Buildings for People
Join a CAT student teaching week and delve into the complex relationship between finding buildings comfortable, energy flows in buildings and energy-efficient building design.
Through a series of lectures, discussions, and practical activities you will learn alongside our postgraduate students on our MSc courses including Sustainability and Behaviour Change and in Sustainability in Energy Provision and Demand Management.
Taking this module as a short course, you will experience what it likes to study on one of our postgraduate courses at CAT and gain invaluable knowledge and skills around the wider implications of the sustainable adaptations and transformational changes needed to address the climate and biodiversity emergency.
Key Information
- Duration: five days
- Upcoming dates: Monday 5 October – Friday 9 October
- Start and finish times: starts at 10am and ends at 1pm on the last day
- Fees: £700
- Includes: tuition, all materials, lunch
- Please note that accommodation is NOT currently available at CAT for this course. Spaces may be released once students have booked their accommodation in September.
- What to bring: good boots and waterproof clothing is advised
- Terms and Conditions:
- You must be 18 years or over to attend our courses.
- For full list of terms and conditions click here
Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance for joining the course at the end of the week. If attendees wish to enrol on a postgraduate course at CAT and take the module within their future course, they will be able to receive a discount on tuition costs.
Who is this course aimed at?
This week is aimed at people who wish to have a taster of studying at postgraduate level at CAT and want to be better able to understand how we can design more energy-efficient sustainable homes and buildings that will meet our demands in the face of the climate crisis.
What you will learn
This short course help participants to develop critical and systematic approaches to critically appraise the energy-efficient design and approaches we can take to create thermally comfortable energy-efficient buildings.
Topics covered include:
- Thermal comfort
- Heat transfers through building fabric, determination of U values
- Ventilation
- Sunlight and solar gain
- Passive cooling
- Thermal mass
- Impact of moisture on building fabric
- Climate influences on design and future climate change considerations for this
- Quantification of building performance
- Embodied energy and carbon of building materials
- Building energy management
- Aspects of human health and wellbeing in relation to above topics of study
- Societal benefits of energy-efficient buildings
How will I learn
Through pre-reading and some pre-recorded introductory lectures, live in person lectures, discussions, group activities and practical activities at CAT.
This short course is part of the teaching week for the MSc module Energy Flows in Building and Buildings for People.
Please be aware there may be some activities and content during the week only available to students, where an activity isn’t appropriate for the short course attendee, we will endeavour to arrange a replacement activity.
Meet your tutors
Module Leaders
Ivor primarily teaches on CAT’s Green Building programme where he specializes in sustainable design, building performance and all things timber. Ivor is a wood scientist and technologist. He is particularly interested in how timber and related materials can contribute to enhancing building performance and the circular economy. He is best known for his work on the design and performance of timber façades.
Anna Poston is a senior lecturer and tutor on the Green Building, SA, SEPDM and SBC Programmes. With a background in Architectural design and research, she lectures in sustainable design, environmental architecture, building performance and sustainable building materials.
Other tutors and lecturers
Alongside the module leaders, teaching sessions will also be led by other expert Graduate School staff who will join students on-site or through live streams.
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