In Semester 4, themed “engaging environment and community”, the studio explores design by harnessing environmental qualities and conditions for human and environment sustainability through a project with a specific community of users within a given context. The projects involve studies of precedents on design projects that are responsive to the environmental conditions and sustainable issues.

Using the precedent studies, students explore the environmental poetics of the building enclosure that responds to the basic natural context such as the sun, wind, heat, cold, energy issue and existing building context (which has clustered built forms for example community centre, nature appreciative centre, research centre). Considerations should be given to the complexity of the program, site topography and vegetation, socio-cultural events, and variety of passive strategies for sustainable design.

The design work should contribute to and merge harmoniously with environment and the site and provide the best of experiences for the community of users. Students are required to demonstrate applications of knowledge gained from Architecture and Environment module from prior semesters and integrate research from Asian Architecture module. The environmental elements and poetics of the context within a complex spatial typology creates a design narrative that aims to foster a sense of community