Ute Poerschke

Environmentally conscious design – educating future architects

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how US architectural programs are addressing environmental imperatives through curricular‐based initiatives. It offers a brief overview of how environmentally conscious design education has evolved and compares curricular approaches to social, aesthetic, and technical sustainability education from six architecture programs considered to be national leaders in sustainability education.Design/methodology/approach – Views from leading architectural programs on sustainable education were compiled and assessed leading to a curricular study of course and degree offerings.Findings – It was found that four consistent approaches to undergraduate sustainable design education are being promoted: core value: all course content addresses sustainable design; systems‐focused: support courses fulfill needs for sustainable education; choice: sustainable education is through student selection of courses offerings; and specialization: sustainable education is a specialty endeavor mainly ...

INVOLVE: Developing Interactive Workspaces That Impact Communication and Task Performance When Using Virtual Prototypes

AbstractIndustry shifts to the use of digital tools have created a need for new means and methods for approaching team interaction and planning for collaborative tasks, in particular, the shift from typical and understood interactions based on paper media to dynamic multimedia when using virtual prototypes in alignment with advanced visualization, analysis, and simulation tools. The INVOLVE framework was developed to respond to the need for planning for collaborative tasks focused on the architecture, engineering, and construction industry when using virtual prototypes. This study presents the elements of the INVOLVE framework, then demonstrates the validation in team interaction when different media configurations are used for two different collaborative tasks, a schematic site plan development, and a four-dimensional schedule review. The team interactions were implemented through a series of quasi-experiments within a collaborative interactive workspace. Observational methods were used to quantify the t...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the Impact on Design Quality

The integrated studios in which architecture students are paired with engineering and construction manager nstudents works on the assumption that the common denominator-BIM-is a tool of equal meaning and value to all. This is not the case: each discipline has its own values, procedures, and protocols that bend BIM to its own needs. When these differences are not recognized, design, which has traditionally been the province of architecture, gets short shrift. The BIM process offers the opportunity for cross-disciplinary contamination without sacrificing design emphasis. How to blend engineering student input with architecture student design input so each group learns equally from the other and high quality design outcomes are empowered rather than diminished will be discussed.