Daylighting Design
Posted on June 19th, 2020 by Mary Lord
High school students explore the many ways that engineers provide natural lighting to interior spaces by analyzing various methods of daylighting and then constructing model houses from foam core board based on their observations and calculations of the optimal use of available “sunlight.”
Hart Building atrium photo by the Architect of the Capitol
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Daylighting Design
Tags: architectural engineering, Architecture, Class Activities, daylighting, energy conservation, Engineering Design Process, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, lighting engineering, Solar Energy, solstice, windows
Structural engineer Emma Cardini has inspected some pretty impressive facades, including the Chicago Tribune Tower’s ornate spires and the Bridge of the Americas in Panama. Still, nothing compares with the capital bird’s eye view she literally enjoys on her latest job: rappelling down the marble sides of the Washington Monument to assess the damage from late August’s 5.8-magnitude earthquake.
Have you ever thought about those bare, exterior walls of your home or school? If so, you would be current with one of the hottest trends in civil and environmental engineering: Redesigning buildings to take full advantage of solar energy, like this “edible green screen” created by students at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments.
The Austin Barkitecture competition calls on local builders to design trendy doghouses, which are then bid on in an auction. Proceeds go to local charitable groups and community members for veterinary care, spay/neuter surgeries, and community outreach.
In this activity, student teams in grades 9 to 12 design and build a one-bedroom model house within design constraints that uses passive solar heating techniques to heat the house and sustain that temperature as long as possible.
What does it take to build a solar village, where homes not only are designed to create more energy than they use but are comfortable and cool to look at, too? For some 19 collegiate teams from the U.S. and aborad installing their entries to the 2011 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, the answer is: lots of hands-on work involving hammers, wrenches, plumbing, and construction cranes.
The ACE Mentor Program, which introduces high school students to careers in architecture, construction and engineering, doesn’t think small. At one school, it asks students to design an imaginary museum dedicated to peace. At another, they’ll design a whole high school. 
In Scaling Britain, a new BBC TV program on English engineering and architecture, Jonathan Foyle clambers up iconic buildings to explore such intriguing topics as the physics of flying buttresses, and the materials science of stained glass.
Students in grades 5-12 try to build the tallest structure they can using only two sheets of newspaper. As they do so, they learn about building design.
