LA 3170 - Design and Environmental Systems

(CU-SBY)

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Co-meets with LA 5170.

J. Cerra.

Every project, as an exercise in space-making, is influenced by the physical and biological properties that make up the project site. Physical and biological properties often structure site conditions, and frame many of the opportunities and constraints to site design. The physical and biological properties of a site are also influenced by their ongoing relationship with broader, large-scale physical and biological systems that operate in a site’s context. The physical and biological properties of sites, the contextual environmental systems that influence them, and the opportunities and constraints these factors afford site-based projects are what we will investigate in this course. We will then apply this knowledge to sites in the field through a series of quantitative and qualitative exercises.

Outcome 1: Students will develop an understanding of the physical and biological properties that define site conditions.

Outcome 2: Students will develop an understanding of context as a composition of networked environmental relationships within which all sites operate.

Outcome 3: Students will explore scale as a means for determining the relationship between the physical and biological properties of a site and the physical and biological systems that compose its context.

Outcome 4: Students will learn to analyze sites by taking quantitative and qualitative site data, drawing evaluative conclusions, and communicating findings graphically, verbally, and in writing.

Outcome 5: Students will learn to work effectively in teams and on their own to achieve desired results.