Environmental performance and technological innovation

The aim of this course is to prepare students for the environmental assessment of their projects at both architectural and urban scales. The course is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the presentation of the meaning of environmental assessment and technological innovation based on scientific literature. In this first part, the phenomenon of climate change is explained in depth, and sustainable development is also addressed in terms of the methods and tools needed to reduce the impact of architecture and urban planning on the environment. To this end, the second part of the course focuses on the different registers of analysis:

  1. How to design a building with high energy efficiency?
  2. What is the urban heat island and how can its impact be reduced using the NBS approach?
  3. And how to assess the quality of the air and water in the buildings ;
  4. And finally, how to approach a holistic environmental assessment based on life cycle assessment.

The course is conducted with a series of tutorials to help students handle several environmental assessment tools and methods.