The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

Appendix 1
Over time, the Centres of Excellence must support other universities in enhancing
their own low-carbon education, so that the proportion of fully carbon-aware
graduates steadily increases to over 50% over a 10 to 15 year period. However,
after only five years, every office that is actively recruiting graduate engineers
could have one graduate from a Centre of Excellence. This is an achievable goal.
Staffing
To deliver the educational aims, centres will need academic and research staff
involved in pushing the profession forward. They must be able to communicate
their knowledge, skills and enthusiasm to the undergraduates, and they must be
involved with those engaged in the design of buildings. They must also be able
to communicate with policymakers, the media, and the general public, calling
for expertise in public relations, marketing and communications. The Centres
must therefore be staffed by a range of professionals in addition to the expected
academic and research staff.
The academics might have narrow specialist expertise, but it is most important
that they have the broad view too, and an understanding of integration into
design. This is most likely to have been obtained during a period in engineering
design practice. The aim of the Centres is to replace trial and error with a systemic
design approach that is scientifically sound and based upon real understanding of
engineering. All the academic staff must be able to deliver this approach.
The range of expertise involved in the centre needs to go beyond what is
seen in most civil building services or building engineering departments. At
present, these may have no building physics staff at all, or only a very small
number and they are likely to be focused on a specific field of research in a
traditional academic research centre, rather than having a broad, interdisciplinary
perspective on teaching and research needs. It would nevertheless be expected
that any institution with the undergraduate intakes to support a Centre of
Excellence will already have some of the academic staff required, and will have
links with industry which support their teaching.
A particular requirement of a Centre of Excellence which differs from conventional
engineering departments is for staff that can direct and support interdisciplinary
design project work. There is a relationship between these needs and those of
the traditional architectural design studio, which requires engineering academics
and tutors to help students synthesise the many skills of architectural design.
The academics or tutors who lead the design work need to be able to make a
substantial time commitment to ensure that the students derive the intended
educational benefit from these intense activities. This will require academic
staff committed to design tutoring in addition to tutoring support provided by
professionals engaged in design practice.
Centres of Excellence will need to have expertise in the following areas:
• Building construction & materials
• Building services systems including public health
• Human comfort and climate psychology
• Acoustics
• Ventilation and air conditioning
• Controls and automation
The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design 45