The Transitions House

Energy Efficiency is one of the five strategic themes of the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (PSIEE), which has supported a Sustainable Housing Initiative (SHI) that intends to leverage faculty and student expertise on residential building planning, design, and construction. The goal of this initiative is ambitious-to initiate a process that will radically transform the residential building sector, with partners that will scale-up innovation to a regional and eventually national or international scale. There is significant interest and expertise related to these ideals at the Pennsylvania State University notably within the Stuckeman School. As a short-term agenda for the collaborative team of the Sustainable Housing Initiative, two classes worked in coordination with Penn State's Office of Physical Plant (OPP) and Housing, Food Services and Residence Life to improve the environmental performance of buildings on campus, particularly the new residence halls. The intended outcome of this challenge can be achieved as outlined below by approaching it through two different methods-curriculum and research; two strengths of Penn State. As a curricular idea, a 'real' project was used to make suggestions from the sustainability standpoint to enhance a Request For Proposal (RFP) document for Trippe Hall, a proposed design-build residence hall project on the Behrend campus of Penn state. This project was chosen as a case study for projects assigned to Architecture and Architectural Engineering (AE) students in the fall semester of 2014. While the Architectural Engineering students in the ARCH 441 studio produced design proposals for Trippe Hall with a focus on environmental design using their expertise in building systems; the Architecture students in the ARCH 412 seminar class worked in a series of integrative design charrettes to develop presentations of sustainable strategies relevant to Trippe Hall. The two student groups worked in a collaborative manner – the ARCH 412 class acted as consultants on sustainable practices to help enrich the design projects of the ARCH 441 students. Both groups engaged with 'client' representatives from Penn State's Office of Physical Plant and Housing and Food Services on a regular basis. The information gathered and analysis developed during this curricular effort are informing a larger agenda of the Sustainable Housing Initiative – the process of leveraging the University's strong research base to distill the lessons learnt from this collaborative project and understand the potential implications for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.

American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Repository, 2017

Traditional, stud-based methods of residential construction are not sustainable, from either an environmental or economic perspective. The resources embedded within this form of construction are generally poorly allocated, the materials used often cheap and, at times, toxic, and the methods deployed, inefficient. The resulting homes are resource intensive – a problem amplified by the fact that the resulting structures must be made livable through the continual infusion of non-renewable resources and most will have a sharply limited useful lifetime. In order to investigate this concern further, several groups of students pursuing advanced degrees in architecture have, over the last two years, collaborated with experts in the fields of development, fabrication, design, construction and urban planning to, incrementally, revise the building delivery system used for affordable housing and making it more efficient, sustainable and affordable. Through this prolonged address, these students were able to bring together the efficiencies and supports of traditional construction with those offered by emerging materials and processes, including digital fabrication and parametric data analysis. The first home, HOUSE01, will be completed in the spring of 2017. Although not yet complete, early evidences are promising: the current bid for the construction cost of the kitchen and 1.5 baths for HOUSE01 is $10,000, roughly $17,000 less than the average cost of similarly scaled homes; the current schedule of production indicates a savings of over 21 days. Based upon the insight earned through this effort, faculty and students are currently working with community partners to design and build HOUSE02. The intent in so doing is to further refine the building delivery process, more rigorously incorporating all techniques used in HOUSE01 and providing a proof of concept for the approach – all while providing students the support needed to demonstrate attainment of the learning objectives associated with the courses involved. This paper will describe the pedagogical approach that results from this effort, documenting how students and faculty simultaneously satisfied the oft-conflicted demands posed by the long-term address required by the centralizing muse and the carefully regulated academic frame. It will outline how this precedent, in terms of both the structure of the learning environment and the insight generated through it, might indicate a direction by which we might not only reconsider the manner in which we teach, but the manner in which we educate engineers, architects and other creative professionals. Bearing this in mind, the writing is divided into three parts: part one outlines the growing financial and environmental cost of housing, which served as a centralizing muse for the course sequence; part two will describe the housing delivery process that supported these trends and served as the primary grounds for investigation within the courses; and part three will describe the approaches of learning and teaching that emerged from this investigation.

Journal of Architectural Education, 2013

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Practitioners, local leaders and agencies in Texas are working together with the undergraduate architecture students at Prairie View A&M University (Historic Black College and University) through a unique service learning program to explore and propose architectural design solutions for the looming push of climate gentrification in historically segregated neighborhoods. Several projects are on the boards to be built as small footprint, scalable, design-build demonstrations. The student designs showcase sustainable building strategies informed through the U.S. Department of Energy, Race to Zero student competition, building science and sustainable building courses, and research of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Fortified Home construction standards. The integrated design studio, Living Lab for Climate Justice, at the School of Architecture, Prairie View A&M University, is rooted in environmental justice and service learning, as a framework for weaving culture, climate...

In various course offerings and in the media, environmental design students are subjected to a wide range of newsworthy sustainability issues in their beginning year of college or university level education. Contrary to environmental design studio practices in the past, typically presenting new development or construction as a model for problem solving exercises, Architect Carl Elephante argued in 2007 that " We cannot build our way to sustainability; we must conserve our way to it. " (Elephante 2007). Teaching students to shape their design thinking with models that suggest the use of embodied energy, labor, materials, and existing sustainable practices found in nature were the intent of two studio-based projects. In the first instance, students were asked to translate a piece of instrumental music into a linear sequence of architectural space. Each student was assigned a dimensional 'framework' as a given, in which an individual project could 'dock' within. Such a constraint models the type of thinking attributable to topics in 'Open Building' and the constraints of reusing existing structures as introduced by N.J. Habraken. Projects were then stacked into several arrangements or 'colonies' reminiscent of the Taos Pueblo or Habitat 1967 by Moshe Safdie. Students cooperated in the design and construction of a colony either in a portion of the college facility or in a constructed landscape. In a subsequent semester, the topic of " bio-mimicry " was used a vehicle for investigation and inquiry. The online lectures of Janine Benyus inspired a two-stage project beginning with literature review of either a specific 'exotic' biome and its corresponding geography, or a specific organism that constructs or shapes their specific habitat for living, feeding, hunting, or breeding activities. Discussion of how these organisms responded to their specific climactic or natural systems generated conceptual ideas for a hypothetical human environment in a corresponding geographic location. Structures built by organisms in nature were argued as a model for lessons in sustainable design and construction. These two projects found in an interdisciplinary first year 'foundation' level curriculum for undergraduate tracks into landscape architecture, urban planning, and architecture were seen by participating faculty to have fruitful engagement and discussion surrounding issues of sustainability in a beginning level design studio course, and provide teaching faculty and leadership good discussion for shaping future curriculum and investigation into principles and systems of sustainable practices in environmental design.

Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación. Ensayos, 2020

The following paper aims to purvey some of the design history and theory that is being used by the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University in its effort to constitute the practice of Transition Design. It will explain how the profession and discipline of design is currently undergoing rapid expansion and transformation that afford a rich set of frameworks for transition design. This paper argues that not only can and should designers learn from transition studies, but that design can contribute reciprocally through new approaches to framing problems related to sociomaterial change within the context of complex ecosystems.

While all schools of architecture tend to work with Habitat for Humanity in some way, this project endeavors to involve the students in more than just physical labor. With the current economic crisis and the ever-present issue of providing housing for the “working poor” Habitat for Humanity is currently exploring the development of not just single family homes, but multi-family homes and even neighborhoods. This project has created the opportunity for students to be involved in neighborhood and housing design that will positively affect both the students and the greater community at large while allowing the students the opportunity to fully explore the architectural assemblies needed to build their designs. This 4th Year Design Studio has accomplished this through the integration of student designs for Habitat for Humanity while under the supervision of local architects, city planners, and engineers. The studio is divided into two parts to allow the students to design the neighborhood layout and infrastructure first, and then the housing for that neighborhood. The neighborhood design included street layouts, buildable area, water/sewer infrastructure, bioswale design and planting suggestions using site research, zoning and building codes. The students worked individually to create their initial neighborhood design proposals and then they worked in teams to detail and develop the designs chosen by Habitat for Humanity. They also had to create accurate budgets in order to help the client choose which final neighborhood design the studio would move forward with. Once the neighborhood design was selected the studio moved into housing prototype designs. The students had to research Habitat for Humanity guidelines, as well as complete a field trip to help build a Habitat for Humanity house. This allowed the students the opportunity to experience first-hand how simple the building design and detailing must be to allow unskilled labor to complete the projects. This information was taken into the individual student designs as they completed construction documents on the building details and systems integration. The students also met with the Habitat for Humanity Construction Supervisor for guidance on “volunteer friendly” construction materials and techniques. This allowed the students to fully understand what the limitations were before they ventured into designing new housing prototypes that challenged the Habitat for Humanity typology. Additionally, theory readings were utilized by the professor to encourage the connection of theory with the design of this project. Students were challenged to explore and understand the architecture of the everyday in order to push the design and detailing of the project beyond banal architecture despite the projects everyday usage and implications. Other theoretical readings included topics such as semiotics and construction. Specifically Kenneth Frampton’s Studies in Tectonic Culture was used to inspire the students as they developed their design through detail and construction. This studio was designed to initiate a course that will continue each year as part of the 4th Year Design Studio to provide the opportunity for future students to become engaged in construction detailing and systems integration design as well as face-to-face communication with local professionals in the design of their studio work. Additionally, the incorporation of service-based learning allows the students exposure to social issues, in addition to professional issues, that they will face as architects. These combined elements help both the students with their professional development, the practitioners by helping to educate and train young architects before they reach the profession, and the community by harnessing this energized and talented pool of designers.

Architectural Sciences and Sustainable Approaches: University Campuses, 2024

This study arises from an inquiry into developing students' awareness and knowledge of sustainable spatial planning within urban planning education. Specifically, it assesses students' perceptions of sustainability within the studio framework titled "Sustainable Campus" and evaluates the thematic and conceptual approaches they have applied in project studies throughout the semester. These projects, which have addressed environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals, are divided into various subsections. The study examines the highlighted elements from the projects of nine working groups, by analyzing their spatial solutions and suggestions in relation to their university campus. It also discusses these findings in the context of the broader applications of sustainability in urban planning and, more specifically, in campus design.

The Transition Design Symposium at Dartington Hall was a resounding success. A wonderfully diverse group of practitioners, academics and cultural creatives gathered at Dartington, from June 17th to 19th, to explore the role of design in the societal transition towards sustainability and beyond. Terry Irwin, herself a graduate of the MSc. in Holistic Science in 2003-04 and now the head of Carnegie Mellon's prestigious School of Design, and Gideon Kossoff, who administered the Holistic Science Masters during its first 10 years, clearly sounded a note that attracted cultural change agents from all over the world to come together in exploration of change within and through design. Over one hundred people gathered from as far away as Australia, Japan, India, Taiwan and Brazil to be part of what promises to turn into an impulse that will both transform design academia from within, and perhaps more importantly, help to inspire a new generation of design practitioners in service to the great transition humanity is called to make. In the face of the converging crises of climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, and unacceptable economic inequality and suffering-particularly in the global South-designers everywhere are called to assume a deeper responsibility for the impacts of their work. Designers are finally stepping up to the challenge that David Orr so aptly described in The Nature of Design. We are challenged to " redesign the human presence on Earth. " This task falls not just upon design professionals and academics, but asks all of us to become more aware of our co-creative agency and the way our actions and inactions contribute to bringing forth a word in conversation and by design. Ecological design pioneers John Todd and Nancy Jack-Todd have told us for decades that " we are all designers " , called upon to co-create " elegant solutions carefully adapted to the uniqueness of place ". With the outstanding leadership of Terry Irwin at the internationally recognized Carnegie Mellon School of Design taking these messages to the heart of the design profession, necessary changes within design academia will be greatly accelerated. Finally, designers are beginning to be educated to become active catalysts of transition. The transformative agency of design is beginning to transform design institutions, design as a discipline, and the way design impacts society at large. ...