Studio 25

Environmental Building Studio

Adrian Chu and Nayan Puri

This studio is available to students enrolled in ABPL90142 Studio C, ABPL90143 Studio D, and ABPL90115 Studio E.

Studio Description

Sustainable Design seems to be a term people use without understanding it. This studio will help students navigate through the world of ‘sustainability’ and help them develop their own vision of ‘Sustainable Design’. The project will be a new Centre for Sustainability affiliated with the Office of the Environmental Program, located on the Parkville campus. The Centre will act as a ‘third teacher’ and be an integral part in the teaching of ‘Sustainability’. Students will be asked to design spaces for teaching, research, collaboration and experimentation, that showcase their own interpretation of what a sustainable space should be. Students will be encouraged to question the paradigm of sustainability by exploring the mechanistic, systems focused approach as well as the social and participatory approach. Currently, sustainable interventions often seem to be an after-thought rather than be integrated early in the design process. The studio will require students to explore energy, waste, water, health, well being, resources, as core components of the design process. This studio will be partnered with OEP staff and students and include activities such as environmental analysis, design workshops with OEP staff and students, site visits to ‘sustainable sites’ and ESD consultant drop in sessions.

Studio Outcome

At the completion of the studio, students will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to think critically about environmentally sustainable design and apply these principles directly into architectural design. The studio will also cover a broad range of architecture practice competencies that are directly relevant with skills required of architectural graduates as they go into the workforce.

Studio Leaders

As a registered architect with her own practice Nayan has had extensive experience in all stages of architecture from concept development to project delivery. She can offer students both architectural design and practical experience. Nayan has been tutoring at the university of Melbourne for 3 years and has taught in a range of subjects such as design communication, construction and sustainable buildings. She has had ongoing positive experience with students and will bring her teaching experience to the studio. Nayan has worked as an ESD Consultant and has had hands on natural building experience. She can offer students a large range of ESD knowledge on bamboo construction, natural building, ‘living buildings’, sustainable timbers, passive heating and cooling design, ESD building regulations.

Adrian is currently part of the team at the Built Environments Learning and Teaching at the Melbourne School of Design and his area expertise revolves around the development and the innovative use of multimedia in teaching. He has also been the senior tutor for Environmental Building Systems for the last 5 years and has over the years successfully developed innovative teaching techniques and methods that have proven very effective in the teaching of technical and complex concepts related to ESD. He has also produced innovative teaching content in the form of engaging videos, animations and interactive tools that cover a wide range of topics. His current area of research focus on heat stress and building performance, and he is hoping to integrate his teaching experience into research on ESD education. As an ESD consultant, Adrian has extensive experience in building energy modelling and simulations. He has worked on numerous residential, commercial and institutional projects, recommending ESD initiatives directly to clients.

Schedule Mondays 17:15-20:15 and Thursdays 15:15-18:15 in MSD Room 449

Travel Ceres Environmental Park (Brunswick) and Monash University (Clayton) | Week 1 and Week 2

Contact Handbook Key Dates