Student teams assign importance factors, called "desirability points," the rock properties found in the previous lesson/activity in order to mathematically determine the overall best rocks for building caverns within. They learn the real-world connections and relationships between the rock and the important engineering properties for designing and building caverns (or tunnels, mines, building foundations, etc.).

Short Description:
Redesigning Lives: Learning How Space Impacts Residents in Affordable Supportive Housing Initiatives is a research project funded through a SSHRC Explore Grant. This research was a collaborative venture between the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology and the Faculty of Applied Health and Community Studies at Sheridan College. The goal of this research was to look at the impact that design can make to mental health and wellbeing and community-building through the lens of affordable and supportive housing. Bringing together the strengths of the two disciplines, this research looked at physical design and how it intersects with social determinants of health (SDOH).

Long Description:
Within the literature on Social Determinants of Health, there is a consensus that stable housing plays an important role in good mental health. However, there have been very few substantive studies on the impacts of design in that process (Hernadez & Suglia, 2016). From of architectural and design perspectives, there has been a long-standing interest in creating thoughtfully-designed affordable living spaces that address both the individual and community. Many such large-scale attempts have failed, for a number of reasons including their neglect of local scale, their inherent maintenance challenges, and most significantly, the stigmatization of both people and places that they create (Dunn, 2012). In addition to this, these 1960s ideological panaceas have more recently caused large-scale displacement of individuals and discontinuity of community through their drastic revitalization and reconfiguration into mixed-income neighbourhoods. One such example is Regent Park in Toronto which has seen a complete demolition and redesign into socially-mixed housing over the past several years. While the reintroduction of services such as grocery stores and shops, and infrastructure such as community centres and schools bring with them many positives, the path to get there is fraught with discontinuity for many. Of further detriment to stable housing conditions, it is significant to note that when attempts are not made to socially mixed redevelopments, low-income residents are fully displaced, along with their previous residences, to make way for high-priced condos which provide high-yield results for developers (Chong, 2018).

This investigation looks at developments that are local, community-based adaptive reuse projects that addresses issues of social and affordable housing for approximately 600 residents on a manageable scale. Based in Hamilton, Ontario, they are led by a community partner who “creates affordable housing communities that support people seeking health, wellness and belonging,” (Indwell, 2020) and is mindful of the social determinants of health. This partner is, as well, mindful of the impact that buildings and their construction have on the environment.

Indwell is an independent Hamilton-based Christian charity that has evolved from renting and purchasing buildings for their tenants, to designing and constructing their own since 1970. For the last ten years, Indwell has become a trailblazer in creating affordable supportive housing that reflects the community in which it is situated. In partnership with Hamilton’s Invizij Architects, their housing developments in the Hamilton-Wentworth Region, are also formidable for their emphasis on sustainable building science and construction technology. It is this intersection between sustainability and community-minded health and wellness that makes them unique within the framework of supportive housing. Locations that had been abandoned to all but the desperate are infused with new life using principles of design that incorporate both cutting edge environmental design principles (i.e. Passive House[1] principles) and an intent towards community-building. Indwell has repurposed these discarded buildings and returned them to the community, transforming both the landscape and community morale. These developments are built to provide either affordable, or affordable and supportive housing options depending on the needs of their occupants. They have been purposeful in thinking about the design of their buildings, partnering with Invizij Architects who have a commitment to leading environmental design (Cubitt & Cubitt, 2018) and have worked with Indwell to create community space both inside and outside the restored properties. The team has been steadfast in their thinking when it comes to the needs of residents who struggle with addictions, mental health or other poverty-related issues. With their collective effort to refine and create durable spaces that address the dignity of the individual and the making of community, they are essentially redefining the housing typology for this demographic, keeping at the forefront the tenet that adequate housing contributes directly to mental health and wellbeing, thus creating the potential for transformed lives and communities (CMHA, n.d.).

Globally, there are very few housing projects or development models that are similar to what Indwell and Invzij Architects delivers. No one has examined or reviewed the short-term and longer term impacts that this kind of project can have on communities and residents, especially with regard to the synergies created between socially responsible design and environmentally-committed building science. With this in mind, the purpose of this short-term study is to identify and interview the key players in order to better understand their method of development and project execution. It is clear that the team works with intention and outlining their specific objectives enables us to lay the groundwork for a more in-depth study on the correlation between sustainable design approaches and better health outcomes that are not only physical, but also related to social determinants of health.

[1] Passive House (German: Passivhaus) is a rigorous, voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building’s ecological footprint. These super-insulated buildings consume up to 90 percent less heating and cooling energy than conventional buildings, even in northern climates. The name Passive House can lead designers to think that it is only applicable to homes, yet it is applicable to most designs, whether commercial, institutional, or otherwise. See www.passivehousecanada.com/about-passive-house/ for more information.

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Context, purpose and audience. There are two broad types of assumptions that designers must identify and address: the first type are assumptions they, as designers, have as they begin a project; the second type are assumptions that are ambient in the project context–assumptions that many of the project stakeholders either hold or frequently experience. In both cases, naming the assumption and developing an articulation for how that assumption can be reconsidered can help direct a project toward greater impact.

This lesson is designed to help participants reframe these two types of assumptions. It can be used with design students from high school to continuing (adult) education. It is best delivered towards the end of the initial phase of design research (“Empathize” phase, to use the parlance of Stanford), after students have conducted interviews and other forms of research.

The lesson offers five reframe patterns. These are meant to help students identify particularly powerful articulations of reframed assumptions by providing five different jumping-off points for ideation. The patterns are best introduced and used lightly: as provocations rather than as a formula to rigidly follow.

We illustrate these reframe patterns using examples from disability studies. Thus, this lesson also serves as a “trojan horse” to infuse core design justice concepts.

This course introduces the history of Islamic cultures through their most vibrant material signs: the religious architecture that spans fourteen centuries and three continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe. The course presents Islamic architecture both as a historical tradition and as a cultural catalyst that influenced and was influenced by the civilizations with which it came in contact.

Presentación del video "Todo es un remix" como actividad inicial para trabajar el concepto de remix.

In this seminar, students will design and perfect a digital environment to house the activities of large-scale organizations of people making bottom-up decisions, such as with citizen-government affairs, voting corporate shareholders or voting members of global non-profits and labor unions. A working Open Source prototype created last semester will be used as the starting point, featuring collaborative filtering and electronic agent technology pioneered at the Media Lab. This course focuses on development of online spaces as part of an interdependent human environment, including physical architectures, mapped work processes and social/political dimensions.
A cross-disciplinary approach will be taken; students with background in architecture, urban planning, law, cognition, business, digital media and computer science are encouraged to participate. No prior technical knowledge is necessary, though a rudimentary understanding of web page creation is helpful.

You’ll learn about today’s urban challenges focusing on developing countries, referred to as the global south. We will debate the benefits of three pathways, going beyond traditional urban strategies and policies:

1. Spatial justice

Spatial justice is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of urban contexts in emerging economies.

2. Housing Provision and Management

Increasing demand in the global south calls for alternative approaches in housing provision and management.

3. Urban Resilience

Understanding resilience not as a mere struggle for survival, but as an opportunity to build better urban environments.

We will discuss question such as:

Is the just city framework applicable in cities with extreme socio-economic inequality?
Can community-led housing initiatives provide effective solutions for households in need?
How can resilience support development instead of perpetuating a disadvantaged condition?

After conducting an assessment that showed their building’s vulnerability to wind damage, the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami looked for a way to improve safety for patients and staff.

Revitalizing Urban Main Streets focuses on the physical and economic renewal of urban neighborhood Main Streets by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers three broad areas:

an overview of the causes for urban business district decline, the challenges faced in revitalization and the type of revitalization strategies employed;
the physical and economic development planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets from physical design and economic development perspectives; and
the policies, interventions, and investments used to foster urban commercial revitalization.

The course has dual goals: to explore the integration of economic and physical development interventions in ways that reinforce commercial district revitalization efforts, and to apply this knowledge through the development of a formal neighborhood commercial revitalization plan for a client business district.

This course focuses on the physical and economic renewal of urban neighborhood Main Streets by combining classroom work with an applied class project. The course content covers four broad areas:

An overview of the causes for urban business district decline, the challenges faced in revitalization and the type of revitalization strategies employed;
The physical and economic development planning tools used to understand and assess urban Main Streets from physical design and economic development perspectives;
The policies, interventions, and investments used to foster urban commercial revitalization; and
The formulation of a revitalization plan for an urban commercial district.

This is the start of a lecture series about Rhinoceros modeling techniques (german).

Students explore whether rooftop gardens are a viable option for combating the urban heat island effect. Can rooftop gardens reduce the temperature inside and outside houses? Teams each design and construct two model buildings using foam core board, one with a "green roof" and the other with a black tar paper roof. They measure and graph the ambient and inside building temperatures while under heat lamps and fans. Then students analyze the data and determine whether the rooftop gardens are beneficial to the inhabitants.

Looking for a fun and engaging way for your students to work on collaboration and using the engineering design process? STEM Challenge: Marshmallow Tower is for you! Simple and cheap materials and little prep required.