Structures and the Urban Environment

Description of Course Goals and Curriculum

CEE 262B/ARC 262B/URB 262/ART 262B/ EGR 262B, Structures and the Urban Environment, is a spring course that fulfills the STL distribution requirement (OR LA, although this description pertains to the STL version). Taught by CEE Professor Maria Garlock, the weekly course schedule breaks down into two 50-minute lectures and one three-hour lab, where you’ll explore and apply lecture concepts in greater depth. The weekly workload consists of a manageable reading assignment from three strong, easily comprehensible texts, a problem set, and a biweekly lab report. In addition to the weekly work, there is a midterm and final exam for this course that will cover material from the readings, problem sets, and labs, so it’s important to properly manage your notes over the course of the semester to better prepare for these exams.

Learning From Classroom Instruction

Lectures coincide with the assigned reading content, and Professor Garlock will explore different works of structural engineering and structural art in terms of the class’s three major evaluation methods—efficiency, elegance, and economy (also known as the “The 3 E’s). Professor Garlock’s PowerPoints are well organized and concise, making them a great review tool for the exams, and she’ll fill class time appropriately with tangible demonstrations to keep you engaged and help you digest the material. She will occasionally bring in outside lecturers, and although you might not be directly tested on the content of these guest presentations, the speakers are all very engaging and present nuanced perspectives on commonplace engineering feats like the Freedom Tower, so it is to your own personal advantage to pay attention to these lectures as well. The organization of lab time switches biweekly between a precept/post-lab review and the conducting of the experiment. Generally speaking, class is evaluation-based, problem sets are calculation-based, and lab is experiment-based and teamwork-based

Learning For and From Assignments

Problem sets are self-taught with the provided structural studies on Blackboard, and the sets’ content is primarily mathematical and partly theoretical, as you learn to calculate benchmarks to evaluate the three E’s. The majority of time spent on this course will be outside of class reading the structural studies and completing problem sets and lab reports. However, your experience in this class will be much easier and greatly enriched if you really engage yourself in the lab component in addition to paying attention in lecture. One of the most pressing challenges of this course is the tackling the exams where you’re asked to apply the self-taught knowledge from the structural studies and problem sets and recall your attention to detail from lecture.

External Resources

What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection