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Grounded Materials

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Grounded Materials will develop sustainable building materials by disrupting current teaching in two fundamental ways. First instead of studying each material separately we will combine them in creative and unexpected ways - we call this trans-material. Secondly, we will work with selected stakeholders to ground construction materials in a societal context – we call this trans-disciplinary.

Abstract

 
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GROUNDED MATERIALS 2016 player.vimeo.com

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This ETH course aspires to develop grounded materials for the construction sector – materials that are sustainable and innovative whilst still responding to the constraints of those on the ground.

To do so it will require students to work with several materials at the same time (trans-material) and take into account societal constraints in the construction sector (trans-disciplinary). We believe this approach fosters integrated and socially relevant solutions in line with current initiative for critical thinking.

In interdisciplinary groups students will combine knowledge from material sciences, environmental sciences, engineering and architecture. Transversally, they will explore the physical characteristics of various materials whilst taking into consideration production, design and application on the construction site.

The course will be hosted by D-BAUG at the Chair of Sustainable Construction. This chair seeks to embed sustainability in all aspects of the built environment – whilst transferring integrated knowledge about the characteristics and applications of construction materials. The course will be run in close collaboration with the USYS TdLab and Amàco, an innovative teaching centre on construction materials science.

Applications will be open to all ETH MSc students, and specifically target civil engineers, environmental scientists and architects.

Success factors

• Coordination of interdisciplinary teaching staff: Do we share the same vision how to get there?
• Bringing together different knowledge and skill sets.
• Translation between teaching content/skills and direct application in student projects

Innovative elements

• Trans-disciplinary teaching: Including stakeholders to ground construction materials in our local societal context.
• Trans-material teaching: Combining materials in creative and unexpected ways based on their constituting matter (e.g. fibres, grains).
• Design thinking: Combining constraints from materials to negotiate with stakeholders and translate them to sustainable solutions for the built environment.

Room for improvement

• Communication: Involving students on goals and process.
• Specify project application: What type of student projects can be realised within given constraints.
• Stakeholder input: Stronger stakeholder feedback during student project phase.

Opinion of students

• The students very much liked the hands-on-experience on learning, experimenting and working with materials. The site visits to illustrate different construction projects, especially the use of alternative materials which they are not aware of.
• The students did not appreciate working on Saturdays and a lecture that was difficult to related to the topic of the summer school.
• See annex 1 on evaluation

Tips for lecturers

• Project management and teaching management is key through e.g. documenting process, scripting teaching.
• To apply new didactics, it is key to explain to the students the aim, the teaching concept and give detailed feedback. Especially considering the loss of knowledge in iterative development of student projects.

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