Modern buildings may not be better than ancient ones. In July 2012, Beijing was hit by the biggest downpour in 61 years. Most of central Beijing suffered from serious flooding up to 3 metres. However, the Forbidden City, which was built more than 500 years ago locating at the heart of Beijing, remained dry. This course will introduce the ingenious technology of ancient Chinese architecture from a building services point of view. The intelligence of ancient Chinese applied in indoor air quality with adequate natural ventilation, thermal and visual comfort, drainage, acoustics, daylighting utilization and fire protection will be discussed with examples such as the Forbidden City.

By learning the ancient architecture, this course aims to help students to set up a comprehensive criteria system to appreciate current architecture. By using individual criteria system, students will be able to evaluate architecture from the perspectives of function, culture, geography, politics and social issues, combing their own professional disciplines.

The knowledge consists of three sections, which is delivered by using general concepts, theories, cases, and videos. At the end of learning, students will present posters to generalize the knowledge into practical case analysis.