Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): David Fannon & Michelle Laboy
To rapidly reduce climate impacts from the built environment, architects must develop both expert knowledge to measure impacts, and the wisdom to interpret results and integrate them into design. This paper describes the application of quantitative life cycle assessment in a studio to advance design synthesis and integration by cultivating intuition about the embodied impacts of structural systems. Students in an integrative studio modeled life cycle impacts of their projects, focusing first on the carbon embodied in the structure and then integrating other systems as the designs developed. Meaningful analysis depends on comparison, and professional judgement develops from repeatedly connecting new knowledge generated through skilled application with prior knowledge. Students compared their results to a collaboratively-developed baseline building with typical construction, and across the diverse projects of the studio. An industry benchmark of 500 kg CO2e/m2 contextualized studio projects relative to empirical data and challenged students to manage the carbon intensity of their evolving designs. However, neither declarative knowledge about embodied carbon nor the procedural skill of using simulation tools are learning objectives of the integrative studio: the abstraction of quantitative analysis serves only to enable a rich qualitative discourse about design synthesis and integration. Case studies in this paper describe the range of outcomes for students engaged in this reflexive practice and the opportunities and challenges for faculty and students to discern wisdom embodied in benchmarks and to cultivate intuition about designers’ agency and material impacts.
https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.110.41
Volume Editors
Robert Gonzalez, Milton Curry & Monica Ponce de Leon
ISBN
978-1-944214-40-1
