The Joint Schools of the Built Environment for the University of Plymouth Part 2 Project 2000 Laurence Rumble University of Plymouth | UK Project Description: A Joint School of the Built Environment (a combined school of civil engineering and architecture) on the University of Plymouth campus.Campus strategy: The scheme relocates the campus visitors' entrance next to the conference facilities, combining it with the main pedestrian approach. The new building creates a formal piazza and reinforces the university's edge. Vehicular circulation is ratioalised and other parts of the campus are opened for development.Building Strategy: A courtyard design produces a compact building that can be almost all naturally lit, including its basement. The courtyard becomes a space in which parties can be held and temporary structures can be built. The functions of the building are separated into different blocks joined by the main gallery - the heart of the building.Energy Strategy: Massed to respond to the existing street scale and to allow as much winter sunlight and solar energy into the building as possible. Occupancy gains, incidental lighting and heat exchangers remove the need for any heating plant. The stair ventilation towers, with solar and wind assisted extracts, keep the building cool in the summer. The building has been modeled with Thermal Analysis Software to prove that the energy stategy works. We run three Studios in our Diploma School, concentrating on three agendas: Zen and Zeitgeist, People Place and Architecture, and Sustainability and Energy. These broadly, but not exclusively, concentrate on the spiritual, social, and technological aspects of architecture respectively. Most students stay in their studio for both years. Laurence worked in my Sustainability and Energy Studio, in which students are encouraged to not only produce a fine piece of design work, but to be able to 'prove' it in terms of what we call 'zero energy' (meaning zero energy for heating cooling and ventilation). Laurence's work on a new School of Architecture and Engineering (a real project I am glad to say) not only demonstrated exceptional fluency with architectural form and grammar. He also modelled the whole building on TAS to simulate its thermal performance, proving its energy credentials, and his own capability with a difficult thermal computer simulation programme, demonstrating its passive comfort capability.