sustainability

Though natural and man-made disasters are inevitable, scientists at the Texas A&M College of Architecture are working on ways to minimize their impact, hasten recovery and gain valuable insight from the process.

Texas A&M landscape architecture students created a master plan for converting a regional groundwater conservation district's grounds into an educational facility for demonstrating the latest groundwater conservation techniques.

Several giant cube-shaped art installations created by Texas A&M visualization and environmental design students have temporarily transformed a formerly empty city block in downtown Bryan into a public art exhibit for ArtFill, a community art project .

Five projects selected as outstanding examples of public interest design, which addresses social, economic and environmental issues for a community, rather than an individual client, were named by a jury of designers and social justice advocates as winners of the Mitchell-Dockery Prize in Public Interest Design.

The 100-year floodplain, a longstanding metric for determining the chance of an area’s inundation by flood waters, appears to be an inaccurate measure for predicting potential flood-related loss, said Samuel Brody, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M.

Staten Island’s recovery from October 2012’s Hurricane Sandy would benefit from new homes assembled from prefabricated components rather than homes built with traditional construction methods, said Brent Gohmert, an environmental design major at Texas A&M in a paper he wrote during the spring 2013 semester.

In her search for meaning after her mother's death, Texas A&M graduate architecture student Nesserine Mansour built a chalkboard on Rudder Plaza, a busy area on the College Station campus, and prompted passersby to complete the phrase “before I die I want to … “

Measures to reduce energy use in a high-profile Northgate mixed-use residential development were detailed in construction proposals prepared this spring by construction science students at Texas A&M.

Six former students from Texas A&M’s College of Architecture who have risen to the top of their professional field while making significant public service contributions were honored Oct. 11, 2013 as outstanding alumni.

The difference in energy consumption between two homes in Qatar — one built to a strict energy efficiency standard and the other using conventional construction — is being evaluated in a Texas A&M College of Architecture study.

Emergency management planners could reduce losses and strengthen community resilience by mapping socially vulnerable areas and focusing hazard mitigation efforts where they are most needed, said Shannon Van Zandt, a Texas A&M urban planning professor.

Texans enjoyed lower home electric bills and cleaner air after state legislators in 2001 adopted new energy and construction codes for single-family residences, according to a report from scientists from the Texas A&M Energy Systems Laboratory.

A building energy use "tune-up" procedure developed by researchers at the Texas A&M Energy Systems Lab has so far yielded more than $100 million in energy savings from little more than 300 client buildings, said Charles Culp, professor of architecture and ESL associate director.

Six design proposals for a 153,000 square-foot children’s outpatient health center in historic downtown Richmond, Va., will be unveiled by Texas A&M senior environmental design students at a 9 a.m. Wednesday, April 24.

Significant energy savings could be realized in small homes in hot climates with an air conditioning system being researched by Simge Andolsun, a Ph.D. architecture student at Texas A&M, that cools rooms based on where people are at different times during the day.