Infrastructure System Design

The design of infrastructure systems can have significant positive and negative environmental impacts. Across its construction, operation and retirement, contemporary infrastructure must be designed to consider the environment, not just on a local scale but nationally and internationally. This course will consider the impacts of design decisions on large- and small-scale infrastructure across all stages of the life-cycle. Infrastructure design to support significant transitions such as zero-carbon, -emissions, and -waste will be explored along with design can build resilience to external shocks for infrastructure. Case studies across key sectors including energy, waste, transport and buildings in urban and rural settings will be used to investigate the application of design principles and the impacts of decisions. Various design approaches will be introduced to explore the role of design and decision-making to ensure positive environmental impacts from infrastructure systems. These include sustainable infrastructure design, green building design, cradle-to-cradle design, bio-mimicry, regenerative design, and design with country. This course will provide an important focus on indigenous perspectives and contributions to this field of study. Students will be able to draw on course materials that provide diverse gender, cultural, and geographical perspectives on these topics.