ARCH1161 Architectural Science and Building Environment Assessment 1 T2, 2025 | UNSW

ARCH1161 Assessment 1: Home Audit

ARCH1161 Assessment Description 

This assignment requires you to evaluate the environmental performance of your home, focusing on how effectively it responds to the local climate. Through climate analysis, indoor environmental assessment, and solar access evaluation, you will gain insight into how architectural design engages with the local environmental conditions. The goal is to identify the building's strengths and weaknesses in responding to climate and to provide a reflective analysis. This task develops core skills in environmental assessment that are applicable at various scales, from a single room to an entire city, and supports your understanding of related assessments on sustainable and climate-responsive design strategies. 

ARCH1161  Course Learning Outcomes Assessed 

• CLO1: Assess the climatic factors influencing the thermal comfort of domestic architecture.
• CLO3: Apply strategies, systems and technologies to enhance the environmental performance and thermal comfort of domestic architecture. 

ARCH1161 Relevance 

The relevance of this assessment task lies in its hands-on application of climate-responsive design principles to a real-world context by evaluating your own home. By evaluating how a building performs within its local climate, you develop practical skills in environmental assessment that are fundamental to sustainable architectural practice. This task encourages the use of climate analysis techniques and promotes critical thinking about design decisions related to resource efficiency, occupant comfort, and environmental integration. The knowledge gained extends beyond this project, forming a strong foundation for future work in architecture, urban planning, and environmental design across a range of scales. 

ARCH1161 How to complete the Assessment: 

Your home could be a stand-alone house, an apartment, a terrace house, etc. If you choose to study an apartment, we advise you to include at least 60m² of floor area in your drawings and analysis, where possible. This may require you to include some of the communal corridor space, adjacent rooms, or a nearby communal kitchen in your analysis. This can be discussed with your tutors in the tutorial sessions.

There are five components in this Assessment: 

1. Document the site and your home 

a. Site plan from Google Maps, or equivalent. Using screen captures or similar, capture an aerial view of your home in the context of its surroundings (including buildings, streets, trees, landmarks, etc.)

• Highlight your lot and include a north point. Analyse the site for solar access, shadows from nearby buildings, and wind patterns. 

b. Floor Plans (1:100 - ground floor and other levels as required) Create a floor plan of your home, either hand-drawn or using digital tools. The drawing(s) must include the following:

• Drawing conventions: North point, scale bar, dimensions, room names, etc 
• Wall thicknesses (identify materials) •Door and window openings (types of windows)
• Floor finishes (annotation, or hatching) •Verandahs, patios, staircases 

c. Take photos of facades (or sketch if not possible to take photos). Photograph each façade (front, rear, and sides) to capture the building's form, orientation, and window distribution. 

• You can annotate on the photograph to highlight building features such as materials and other design features. (Note:
• You will prepare floor plan(s) and take photos to communicate the environmental impacts on your home.
• You can annotate the drawings and photos to highlight how the design responds to the local climate or lack of it.) 

d. Prepare an inventory of building materials. Record the area/ volume of the primary construction materials used in walls, roof, flooring, insulation (if present), windows and doors. Calculate thermal properties of building elements where applicable (e.g., R-values or U-values). 

2. Climate analysis and developing design strategies. Conduct a climate analysis of your suburb and develop design strategies based on your findings. Outline approaches for building orientation/ function placement and passive design measures (such as maximising or minimising solar heat gain, ventilation, shading, and material selection). Include any other relevant considerations to support a climate-responsive design. 

3. Solar analysis using a digital model. Create a simple block model of your home showing the building envelope, including walls, windows, roof, balcony, and window shading devices if available. Using the 3d sun-path app, analyse the solar exposure on walls and windows in different orientations during cool and warm periods. 

4. Environmental performance of the dwelling. Evaluate the dwelling's environmental performance using climate design strategies, solar analysis, room comfort assessment, and energy consumption (bill) data.

• Critique the design of the dwelling based on the climate design strategies (particularly solar and wind access) 
• Complete comfort assessments (subjective evaluation) in two different rooms or at two different times if you do not have access to more than one room.
• Determine your home's energy consumption and explore energy use variations in different seasons.