Sustainability Course Offerings at Cooper Union
ARCHITECTURE | ART | ENGINEERING | HUMANITIES | CONTINUING EDUCATION
ARCH 134 Environmental Technologies:
Environmental and life safety systems as they affect program and building form, including mechanical (heating, cooling, ventilating), water supply and disposal, electrical, lighting, acoustics, vertical transportation, communication, security and fire protection. Principles of sustainability. Passive and active systems.
ARCH 185.18 Graduate Seminar In Technologies:
Synthesis/Distinction is an investigation in design technology and creative agency through prototyping. Throughout the course students traverse, in series, emerging methods in digital fabrication and computation, from foundational details to more complex assemblies. The exercises follow a research format, focused on the social and ecological implications of creative production. Throughout the process, the course mediates between the distinctions of digital logic, and the synthesis of analog practices within the larger design field. Class exercises pair distinctions and synthesis, tools and integrations, challenging students to extend, play, and continuously negotiate the poetic potential of digital craft within a social and ecological milieu. The course provides a foundation to a wide array of technical and theoretical approaches to design through digital fabrication and creative computation, meant to supplement and expand existing coursework. Sessions are split between lectures and dedicated workshop / build time, reflecting a reciprocal approach of thinking through making. Students are expected to read, discuss, and build, in 2-3 week long exercises, including a final project.
ARCH 194 Environmental Technologies Elective:
Advanced study in environmental issues to include such topics as cultural and environmental sustainability, resource allocation, new materials and methods, global networks, urban growth, etc., as they relate to architecture on many scales.
EcoRedux: The Resurgence of Ecological Imagination
The main product of this course will be the assemblage of an archive for ecological material experiments that architects and designers explored during the twentieth century. We will collaborate in small groups in order to bring together a major database of ecological design strategies and to seek tentative connections with the remarkable contemporary resurgence of ecological strategies in architectural imagination. The scope of the seminar has a dual function: first as a tool to explore the history of the sustainable design throughout the twentieth century, but also as a pedagogical tool for radical design initiatives in the contemporary city.
The starting point for this course will be the existing online archive www.ecoredux.com. Ecoredux currently maps visually and verbally the trajectory of habitation experiments that underground architectural groups conducted during the 1960s and 1970s. Such experiments include garbage housing, recycling housing components, snow molding, vacuumatics, foam houses, pneumatics from used parachutes, hand-crafted domes et-al. Along with the documentation of historical material, the website also features contemporary interpretations of the experiments using various media, like diagrams, drawings, animations, interviews with the architects, computer codes and instruction manuals for sustainable living.
The course will aim in transforming the existing online archive into an open source groundbreaking collection of ecological experiments, tracing environmental policies and sustainable design building systems in line with the history of ideas and experiments in the twentieth century.
ARCH 225.50 Advanced Topics In History, Theory, Criticism Edible, Or, The Architecture Of Metabolism:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of ‘where our food comes from’ became eminently important. The fragility of our production processes and the mobility networks that transport commodities and food, have urged new forms of localization and design of circular economies. “Food” in this course will be approached both literally and metaphorically. On the one hand, food explores architectural strategies of local production and self sufficiency (e.g. urban agriculture, renewable energy); on the other, it integrates in the built environment operations that use by-products of urban life (e.g. livestock, agriculture, forest residues) as resources. The objective is to replace traditional linear systems of “make, use and dispose” with circular systems that limit material and resource loss or explore alternative pathways. With buildings being responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption, 36% of CO2 emissions, and the building industry being one of the heaviest waste generators globally, it is indispensable for architecture to respond, pushing for alternative design and construction models, moving away from the current prevailing models-both intensely resources-consuming and contaminating. Rather, therefore, than a consuming built environment, this course will investigate strategies to produce a built environment able to generate resources – food, energy or materials.
ARCH 225.52 Advanced Topics In History, Theory, Criticism:
Svalbard is a revealing sensor within the complex matrix of global political, informational, and economic systems. With less than 2,700 inhabitants, this unincorporated area foreshadows an emerging post sovereign state. Feigned interest in natural resources has enabled (46) nation states to innocuously manifest a strategic presence on the archipelago while advancing non-linear interests. Coal, technology, research, and environmental tourism all overlap in various forms and with a multitude of benefactors, many of whom blur or overextend the boundaries of neutrality encoded in the original Svalbard Treaty. The accumulation of interests, contradictions, and conflicts, amid a massive consolidation of technology are the foundations of this new structure, or rather new state. Svalbard’s strategic position as a logistical juncture within future global shipping routes, optic cable paths, and geopolitical systems is quietly creating an enormous amount of speculation. The melting ice opens new definitions of boundaries for oil drilling rights and fishing zones. Strategic positioning by Russian and China keeps coalmining running while triggering a new market for land acquisition. NASA-funded satellite parks spearhead scientific research on the environmental effects of climate change. Meanwhile, new exotic forms of tourism are emerging: Arctic, polar sports, ghost towns, and science tourism. Through Svalbard the studio will investigate climate research where climate change is most visible, tourism where the environment is most fragile, food production in polar conditions, clean energy to replace nonrenewable resources, alternative forms of housing, polar technology and space research where conditions are most suitable. As these landscapes quietly transform, the future of Svalbard will impact all of us.
ARCH 225.55 Advanced Topics In History, Theory, Criticism:
This course will document the intersection of architecture and design with ecology, environmental history, governance and law. We will examine conflicting definitions and concepts of architects and designers and the parallel histories of their intellectual positions toward environmental thought from the 19th century to today. The term ecological design was coined in a 1996 book by Sim van der Ryn and Stewart Cowan, in which the authors argued for a seamless integration of human activities with natural processes to minimize destructive environmental impact.
However, ecological design harks as far back as Ernst Haeckel’s definition of the field of ecology and Henry David Thoreau’s manual for self-reliance. Since World War II, contrary to the position of ecological design as a call to fit harmoniously within the natural world, there has been a growing interest in a form of synthetic naturalism, where the laws of nature and metabolism are displaced from the domain of wilderness to the domain of cities, buildings, and objects. Unlike van der Ryn and Cowan’s argumentation, which focused on a deep appreciation for nature’s equilibrium, ecological design might commence with the synthetic replication of natural systems. Ecological design arguably starts with the reconceptualization of the world as a complex system of flows rather than a discrete compilation of objects, which visual artist and theorist György Kepes has described as one of the fundamental reorientations of the 20th century. We will survey the formation of this field, not chronologically, but in connected worldviews, each rendering evolving perceptions of nature, its relation to culture, and the occupation of the natural world by human and non-human subjects.
ARCH 485.49 Graduate Seminar In Theory, History, Criticism :
Part of the Borderlands and Exterritories seminar series, this class will focus on islands. The seminar offers students the tools to critically consider notions of territoriality, sovereignty, and bordering, particularly as they relate to architecture. We take as a starting point, and problematize our understanding of territoriality as it is still heavily rooted in our imagination of the world as divided into compartmentalized, distinct, and mutually exclusive political formations. We understand movements across borders (recognized or unrecognized, regular or irregular) not only in their relationship to movements for social justice and liberation, but also as the central elements that define contemporary territories, and defy the static status-quo of the nation-state. Through an interdisciplinary selection of readings, students will be introduced to key concepts including cosmopolitanism, citizenship, and rights. We’ll critically study and analyze processes of bordering as they exist both in nationalism and humanitarianism, as well as their material manifestations. We will develop the conceptual tools to understand the entanglements of architecture with processes of division across scales and geographies (from the planetary, to settler-colonial states, and to urban segregation).
We will thoroughly and comparatively study a wide range of island conditions: from geographically separated terrains, to enclaves and encampments, all the way to autonomous regions and sanctuary spaces. This seminar is interested not only in the technologies and architectures of violent enclosure and segregation, but also the actions that refuse them, or traverse them. Leaning on the study of key conceptual and theoretical frameworks and reading discussions, students develop illustrated research essays around an Island condition (in the scale, geography, and format of their choice), considering Arjun Appadurai’s proposal to shift the emphasis from ‘trait geographies’ to ‘process geographies’: “in other words, on the forms of movement, encounter, and exchange that confound the idea of bounded world-regions with immutable traits” (Appadurai, 2001). The hope is that through critical analysis and representation (drawing, mapping, and other visualizations), not of static conditions, but rather of processes both of building and dismantling borders, other imaginaries for shared terrains can emerge.
FA 253 Papermaking: Materiality and Sustainability:
This studio course explores making paper from traditional to contemporary approaches. The course incorporates specified instruction and experimentation driven by student independent projects. The exploration of the structural and historical uses of Western and Eastern methods including contemporary issues of recycled and alternative fibers will frame an understanding of the potential uses and appearances of handmade paper. From a basis in sheet forming, pigmenting, sizing, and the use of additives, the class will move into an emphasis on paper as a visual and sculptural object, covering paper casting and other three-dimensional approaches. 3 credits. 4 contact hours.
FA 253 Sculpture: Materiality and Sustainability:
This course helps students explore and develop their personal process of making art, with an emphasis on sculpture. Formal and material choices will be discussed in relation to intention, meaning, context, and contemporary culture. Research and development are given equal weight to finished work. Students will discuss their process individually with the instructor, and present work for review to the entire class. In-class slide presentations, readings, and field trips will complement class discussions.
FA 253 Sculpture/ Photography: Between Object and Image:
This course is based on the development of an in-depth practice that connects to the multiple properties of sculpture. Thematic subjects will be open, based on individual body of work; at the same time, subject positioning, viewer/author relationship, and clarity of reading will be studied. Classes will be guided by the theoretical and affective connections the students have in their engagement with materials and the practice of sculpture as idea and as concrete daily activity. Ideas and mediums will be discussed and analyzed in relation to context and historical grounding. Texts of different kinds will be used as complementary to the work being produced and as tools for each student. Group critiques will focus on delving deeply into each student's work with special emphasis on connecting what the student wants the work to be, how it functions, is experienced and read.
FA 361B-1 Adv Photo Topics: The Future:
This course will concentrate on subject matter, methodology, size, scale, genre, style, theory and history of photography. The orientation will be the development of projects, from the inception of ideas to professional presentation and execution of artistic work with an emphasis on making large negatives and/or producing large prints. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the full range of image-making resources available to aid in the creation of works that challenge perceptions. Various options of cameras and large scale analog and digital printing will be explored.
CHE 447 (Same as EID 447) Sustainability/Pollution Prevention:
The first part of this course discusses in detail a methodology for defining and assessing the sustainability of an entity. The course then proceeds with more traditional topics in pollution prevention for chemical processes, outlining concepts on the macroscale (life-cycle assessment) and mesoscale (pollution prevention for unit operations). By the end of this course, you should be able to use a fuzzy-logic based methodology to define and assess sustainability, perform a sensitivity analysis which identifies the most critical components of sustainability for a given corporation, perform a life-cycle assessment on a product or a process, identify and apply chemical process design methods for waste minimalization, energy efficiency and minimal environmental impact and design, size and cost a simple waste-treatment process.
CE 141 Environmental Systems Engineering:
Qualitative and quantitative treatment of water and wastewater systems as related to domestic and industrial needs and their effect on the environment. Introduction to air pollution sources and control and solid/hazardous waste engineering. Design of water and wastewater treatment plants. Field and laboratory techniques for measurement of water quality parameters. Laboratory analysis of representative waters and wastewaters for commonly determined parameters as related to applications in water environment.
CE 142 (Same as EID 142) Water Resources Engineering:
Problems in conservation and utilization of water. Hydrologic techniques. Surface water and groundwater supplies. Water transmission and distribution. Flood control, navigation and irrigation. Introduction to open channel flow and pipe networks. Design of hydraulic structures. Experimental aspects of hydraulic phenomena. Emphasis placed on basic experimental techniques, design of experiments, selection and use of appropriate instrumentation and interpretation of results.
CE 390 (Same as EID 390) Introduction to Sustainable Design:
Sustainable design minimizes the impact on the environment by site planning and design, energy and water conservation and interior environmental quality. This course will focus on the design of a prototype structure using sun, light, air, renewable materials, geological systems, hydrological systems and green roofing. Each student will develop a project outlined by the U.S. Green Building Council rating system known as LEED. The six areas that will be developed to design the project are: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, material and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovative design process. Class time is separated into a series of lectures, private consultations and student presentations.
CE 414 Solid Waste Management:
Engineering aspects of solid waste collection, transport and disposal, including sanitary landfill design, incineration, composting, recovery and re-utilization of resources. Optimization techniques of facility-siting and collection route selection and economic evaluation of factors affecting selection of disposal methods.
CE 448 (Same as EID 448):
Topics include types of environmental pollution and their effects; water quality standards and introduction to laboratory analyses of water quality parameters; sources and estimates of water and wastewater flows; physicochemical unit treatment processes. Integrated lecture and design periods cover water supply network, wastewater collection system and water treatment design projects.
EID 247 Introduction to Sustainability and Alternative Energy Technologies:
Sustainability and sustainable development and how they relate to culture, politics, and design of our built environment. Review of the technological history of fossil fuel use and how it has affected Earth's climate. Global warming potential, radiative forcing, carbon cycle, and carbon budget. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its application to sustainability / minimizing environmental impact. Alternatives to fossil fuel energy (including nuclear, geothermal, solar, hydropower, and bioenergy sources) and potential consequences of these technologies. The course has no prerequisites; all material needed to understand the various topics will be covered in class. The class is aimed towards 2nd year students of all majors (Architecture, Art, and Engineering).
EID 357 Sustainable Engineering and Development:
Sustainable engineering is examined, starting with an analysis of resources,(materials, energy, water) upon which manufacturing is based. Each resource is critically examined in terms of its availability and form and the ultimate impact of its usage on the state of the planet. A comparison of the design and construction of contemporary and primitive structure is used to illustrate the differences between the required infrastructure and environmental footprint, leading to a definition of 'green' design. The technologies required to support contemporary lifestyles in the developed and the developing world are discussed within the context of manufacturing techniques, usage of natural resources and the generation of waste. Workshops, guest lectures and a term project incorporating the concepts of minimalism, materials usage, and aesthetic design are used to present students with a unique perspective engineering.
EID 437 (Same as CE 437) Sustainability and Environmental Impact Assessment:
Forty years ago, when the world did not know the word sustainability, smart engineers were conducting environmental impact assessments of alternative designs and projects in order to select the post option for implementation. This course evaluates the methodologies and problems encountered and approaches to using environmental impacts (which include socio-economic impacts and beneficial impacts) in order to achieve smarter, more sustainable designs and development. Case studies will be presented and students will have to write a term paper.
ME 231 Sustainable Energetics:
Methodologies for technical and economic assessment of short and long term energy-related issues are developed. Both supply-side (power generation) and demand-side (use and efficiency) technology issues are investigated in the context of the modern social, economic, political and meteorological climate. On the supply side, quantitative comparisons of the carbon intensity, levelized cost and other metrics for alternative methods to meet a demand are developed using contemporary examples, with consideration of the qualitative role of externalities. The key role of energy storage in various forms in a sustainable energy future is emphasized. The focus on the demand-side is on identifying opportunities for exergy conservation, for doing more with less, again by comparison of alternative methods.
ME 453 Energy Efficient Building Systems:
Equipment fundamentals, energy management and control systems used in buildings to manage heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems and components. Proper commissioning, operation and maintenance and their impact on efficiency, equipment life, energy consumption and carbon footprint. Students will perform energy savings calculations, learn processes to identify and correct building operational problems that lead to waste, identify energy conservation measures and analyze trend data and historical operation. Technical projects and site visits provide exposure to open-ended problems related to actual HVAC and building management systems.
VIP 382-A Vertically Integrated Projects: Smart Cities:
The Autonomy of “Smart” Cities is a cross-disciplinary course that is dedicated to finding technology-based solutions to some of the most pressing issues that are currently facing our cities. This course will focus on closed-loop systems in order to explore a more sustainable transportation, energy, and urban agricultural structures that promote the autonomy of our communities and enhance the livability of our cities. Students will be expected to develop complete solutions (design and implementation) integrating ideas and concepts from different disciplines such as: design, ML, Robotics, IoT, hardware design, vision, lighting, and control theory.
VIP 382-B Vertically Integrated Projects: Solar Decathalon:
The Solar Decathlon course forms a cross-disciplinary team that engages in a design phase and a build phase of highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. Students are expected to prepare creative solutions for real-world issues in the building industry. The focus of this course will be High-performance building design includes comprehensive building science, energy efficiency, optimized structural and mechanical systems, indoor air quality, resilience, and water conservation while maintaining the highest spatial design standards. Engineering students will be working closely with Architects to design an efficient and innovative system to support the functional and aesthetic characteristics of their projects while experimenting with the use of standard as well as unconventional materials. Students will be taught the basics of statics, the strength of materials, structural analysis, and design. Teams will be expected to participate in the Solar Decathlon Design and Build Challenge.
H129 Environmental Literature:
In this class, we will look at ways of imagining and approaching the natural environment through writing, ranging from travelogue to activism. Readings will include essays, poetry and fiction by Wordsworth, Thoreau, Carson, Abbey and others. Topics for reading and writing will center on such issues as encounters with nature, sustainability, species extinction and global warming.
HTA 261 Art and Social Practice:
This course focuses on socially-engaged and relational artworks and initiatives in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa from the 1960s to the present. By studying the development of participatory practices outside of the institutional networks and market structures of the Euro-Atlantic art world, we will examine the shifting boundaries between art and activism, investigate the politics of the art world, and address how activated spectators, collectives and collaborative projects shaped cultural production and social life locally and in a global context
HTA 313 F1/FA 393A I Sculpture: Arte Povera:
As an art history and studio class hybrid, Sculpture: Arte Povera merges the pedagogy of both with the hope to expand ways of thinking and talking about sculpture while making it. Arte Povera serves as a case study and an entry point to anchor the discussion historically and methodologically. Emerged in 1960s Italy to protest American imperialism, technocracy, and consumerism, Arte Povera has resounded globally for its focus of non-traditional, organic materials, process, and performativity. The course will raise questions on materials and their temporality, ethics, politics, and cultural specificity. All students will do both studio and art history work. Students taking the class for HTA credits will produce more written work, and students registered for studio credits will produce more sculptural work. 3 credits
HUM 324B Polar Imagination:
This course will explore our fascination with the ends of the earth: the Arctic and the Antarctic. What is the history of our engagement with these regions long thought to be uninhabitable? What's important about the search for the Northwest Passage and the landless "North Pole," first in the age of big ice and now in the era of polar melt? At the other end of the globe, what does the vast and forbidding Antarctic continent have to tell us? What are the polar regions to us now, in times of re-escalating political tensions and rising temperatures? To give shape to these questions we will look at literary works inspired by the planet's extreme regions (for example, Mary Shelley, Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne and other nineteenth-century authors as well as contemporary writers), histories of famous explorations (for example, Shackleton's voyage to Antarctica), and recent scholarship on climate change and polar history. Along the way we will look at questions of conflict between the technologies of developed nations and indigenous peoples' habits of sustainability; the geopolitics of research stations; art activism; documentary filmmaking; polar tourism; and the fate of polar species in an environment whose climate is rapidly shifting. In short, the course is an advanced introduction -- no prerequisites other than the HSS core sequence -- to an interdisciplinary subject that touches upon history, science, technology, politics, literature, and art.
H420 Environmentalism in the Urban Context:
Conventional approaches to the city place the study of urban form and urban space squarely within the political, economic and cultural fields. Nature is largely absent. Indeed most disciplines tend to see the city as a stage on which only economic and cultural activities take place. Recently, however, the work of environmental scholars, usually serving as activists as well, has produced a new urbanism in which the city form and function is intimately connected with natural processes. This rethinking of the city opens up several new possibilities for teaching human-environment interactions. In particular, it provides an opportunity to use the immediate and everyday environment of the city as a site for identifying and analyzing the hidden geographies of raw materials, energy and waste flows that make possible the experience of urban life. This course addresses three central issues: (1) identification of the material and ecological processes that make city form and function possible; (2) interpretation of the city as a constellation of economic institutions and social practices that transform nature over different temporal and spatial scales; and (3) the examination of the environmental and health impacts stemming from a city's role in production and consumption.
SS 340 Cause and Effect:
Does providing social welfare benefits spoil the poor? Do Nike ads increase their shoes sales? Does having an Amazon Prime membership leads you to buy more from Amazon? Does health insurance improve people's health? Does hiring a new professor improve the academic performance of Cooper students? Does giving aid to poor countries improve their economic performance? We can get data on all these variables and run regressions and come up with answers, but are they the right answers? Probably not. In all these questions, the direction of the causation can go both ways (For instance, with a Prime membership you are more likely to order from Amazon because it is easier, but also you probably got the Prime membership because you shop online a lot). Also in all these question, there is a potential that other factors can affect the relationship and in most cases we cannot control for all these factors. Therefore, simply running regressions does not necessarily give us the right answer. This course will help you think about how to answers these cause-and-effect questions. After taking this course, your attitude towards the world will change. You will doubt many claims that are being thrown at you by news reporters, President Trump (definitely), and even your professors! The course will teach you to think systematically about various types of cause-effect questions and use various types of datasets to try to answer them. You can apply the skills you learn in this course to questions in economics, psychology, business, politics, and even the sciences.
The Continuing Education Department of the Cooper Union offers professional development courses for engineers, architects, developers, designers, and members of allied professions. These courses, taught by leading practitioners in their fields, sharpen professional skills or add new ones. Most of the courses also meet state license-renewal requirements. Students may take individual courses or, by accumulating 110 hours of coursework within two years, qualify for a Certificate in Green Building Design from Cooper Union’s Department of Continuing Education. The Green Building Design Certificate Program began in the fall of 2007 with 30 participants, there are now over 100. One of our most popular courses is the LEED Prep course for those planning to take the LEED New Construction exam.
Further information is available by contacting the Director of Continuing Education, David Greenstein via email or at 212-353-4198.
