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This website features work from the completion of Phase 1 of the SCALES Project.

We are currently seeking partnerships for Phase 2.

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning experiences provide students with direct experiences, accompanied with a critical reflection. Instructors often select the experiences for students, but then serve as the facilitator when the experience is occurring. These experiences are often conducted in informal education settings and with clubs and organizations, but also have a place in the formal setting.

  • Personal Energy Consumption

    Determine your average daily energy consumption (in kWh). For this assignment, you can take into account only the electricity that you use, though you should be aware that there are additional energy expenditures in terms of transportation, heating, manufacturing processes to make the products that you use, etc. You should submit this as a table showing your energy consumption (power x time) for a few days and then come up with an average value.

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  • Methane Leaks Hackathon

    Objective: Participants get practical background on methane leaks, and initial hands-on experience with the tools for detecting leaks, measuring the volume of gas released from a leak, and tracking and visualizing leaks.

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  • Poster & Presentation

    Create a poster about your project. Your poster should speak to the planning issue(s) in New Orleans that you are researching and writing about. What question can you ask that will pull a reader into your poster and get him/her thinking about your project? What issues are you working on? What data have you gathered? What story can you tell about your planning issue in New Orleans?

    OR

    Alternatively, create a poster for your client's needs. This poster could inform neighborhood groups about a particular planning issue. This poster could graphically showcase how citizens can understand design standards easily and efficiently, and/or this poster could help citizens understand the importance of using public transportation. In other words, it could be used as part of a community campaign to bring attention to a planning issue in New Orleans. Posters will be made part of an exhibit that showcases the work of our students working in New Orleans. Posters should be 20”x30”, either direction.

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  • Field Research and Report

    In this second phase, student teams will undertake in-depth research, analysis and design in project areas in Valparaíso. Once on the ground, students need to understand the requirements needed to realize goals and opportunities of the projects by assessing existing resources and assets, identifying critical obstacles and resources gaps to address, and defining other factors that shape effective strategies and interventions to generate the client’s desired revitalization goals for the district.

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  • Course Project

    As announced in the course syllabus, the final course deliverable is the presentation of an environmental design concept for the 3500m2 innovation/startup space that you have been working on since assignment 5. The final presentation should last for 12 minutes plus 3 minutes for Q&A and draw from the material that you have generated during previous assignments. You may want to add some additional work to create a coherent project narrative.

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  • Simulation Game Analysis (Assignment 8)

    The objective of the game is to redesign your class project, with the lowest possible operational Source Energy Use Intensity (Source EUI, kWh/m2) as simulated in DIVA/Archsim/EnergyPlus. Starting off with an approximate thermal model of your latest design from Assignment 6, your task is to create a version of your building with the lowest Source EUI and a purchasing budget at or under $50 MIT dollars. The team with the largest proportional EUI reduction vis-à-vis their baseline design wins. Follow all rules below. When time is up (after 80 minutes), your team must save all of your files and submit them along with a detailed description of your final designs and how you arrived at your best performing iteration.

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  • Energy Explorations (Assignment 7)

    Now that you have a well daylit, visually comfortable building with an electric lighting design in place, we are turning our attention towards evaluating and improving the energy performance of your design. In this assignment you will first create a baseline energy model of your building and then explore various energy updates.

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  • Visual Comfort and Electric Lighting (Assignment 6)

    The goal of this assignment is check your final daylighting design from Assignment 5 for potential areas of glare and remedy them as well as to design an electric lighting concept for your design. As a target level, the electric lighting should provide around 300lux on all key working surfaces and around 150lux in all circulation areas.

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  • Daylight Availability Study (Assignment 5)

    In this assignment you will start working in groups on your final course project which is the development of an environmental design concept for an about 3500m2 innovation/startup space located in either Chicago, Houston or Seattle, depending on which city you previously signed up for. Your building should accommodate work spaces for around 250 workers, a reception area, lavatory, two seminar rooms and a cafe (optional). It is up to you to define the final program. You may pick any available site within your city and should also consider external factors such as a site’s walkscore etc. Remember to include neighboring buildings in your shading and daylighting analysis. The goal of this first assignment is to develop and evaluate a series of massing options and façade designs that you will then further refine in future assignments.

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  • Designing a PV System (Assignment 4)

    During assignment 1 you determined how much electricity you have used at some point in your life living in an apartment or house. In this assignment you are going to design a PV system that yields the same amount of electricity over the course of a year and calculate the simple payback time required to get your investment back. The assignment is broken into three parts. 

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Notice something that doesn’t seem right? Want to make a suggestion or provide feedback about how something is classified? 
Please reach out to esi [at] mit.edu and include SCALES Website in the subject of your email.
Feedback and any actions taken with regards to the feedback, will be shared as they are addressed.