ARC 5935 Sustainable Urbanism | Spring 2015, 2016

A. Gray Read

Creating vital, livable cities is one of our most effective responses to climate change. Urban life is inherently energy efficient and urban culture is rich and resilient. This course considers the role of architecture in inventing the new life of the city. We will develop ecological thinking in design and discuss strategies drawn from several fields: Urban Design, Landscape Urbanism, and Urban Ecology. Taking Miami as a case study, we will analyze urban structure and consider how to improve the quality of urban life.

Spring 2015 Projects: http://faculty.fiu.edu/~readg/IdeasforMiami/IdeasIndex.htm

ARC 5935 Resilient Urbanism | Fall 2016

Shahin Vassigh, Henry Rueda

This course examines the concepts of urban resiliency for disasters from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course is comprised of five modules taught by faculty from Communication Arts, Landscape Architecture and Architecture. Through these modules, the course examines a wide range of complex interdependent issues in urban resiliency and disaster management. The course supports the four United Nations Sendai Framework elements for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, including, Priority 1: understanding disaster risk, conducting sound assessments; Priority: 2 Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; Priority 3: fostering disaster risk reduction and community resilience; and Priority 4: reducing livelihood risk for sustainable development.

ARC 5933 Disaster Management: Climate Change Challenges | Spring 2016

Ebru Ozer, Daniel Blaeuer, Nurhayat Bilge, Shahin Vassigh, Marilys Nepomechie

To build competency in ecological design and construction, this course focuses on building science and technology concepts to examine how their application can contribute to sustainability of the built environment. The course includes an investigation of building envelope systems, climate control systems, structure and foundations. Stainable design and construction present an opportunity to draw knowledge from a range of perspectives from diverse disciplines. In this course students collaborate with their peers in Mechanical and Construction Engineering. Through three collaborative team projects, students get a chance to share information, discuss, and analyze the performance of the examined buildings and provide alternatives for improving their performance.

BSC 5926 |ARC 5362 | BCN 5906 | EVR 5935 | PHC 6920

Sea Level Solution Center Studio | Spring 2016

Tiffany Troxler, Claudio Salazar, Ali Mostavidarani, Ryan Stoa, Pallab Mozumder, Shimelis Setegn, Marilys Nepomechie

The Sea Level Solutions Center convenes its inaugural Interdisciplinary studio, offered in conjunction with Graduate Architecture Design 9. The course begins with a scoping charrette, structured to engage stakeholders to tailor the vision and aspirations of the studio products. The goal of this studio + seminar offering is to design and analyze and calculate short- and long-term adaptation and mitigation potential for the natural-built environment on a specific site with climate change vulnerabilities. Offered in conjunction with a graduate design studio, the seminar culminates in the delivery of several products that enable decision-support for one or more “optimized solutions”, with information, data and analyses created in support of each proposed solution.

LAA 6521 Tropical Landscapes

Juan Antonio Bueno

This course on tropical landscapes includes materials on the topic of climate change, including: indicators of climate change, US and global greenhouse gas emissions, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, climate forcing, US and global temperature, high and low temperatures, US and global precipitation, heavy precipitation, drought, tropical cyclone intensity, ocean heat, sea surface temperature, sea level, ocean acidity, arctic sea ice, glaciers, lake ice, snow fall, snow cover, snowpack, heating and cooling degree days, heat-related deaths, length of growing season, plant hardiness zones, leaf and bloom dates, wildfires, streamflow, bird wintering ranges, energy sources.

LAA 5422 Landscape Development

Ebru Ozer

This course familiarizes students with topography and landform manipulation techniques that are integral to effective and sustainable management of stormwater runoff and flooding. It introduces the use of contours and spot elevations to create landforms; slope calculations and allowable slope standards to manipulate land surface; interpretation of landform signatures to understand topographical drawings; stormwater drainage structures and systems to generate positive drainage; and the use of retention and detention structures to increase infiltration. Students also learn how to alleviate loads on urban gray infrastructure systems through the use of absorption, reduction, and retention of stormwater discharge by utilizing green infrastructure principles.

Spring 2015 Projects