Environment and Space Organization

Recommended Prerequisites

Not Applicable.

Teaching Methods

- Presentation of the themes using intensive image viewing. Debate with students (student-student and student-teacher) on the examples presented.
- Resolution (by students, individually or in small groups, or by the teacher) of cases illustrative of the practical interest and relevance of the themes, and the selection of different decision-aiding strategies.
- Role-playing.

Learning Outcomes

The unit addresses issues of culture and organization of architectural space. It focuses on the understanding that they are essential to address the phenomena of population density and urban sprawl. Promotes clarification procedures required between the natural and built environment, creating operational bases that allow the overcoming of the misconceptions commonly associated with sustainable prosperity and development. Introduces the need to use sustainable design strategies in cities.
O1. Knowing the concepts and steps of the history of sustainable development;
O2. Justifying the integration of environmental strategies, as a conceptual paradigm, in the drawings of urban space and architecture;
O3. Experiencing the complexity of the processes of adaptation and mitigation to climate changes;
O4. Justifying an imperative inclusion of sustainable design strategies in the early stages of design;
O5. Recognizing methodologies and multi-scale approach to urban conception.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1 - Architectural urban culture:
1. Reset concepts: urban, rural hybrid
2. Urban sprawl and contemporary diffused territories
3. Urban history, density and demography

2 - Environment and Society:
1. Concepts: green; ecological; bioclimatic and sustainable design
2. Background and what is being done

3 - Environmental strategies: new paradigm in architecture:
1. Problematic and structuring
2. Climate changes – adaptation and mitigation – energy and CO2

4 - Designing and planning the sustainable city:
1. Earth: landscape, place, solar geometry – tectonics, materials and technologies
2. Air: winds, cooling and environmental conditioning – indoor and urban
3. Water: the resource, hydraulic network management and risks
4. Fire: lighting, heating, solar gains and energies – embodied and operational
5. Life: humans and biodiversity; comfort and life quality
6. Merger, symbiosis, holistic and conflicting dimensions in a multiscale approach to design projects.

Head Lecturer(s)

Francisco Manuel Portugal e Gomes

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Resolution Problems: 100.0%

Bibliography

BANHAM, R., 1984, The architecture of the well-tempered environment, London, The Architectural Press.
BORJA, J., 2003, La Ciudad Conquistada, Madrid, Alianza Editorial.
BUSQUETS, J., Yang, D. and Keller, M. 2020. Urban Grids Handbook for Regular City Design. Harvard University Graduate School of Design – Oro Editions.
DU, J. 2020. The Shenzhen experiment: the story of China's instant city. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
FRAMPTON, K. 2001, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
FORTY, A. 2012, Concrete and Culture. A Material History, London, Reaktion Books Ltd.
KWAK, N. 2015. A World of Homeowners: American Power and the Politics of Housing Aid. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
HAGAN, S. 2001, Taking Shape: The New Contract between Architecture and Nature, Architectural Press, Oxford.
SOLÀ-MORALES, M. 2008, De Cosas Urbanas. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.