Certain aspects of the concept of modularity, introduced primarily in the field of computer science by David L. Parnas (1972), have formed the basis for modularity in education: cohesion, decoupling, ease of modification, replicability are characteristics of the computer module that also apply well to the educational context. It is with this pedagogical attitude related to the modular didactic system that Experiential Design Schemas was born, a work methodologically related to integral theory by Ken Wilber (2007) and applied to architecture through an important section of design schemes. Also organised with a practice intention, the aim is to provide analytical and design tools that outline the capacity of formal and compositional choices to shape environmental forces for the purpose of experiential and emotional effects. Article info Received: 24/10/2023; Revised: 31/10/2023; Accepted: 04/11/2023

This research explores a design approach for biophilic experiences applied to children's learning environments in cold climates. The primary research gaps addressed are the confusion among principles, experiences and architectural characteristics in biophilic design literature; the lack of common terminology for referencing spatial patterns that induce biophilic responses; and limited design methods and generative approaches for designers due to the focus on empirical validation and broad theoretical generalisations. A visual biophilic design vocabulary, including spatial enclosure and adjacencies, is developed for experiences of abiotic and biotic nature. A framework is proposed for biophilic design schemas. In the context of renovating primary schools in Quebec, Canada, 38 schemas for cold climates are developed within this framework. Using these tools in an architectural design studio course showed that this common graphic language integrates experiences of nature in design processes, enabling researchers and architects to describe biophilic spaces with shared terms and logic.

This paper reports a project with the purpose to develop design guidance on urban wind fields for the Chinese city. The project assesses “super-block” developments in Wuhan China at first, then redesigns a super-block using Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) guidelines and draws wind performance comparisons. The project addresses wind Patterns for three major criteria: pedestrian comfort, air quality, and building ventilation potential. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software was used to model velocity, PMV comfort, pressure and air age patterns for summer and winter conditions. Super-blocks with isolated towers have poor urban quality on many measures, while residents drive more and use much more energy than in traditional housing. TOD guidelines solve these problems but no discussion of urban wind patterns, air pollution, pedestrian comfort, or building ventilation which have been found important during the period of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan China. Our target was to generate TOD urban form that equaled or exceeded super-block wind performance. Results were inconclusive for pedestrian comfort and other indices and modeling are needed. Other parameters depend significantly on orientation and wind direction. Therefore, sometimes TOD was better than towers and sometimes not. The general method of the project is in six parts: 1) Assess five existing super-block designs for wind performance and characterize three performance metrics; 2) Draw conclusions about performance. Select one site for redesign; 3) Using TOD guidelines, design a new neighborhood at the same density on the selected site; 4) Evaluate wind performance of the new design; 5) Select wind design strategies to improve performance and redesign the TOD neighborhood; 6) Compare wind performance of TOD neighborhood and super-block. The study indicates the value of wind field analysis for improving urban designs for multi-building sites or for development rules. We were generally able to make performance improvements for development schemes, even during the special period.

This paper aims to better understand the human inhabitation of buildings through an investigation of the influences of architectural order, indoor environmental as well as personal and cultural variables on student’s selection of a preferred place to study. The approach for this interdisciplinary inquiry is based on Integral Sustainable Design in combination with a simplified version of Integral Methodological Pluralism using methodologies from the disciplines of architectural design, architectural science and psychology. The results indicate that participant’s preferences emerged out of either personal or collective cultural narratives. The integral approach was useful to identify collective preference patterns as well as deviations from these and to understand why they occur. Important influences on participant’s selection of their preferred place to study were spatial characteristics, in particular a balance of prospect and refuge as well as individual past experiences, and the nature of the given task in this case study.

It is common practice to use hourly dynamic thermal modelling for building design, yet climate responsive urban design, is often based on predominant wind directions analysed for particular 'typical' days or times. Such a snapshot view does not reflect how often these conditions occur and whether design changes based on single instances are warranted. This paper explores the efficacy of using an annual dynamic approach, by extending and comparing results from a previous study of district massing on local microclimate. These dynamic annual analyses were undertaken using a new cloud-based microclimate analysis tool that employs open source software for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and post-processing of results. This tool allows for complex hourly analyses of solar radiation, wind and comfort distribution to be conducted within a commonly used 3-D modelling software environment. Following the previous study, this paper compares the resulting urban form across three major issues: pedestrian comfort, air quality and building cross-ventilation potential. Pedestrian comfort assessment includes thermal comfort, using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) and wind comfort, using the Dutch standard NEN 8100. Air quality is approximated by air age distribution. Building ventilation potential is assessed by mapping pressure differentials at points on opposing building faces.

In this paper, land use and density implications of daylighting are explored by reasoning from the massing characteristics of daylit buildings and by applying the results from a study of street width to building height ratios. This study explored the idea that, if generalizations could be made about the form of atria buildings, then blocks and streets could be laid out to support daylighting as a design strategy. The most efficient (highest density) atria buildings that can be built on an unobstructed site are determined, then intersected with actual patterns of streets and blocks from Pacific Northwest cities. Analysis of these suggests a set of generic building/block patterns for grid cities. The relationships between daylight factor inside a room and the ratio of street wall height to street width were used to determine allowable prescriptive daylight access envelopes. The building bulk allowed by these daylight access envelopes was then calculated.

This article attempts to answer the question, “What would the form of the city be like if we were to take seriously the provision of daylight to all buildings?” Previous work by this author reviewed existing daylight planning tools and found that they do not assure a predictable level of daylight. Previous work also identified an empirical relationship between daylight levels inside buildings and the street canyon ratios 1 — the DAYLIGHT ACCESS RULE — as an objective basis for establishing development guidelines. This study identifies the important parameters available to designers and regulators that are necessary for urban daylighting. The results of the new DAYLIGHT ACCESS RULE , along with ATRIUM BUILDING type studies, are used to establish urban patterns of ATRIUM BLOCKS and DAYLIGHT ENVELOPES that support daylighting as an urban design strategy . Beyond defining the patterns of building massing, such that one building will not unduly block the access of another building to light from the sky, urban form can be generated from a consideration of daylit building forms used as increments for determining block sizes. An example application to downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, is explored to evaluate existing development patterns and to propose alternatives to better support daylighting .

This paper briefly introduces the fundamentals of an Integral Theory of Sustainable Design, drawing on the writings of American philosopher, Ken Wilber, including concepts of multiple perspectives (quadrants) and multiple levels of development complexity. It explores the implications for an integral approach to sustainable design. Integral Theory's multiple perspectives include basic perspectival distinctions of behaviors, systems, cultures, and experiences. For sustainable design, this approach includes subjective and objective value spheres in developing effective solutions to environmental problems. Each of these perspectives can be understood as unfolding in stages or waves of complexity, yielding a matrix of viewpoints and concerns. Daylighting is explored in greater detail, proposing an integral daylighting framework of four perspectives and three levels of complexity: the 12 Niches of Architectural Daylighting. The Bigelow Chapel at the United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota is used as a case study for understanding architectural daylighting via the integral lens. 1. AN INCLUSIVE SUSTAINABILITY Given the exponential rate of ecological trends, we ask the question, How might we, as designers, look beyond the current limits of our approach to environmental technology and ecological design to establish more integral approaches to sustainability issues, taking the next step in our collective evolution?

New thinking and new settlement patterns can bring about urban sustainability. The American city, if one can still call such a sprawling, gray metropolis a city, is an ecological disaster. The way cities use land and resources profoundly alters the quality of the local and global environment. Uncontrolled growth devours land, water, and energy from the surrounding landscape. Contemporary settlement patterns create auto dependence, high energy demands for buildings, water pollution from excessive toxic runoff, air pollution, and such other adverse environmental effects as increased health risks caused by coal mining, nuclear waste, and fuel burning. For their exorbitant ecological price, these urban patterns do not even buy a high quality of life. Early 21st century Americans are separated from the aesthetic and ecological experience of nature while spending hours every day commuting and several more hours working to pay for their cars. Neighbors are not friends, community is not tied to place, and millions, too poor to own cars, are disenfranchised. The city is noisy, congested, frustrating, and unhealthy. Our society has created this habitat for ourselves. In addition to the global macro-ecological problems caused by or contributed to by cities, current settlement patterns create a host of local ecological problems. Wildlife habitat in cities is scarce; native species are replaced with consumptive exotics; streams are channelized, piped and buried; wetlands are filled and aquifers depleted. Urban heat islands drive up energy use for cooling and trap air pollutants in the city. Downstream areas are flooded and polluted by quick runoff from acres of paved surfaces. Each of these local problems reduces the ability of local ecosystems to accomplish their ecological functions. Local ecological systems are rapidly losing their ability to produce clean water, air, and food, and to maintain a rich variety of inhabitants- in short, they are losing the ability to sustain life. Each of these environmental problems is related in some way to the design of cities, to our settlement pattern, to our urban spatial structure. Changes in land-use patterns take decades, so if our cities are to be ready for mid-21st-century energy and resource scarcities, increasing population, and potential extinctions, structural changes must be initiated almost immediately. Human habitat must be restructured so that we live within the limits imposed by our life-sustaining ecosystems and follow the organizing principles by which all life flourishes. Green City Consciousness To correct the ecological damage caused by today's gray city, we first have to shift our perceptions. It is impossible to get us out of the urban ecological crisis with the same kind of thinking that created it. We have to learn to think ecologically. We also have to learn to integrate multiple new, and sometimes seemingly paradoxical, ways of thinking and perceiving. A sustainable city can be built on three interrelated mental models, each depending on a different set of values for what counts as success. * The city as a living system. This way of thinking asks, What form would the city take if we understood it as a manifestation of natural process? The central insight of the living city concept is that cities and landscapes are living systems. A city is a human ecosystem set in a landscape. Because living systems have been organized through 4 billion years of evolution, they constitute a design model for what sustains life on our planet. In particular, local ecosystems tell us what works well in our particular part of the planet. So, we can look at living systems to learn how to design buildings, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. To an ecologist, the order of an ecosystem is made up of two interrelated and inseparable patterns: structure and function. The structural pattern of a living system is the form, composition, distribution, and configuration of its parts--rocks, soil, plants, animals. …

This paper describes a simple graphic method, derived from ASHRAE techniques but easier, which allows architects to size solar Domestic Hot Water (DHW) systems in preliminary design before any details are known about the building. A simple table of hot water loads on a per unit area basis by occupancy type allows loads to be sized in a rough and approximate, but quick way. The second part of the paper gives a quick method, again based on ASHRAE methods, but quicker, for spacing rows of photovoltaics or solar heat collectors on flat or sawtooth roofs such that one collector does not shade another.

This paper explores the implications of community gardening for land use and density, especially in medium to high density urban contexts. A review of literature addressing urban agriculture with respect to urban design revealed no quantitative or design vocabulary analysis of community gardening. To date, community gardening has been treated as an infill strategy and is rarely considered early in the urban design process. The paper develops preliminary design tools for determining site coverage, sizing, and protecting solar access. It also identifies a set of simple community garden types for grid cities, develops block size parameters, and suggests development patterns for protecting solar access to open space.