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Sarhan, Ahmed (2012) The utilisation of games technology for environmental design education. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

In recent years, the architectural design process has witnessed a mounting demand for qualified practitioners who can resolve the highly complex social, cultural, technological, and economical issues associated with ‘Sustainability’. Designers are thus faced with wider pallet of challenges, developing conceptual designs that are sustainably effective. Pressure is mounting on educational institutions to prepare architects that are well accustomed to the environmental design concepts and parameters, aiming to reduce the impact on the environment and preserve valuable natural resources to bring the building’s interior to comfortable living conditions. However, architectural education has been notably slow to respond effectively to the requirements introduced by sustainability. Evidently there are a number of pedagogical challenges that clearly impede the consistent endorsement of sustainability in the design curricula and thus hinder any potential values and opportunities that can result from its effective integration.

This research project examines these challenges and investigates more into their nature and attributes. Accordingly, it proposes a method that endeavours to overcome the noted challenge and attempts to improve the design students' motivation and acceptance to incorporate sustainability. In essence, this method aims to mould the technical nature of Building Performance Simulation applications into the cognitive design process. In order to achieve this, the proposed method utilizes 3D games technology, incorporating Multi-Agent System and Data Mining techniques, to assist design students in achieving higher levels of motivation, engagement, and comprehension of the environmental design concepts. The research discusses the rationale for electing the employed technologies and discusses the methodology for developing the proposed tool. Following its development, the tool is presented to number of stakeholders for evaluating the pedagogical and conceptual basis. The recorded results and the provided feedback from these sessions are presented to assess the potential effectiveness of this method for improving students' understanding of various concepts surrounding sustainable design.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Rutherford, P.
Keywords:	Sustainability, Architectural design education, Building performance simulation, Games technology, Multi-agent systems, Data mining
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Engineering > Built Environment
Item ID:	12664
Depositing User:	EP, Services
Date Deposited:	09 Nov 2012 12:58
Last Modified:	15 Dec 2017 08:43
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/12664

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