Current architecture studios are missing an important phase in the education process, which is constructing the students’ conceptual ideas on a real physical scale. The design-build approach enables the students to test their ideas, theories, material selection, construction methods, environmental constraints, simulation results, level of space functionality and other important aspects when used by real target clients in an existing context. This paper aims to highlight the importance of using the design-build method through discussing a design project case study carried out by the Masters of Architecture design programme students at Beirut Arab University, who have built prototype units for refugees on a 1:1 scale.

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Solid waste management plans are usually well applied in developed countries, where each country has its unique policy convenient to its urban system. In Lebanon, the problem of solid waste has always been a concern, but the problem escalated dramatically in recent years in different regions in Lebanon with a varying impact on the health of inhabitants and to the environment. There are many reasons that lead to this escalation, one being the consumption‐based lifestyle of the population with little knowledge of how individuals can be part of the solution. This research investigates the lifestyle and the awareness level of residents in Tripoli, Lebanon to understand their effect on solid waste accumulation in the city. The area of study is within Al Maarad region, inhabited by middle to high class population with university level education. The research shows the observation results of the solid waste collection patterns in the selected region, along with a questionnaire that tests the level of awareness of the population sample. The outcome of the observation and the responses of the responding sample showed that the people are aware that their lifestyle is a major cause in the waste accumulation, but they lack the ideas or incentives for contributing to the solution. The people are willing to be part of solving the solid waste crisis with a proper management plan.

Energy performance of a building is one of the main features to be assessed and optimized in sustainable building designs. While progress in reducing the operating energy is being achieved, the embodied energy remains somewhat high. The building industry is currently using around 40-50% of global raw material that is responsible for the 40-45% of the total worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.Embodied energy and carbon calculations are rather complex since they are related to different combinations of material whether in the structure or the finishing material. Reducing the embodied energy can be done by either varying the structural design, increasing the service of the building, or using recycled material. Conventionally, these calculations are not strictly part of the designer's work during the conceptual design phase; hence, if done, they are calculated during the design evaluation phase when the design decisions have been already set, and change in design decisions is not easy. Under most circumstances, the environmental impact assessment of designs was performed by sustainability consultants who may not be present in many projects. It is better to bring the embodied energy calculations to the conceptual design phase so both the architect and the structural engineer can make informed design decisions for a more sustainable building. Many organizations are using in-house tools to make these calculations, but the tools used are not flexible enough to be adopted by a wide variety of users. A better way is to use the functionality of Building Information Modelling (BIM) software by developing plug-in tools that are simple to use in early stages of conceptual design. This paper explores two existing plug-ins that function with Rhinoceros (Rhino) and Grasshopper (GH) software, where they define a set of parameters to evaluate the embodied energy in the structure of the building. The aim of this paper is to develop a tool that can be used more easily and that adds to the existing parameters to give a more accurate estimation of the building's embodied energy during the conceptual design stage. For this purpose, a comparative analysis will be performed of both plug-ins to determine their best features and to add the missing components concerning the embodied energy of finishing material. The proposed tool will be developed using visual basic scripting language to be used with Rhino and GH. Finally, the prototype will be open sourced for testing and verification while conclusions concerning the limitations and future development opportunities will be discussed.