Faculty of Engineering

North Americans spend more than 90% of their lives inside buildings. During this time their productivity and quality of life are directly affected by the nature of the enclosed environment. Buildings also represent one of the largest components of any industrialized country's capital wealth. The resources used and the contaminants released by the construction and operation of buildings are now widely understood to have widespread impact on the environment and the economy. Future buildings will need to be more energy efficient, durable, sustainable, low maintenance, and flexible than existing buildings. Today there already exists an enormous portfolio of buildings that require repair, renovation, and rehabilitation. Managing, repairing, replacing, and retrofitting existing buildings will become an increasingly important activity in the future.

There is a pressing need to support this massive and changing industry with the proper technical knowledge and management skills. The Architectural Engineering curriculum is designed to address this need by providing the necessary fundamentals of mathematics and the natural sciences, as well as to provide perspectives from the fields of the social sciences and humanities.

Architectural Engineering has “Design from Day One” as its mantra. A common Architectural Engineering class held in a studio setting is the core of each term and knits together issues such as design, aesthetics, culture, environment, and professionalism in the context of engineered buildings. A studio teaching experience, common in design-centric plans such as architecture and industrial design, allows for enhanced peer-learning, better collaborative work, inspiration from surroundings, rapid modelling and prototyping, while encouraging hands-on investigations and exploration. Another of the distinctive features of the curriculum is its 3A and 3B academic terms, during which students take their classes at the University of Waterloo Cambridge campus, immersed in the School of Architecture, working alongside architecture students.

Architectural Engineering is designed to produce graduates with broad, yet technically deep, skills capable of responding to the unique and emerging challenges currently confronting the building industry. Exposing graduates to a world of design excellence through this unique academic plan will ensure that the skills taught will be used to develop the best solutions, while teaching communication in multiple media will guarantee that these solutions are understood and supported by all of the stakeholders in the building industry. The curriculum considers sustainability and environmental concerns of the built environment to be a fundamental part of all engineering design. As such, sustainability is not taught as a separate course, but is pervasive through all design decisions and an input or constraint to all relevant analysis.

Academic Curriculum

The following curriculum is applicable to students entering Architectural Engineering in the fall 2019 term. Note that a total of two approved Complementary Studies Electives (CSE), in addition to ENGL 191/SPCOM 191, AE 101, AE 392, and AE 491, and eight approved Technical Electives (TE) must be completed as detailed in the following sections.

Term 1A (Fall)

AE 100 Concepts Studio
AE 101 History of the Built Environment (List C-Humanities and Social Sciences CSE)
AE 104 Mechanics 1
AE 115 Linear Algebra
CHE 102 Chemistry for Engineers
MATH 116 Calculus 1 for Engineering

Term 1B (Spring)

AE 105 Mechanics 2
AE 121 Computational Methods
AE 125 Architectural Graphics Studio
GENE 123 Electrical Circuits and Instrumentation
MATH 118 Calculus 2 for Engineering

Term 2A (Winter)

Term 2B (Fall)

Term 3A (Spring)

Term 3B (Winter)

Term 4A (Spring)

Term 4B (Winter)

Electives

Students are responsible for selecting their own combination of electives, in keeping with the ultimate career objectives after graduation. The combination must satisfy the requirements of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). This includes having to meet minimum requirements in:

• Mathematical Foundations
• Natural Sciences
• Engineering Sciences
• Engineering Design
• Complementary Studies

Technical Electives

Students are required to complete eight technical elective (TE) courses within the following requirements:

1. At least three TEs must be from List A (Architectural Engineering Technical Electives)
2. At least two TEs must be from List B (Engineering Design Intensive Technical Electives)
3. At least one TE must be from List D (Natural Science Technical Electives)

Up to two TEs may be technical courses from other plans; such courses must have sufficiently advanced technical content to be allowed, and will be counted as List B TEs. Further information is available from the CEE Undergraduate Office or CEE website. Some courses of interest may require prerequisite knowledge that is not part of the core curriculum in Architectural Engineering. Students may require extra courses or may need to seek enrolment approval from the course professor if the prerequisites have not been satisfied.

The Technical Elective Lists for Architectural Engineering are provided below. Note that the offering of these courses is contingent upon sufficient demand and/or available teaching resources. There may be courses added and changes made to the content, term of offering, or meet times from what is listed below. Further information is available from the CEE Undergraduate Office or CEE website.

Key for List A, B, and C:

Term courses are offered: F=Fall term, W=Winter term, S=Spring term

List A - Architectural Engineering Technical Electives

List B - Engineering Design Intensive Technical Electives

List C - Engineering Technical Electives

List D - Natural Science Technical Electives

BIOL 130 Introductory Cell Biology
BIOL 150 Organismal and Evolutionary Ecology
BIOL 240 Fundamentals of Microbiology
BIOL 273 Principles of Human Physiology 1
CHE 161 Engineering Biology
CHEM 209 Introductory Spectroscopy and Structure
CHEM 262 Organic Chemistry for Engineering
EARTH 221 Geochemistry 1
EARTH 270 Disasters and Natural Hazards
EARTH 281 Geological Impacts on Human Health
ENVS 200 Field Ecology
KIN 100 Human Anatomy: Limbs and Trunk
SCI 207 Physics, the Universe, and Everything
SCI 238 Introductory Astronomy

Complementary Studies Electives

• One course from List A - Impact Courses
• One course from List C - Humanities and Social Sciences Courses

Faculty Options

Management Sciences Option

Accelerated Master's Program in Engineering