable you to understand the basic principles of the energy chain: demand, supply and distribution; and how they relate to design principles for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Second, you will discover what type of heat losses and gains take place in buildings’ operations. You will learn how to estimate these flows using simple meteorological data and construction properties. You will acquire knowledge on how to estimate heat transfer through construction, ventilation, solar radiation or caused by internal sources or heat storage in the construction. Third, you will learn to make estimates of buildings’ energy needs on an hourly basis by using simple static energy balances: how much energy comes in and out and which air temperature is needed? When is there heating or cooling? How much electricity is needed? Fourth, you will discover how to extend your estimates to yearly energy demand, which is essential to make sure that a building is energy efficient and to estimate energy savings and energy costs. You will then also be able to determine the size of the needed heating and cooling equipment (which determines the costs of equipment). Finally, you will learn how to optimize building design and will be able to find out the optimal window size or the optimum insulation thickness for your building. You will know why putting windows on the south façade is not always energy-efficient. You will understand the thermal interactions between building components and be able to make informed decisions on how to increase the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings. This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to choose low carbon energy supply, how to create a comfortable indoor environment, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems. The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.

This series will explore four facets of contemporary Japanese architecture; theory, technology, city, and humans. It will also span five generations of architects since Kenzo Tange. Through lectures by instructors and discussions with the most influential Japanese architects, the course will trace the development of contemporary Japanese architecture and will consider its future direction. In this first course, we will focus on one of the four facets of Japanese architecture: theory. The theory portion will feature discussions with architects who played a significant role in influencing the development of theoretical frameworks that contributed to guiding contemporary Japanese architecture. Terunobu Fujimori, Arata Isozaki, Hisao Kohyama, Kengo Kuma, Hidetoshi Ohno, and Kazuyo Sejima will visit their buildings and discuss the ideas behind their respective works. In the coming courses on technology, city, and humans, the following leading Japanese architects will discuss their work — Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Manabu Chiba, Sou Fujimoto, Hiroshi Hara, Itsuko Hasegawa, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Fumihiko Maki, Kazuhiko Namba, Yusuke Obuchi, Satoko Shinohara, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Riken Yamamoto. Don’t miss the rest of this great series! Production Team Music by Jun Miyake Organized by (T_ADS) Kengo Kuma, Yusuke Obuchi, Toshihiko Kiuchi Filmed by Hiromoto Oka UTokyo is participating in the Tokyo 2020 Support Programme.