Education

Introduction to the art of building: environmental and societal challenges, functional and technical requirements of buildings, static behavior of structures, construction materials and their geometric implementation, historico-cultural contextualization of the construction practice, sustainability strategies and circular economy.

Theoretical and case-based developments on the practice of building construction. Analysis and synthesis of the fields of building physics, structural design, building materials and technical installations.

ENAC week workshops bring together bachelor students in architecture, civil engineering and environmental engineering. Constructive Second Hand considers circular economy as an opportunity to better design while reclaiming wasted elements. For a whole week, students are invited to the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg, CH. Each group has one goal: to build a piece of furniture while reusing discarded elements from local industries. The week gives full autonomy to the student groups and is comprises three steps: material collection, design & construction, and demonstration. A jury eventually discusses how embedded functional and technical qualities are reclaimed, as well as the potential for large-scale repeatability.

Circular economy consists in maintaining and/or improving the value of products as long as possible, i.e. by extending or renewing their service live while minimizing resource depletion, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions. When it comes to building design, a series of sometimes contradicting strategies emerges: to limit the quantity of used materials, to limit their ecological impact, to enhance the versatility of buildings, and to ensure the future repair, reuse, or recycling of their components. The class delves into recent literature and practice, aiming at providing the necessary expertise to adopt these strategies in a pragmatic state of mind.

The class exposes students to the geometric design of unconventional low-carbon architectural structures. The focus is placed on the conceptual exploration of a rich and diverse solution set rather than on the analytical sizing of a given system. Hand-controlled methods and computational tools are mixed, as well as strategies to rapidly take key decisions. The open-ended problem assignment gravitates around the use of graphic statics within Grasshopper (Rhino3D). Additional lectures review exemplary early-stage structural design processes through history.

This course evolves around the team design of a temporary, mobile and sustainable pavilion, a pedagogical approach which will focus on the introduction of the concepts of sustainability applied to the multi-disciplinary design of a project with a short life span.