2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Developing a New Course in Design, Construction, and Society

Presented at Construction Engineering Division (CONST) Technical Session 5

Recent studies have indicated a ‘culture of disengagement’ in engineering students, with an over-focus on technical aspects, to the detriment of social implications. Furthermore, the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry is experiencing a burst of technological transformations. Given the significant impact of the built environment on the population, it is important to address how changes in society and technology affect the AEC industry. By understanding the interactions between social and technological developments, professionals may be better prepared to avoid ineffective operations and unnecessary corrective interventions. In the fall of 2022, a new course in architectural design, construction technology, and society was introduced into a construction-related program in a large midwestern university. The course was required for students enrolled in the Design and Construction Integration major and minor and open to all other students with no prerequisites. Over 29 biweekly classes and book discussions, the lecturers utilized: (i) architectural history as a background to discuss the relationship between the changes in society and the architectural developments from the first industrial revolution to post-modernism and (ii) recent technological and societal changes to reflect on the foreseeable future challenges. The present paper describes our experience developing and deploying this course for the first time. We start by presenting the motivation behind this new course, the learning objectives, the schedule of topics, and assessments. Following, the instructors provide lessons learned from the course's first iteration. Finally, we conclude by making suggestions for improving future iterations of the course. These suggestions can also be relevant to others considering the inclusion of this type of content into their construction courses or programs.

Authors

Dr. Luciana Debs http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9713-0957 Purdue University [biography]

Luciana Debs, is an Assistant Professor of Construction Management in the School Construction Management Technology at Purdue University. She received her PhD from Purdue University Main Campus, her MS from the Technical Research Institute of Sao Paulo. Her current research includes the technology and teaching within design and construction and the impact of Construction and Education 4.0 in undergraduate curriculum.
Dr. Claudio Martani Purdue University [biography]

Claudio Martani is Assistant Professor at the Purdue School of Construction Management Technology, ICON-affiliated faculty, and and Director of the Purdue Laboratory for Future-Ready Infrastructure (FuRI Lab). His research focuses on the development of innovative models for (i) assessing the level of infrastructure flexibility, resilience and responsiveness required to manage future uncertainty, and (ii) creating optimal risk-reducing interventions for construction and infrastructure. Dr. Martani is a former Research Associate at the IBI, D-BAUG of ETH Zürich (2015-2021), and at the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) of the University of Cambridge (2013-2015). He holds a PhD in Technology and Design for the Built Environment (TePAC) from the Politecnico di Milano (2013), a MSc in Building Management and a BSc in Architecture from the same institution. He is also an alumnus of the Collegio di Milano, a residential interdisciplinary honours programme with a competitive admission process and extracurricular activities. Whilst completing his PhD, Dr. Martani was appointed MIT-Italy fellow at the Senseable City Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT|SCL) and became a visiting researcher at the Virtual Development and Training Centre (VDTC) of the Fraunhofer Institute (IFF). In the course of his academic career, Dr. Martani has worked in the areas of future-oriented design optimization, risk and resilience analysis, uncertainty modelling and scenario simulations, sensing and responding solutions for the built environment, as well as virtual space modelling and data management. In addition to these academic activities, Dr. Martani also has experience as an architect in practice and consultant in civil engineering.

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