Environmental Technologies in Buildings
MIT OpenCourseWare's Environmental Technologies in Buildings covers the thermal, luminous, and acoustic behavior of buildings, starting from the underlying physics of heat transfer, daylighting, and sound propagation. Students learn analysis techniques for evaluating indoor comfort and apply them to case studies that examine how energy, light, and sound shape architectural design decisions. The course materials include lecture notes, problem sets, and design exercises drawn from MIT's architecture curriculum, with an emphasis on connecting scientific principles to real building performance. No enrollment fee or certificate is offered; materials are published freely under MIT's OpenCourseWare license for self-study. The course suits students interested in building science, sustainable design, or the engineering side of architecture, and assumes some background in basic physics and quantitative reasoning.