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Learning from the past: 3D model for ancient architecture and settlement for healthy built environment design

This project will try to build 3D digital model for ancient architectural building and community site both in Middle East and China to understand how our ancestors design our cities and buildings to be healthy.

Department: Construction Management & Engineering

Supervised by: Zhiwen(Vincent) Luo

The Placement Project

The design of our built environment (both building and community scales) affects our health and well-being, and can have long-term implications for quality of life. The relationship between architecture and health has historically received little attention, beyond the design requirements of healthy buildings. Recent work has changed this and has established a more holistic awareness of the role of architecture in health. There is emerging research on the building design and health for modern housings using various approaches such as field measurement, numerical simulation, but there is little study looking back to the history of architecture design, and how the evolution of architecture practice considering the health including physical and mental health. This project will base on the current close collaboration between School of Built Environment and Archaeology at the University of Reading, and take advantage of the excavation of houses and settlements of both CZAP (Central Zagros Archaeological Project) and Catalhoyuk sites (World Heritage site Catalhoyuk in Central Turkey), as well as ancient Chinese settlement (Tulou building in South China). All of these sites in Middle East and China have been over 1000 years old, providing great opportunity to study how do our ancestors design our buildings and settlement considering health element. This project will be co-supervised by Dr Wendy Mathews from Archaeology, University of Reading.

Tasks

The student will be responsible for conducting literature review, 3D building and community model constuction, and analysis, presentation and write-up of the results. The student will firstly conduct extensive literature review on architectural design and health, and investigate the architectural and urban form for the selected sites in Middle East and China.

Skills, knowledge and experience required

The student is expected to have a background in architecture, construction management and engineering, geography or archaeology with a keen interest and enthusiasm for the study of design and history for architecture and buildings. Good experience of building 3D model using such as Sketchup, Rhinos etc is required.

Skills which will be developed during the placement

The student will gain hands on experience in all stages of the research process from start to finish, including reviewing the literature, sourcing the data, analyzing the data, and presenting and writing up the results. The supervisor will work closely with the student at all stages to help them develop new skills and expertise in each area. If the study results in publishable findings, the student would be involved in the write-up of the results and included as an author on any publications. General transferable skills to be developed include team-working, computing and analytical skills, report writing and presentations skills.

Place of Work

School of the Built Environment, Chancellor Building though part of time will be spent in archaeology with the co-supervisor. Note that this placement is suitable for part-time work if desired, and the start and end dates are flexible.

Hours of Work

9:00 - 17:00

Approximate Start and End Dates (not fixed)

Monday 17 June 2019 - Friday 26 July 2019

How to Apply

*The deadline for applications to this project is Friday 26th April*. Interested students should send their CV and a covering letter outlining their motivation for the placement and the relevant skills and experience they will bring to the project to Dr Zhiwen Luo (z.luo@reading.ac.uk). Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed.


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