Course description
Duration
The course is offered via full time (one year), part time (two years) and attendance free distance learning (two or three years). Part time students attend classes on a day-release basis. Many of our part time and distance learning students are in highly demanding employment. These students can opt to reduce the level of study per year and increase the study period to a maximum of six years, thus gaining a respected postgraduate degree whilst contributing to the CPD requirements of their professional bodies.
Students on all modes start in early October. Students complete a coursework assignment for each module studied; sit module examinations in April of each year of study; and work on their dissertation or project report from May to September. Arrangements can be made for distance learning students to sit exams at a number of centres throughout the world.
Distance learning students receive comprehensive module study packs by post. A PC with e-mail and Internet access is necessary for those students to gain the fullest learning experience from the course.
Overview
The emphasis of this course is on developments in building environmental services resulting from global concerns about energy consumption and environmental impact. These include advanced design and performance techniques in the fields of acoustics, lighting, ventilation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Typical techniques that may be studied include natural ventilation, sophisticated façade systems, thermal storage and night-cooling. The course aims to produce graduates who understand the impact of buildings on the environment and the role buildings play in a sustainable society; they are then able to assess developments in services design with the aim of optimising the operation of buildings and minimising their environmental impact. This knowledge and skills base is now demanded increasingly by employers, but is not generally taught at undergraduate level, and this MSc/Diploma course aims to bridge that gap. Employment prospects are good and market research suggests that these graduates will be highly demanded by industry.
The School of the Built Environment’s on-going commitment to high quality and innovative research has been recognised with a high ranking in the last two UK Government Research Assessment Exercises (RAE). We are one of only seven built environment Schools in the UK, and the only one in Scotland to receive an RAE Grade 5 rating in both 1996 and 2001. With a high proportion of the staff research-active, researchers and postgraduate students benefit from access to extensive laboratory and computing facilities. These include:
* acoustic reverberant, anechoic and sound transmission facilities
* thermal transmission facilities
* drainage network testing facilities
* siphonic roof drainage testing facilities
* building services laboratory
* materials testing facilities
* UK’s third largest dry gas wind tunnel and a rotating house used for wind and lighting studies
* a 12m by 12.4m wave basin with a depth of 3m (and a 5m deep pit)
* full-scale testing rigs for offshore pipelines
* well-equipped structures, soils and geomaterials laboratories
* laser measurement of fluid flow
* a well-equipped hydraulics laboratory with two sediment transport flumes
* corrosion monitoring facilities
* workstations for modelling large scale structural, geotechnical and hydrodynamic behaviour
* GIS computing laboratory
In addition we have excellent library facilities.
The list below shows the core and elective modules possible on this course. Four modules are taken in each semester by full time students. This reduces to a maximum of two for part-time or distance learning students. Remember that six modules are required for the PG Certificate and eight modules for the Diploma and MSc.
Core Modules
Semester 1
* Building Acoustics
* Energy Studies
Semester 2
* Air Conditioning
* Lighting
* Services and Environment
* Thermofluids 2
Elective Modules
Semester 1
* Construction Technology
* Electrics
* Thermofluids 1
Semester 2
* Building Services in Historic Buildings
