Innovation in teaching and learning methods: Integrating sustainability subjects in the architectural design process (original) (raw)
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CHANGING ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION FOR REACHING SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISCUSSION
SPATIUM, 2013
This paper discusses potential changes for the architectural education in response to rapid environmental, economic and socio-political situations, globally and locally. Unpredictability and complexity of those changes on one side and increasing exclusion of architects in urban developments on the other side, are forcing us to rethink the role and purpose of architects and architecture in society in general. We started to question methodology and the substance of architectural education which would create professional architects that would be able to deliver and implement creative sustainable solutions. It is evident that the need for the sustainable architectural design, sensitive to environment and energy issues, has reached a critical level in both public and professional circles. However, the issue of social sensibility is still not adequately taken into consideration by professionals. We argue that it is a consequence of archaic academic curricula which must be changed in order to support a paradigm shift. This change would be from the " architect provider " to the " architect enabler ". As a result of this issue, we introduce a new educational methodology to support: (1) building student's capacity for being engaged in collaborative design process, and (2) building bridges between the different disciplines in order to reach integral education.
Hands-On: Sustainable Approach in Architectural Education
IOP conference series, 2019
Human activity, including resource depletion, pollution and waste production, has a negative influence on the natural environment. Building industry is one of the major causes of the situation. It is therefore essential to change the approach to building design in order to lessen the impact of human activity on the environment. Architects are still not properly prepared for this change. This is caused by the education they receive in the traditional studio-based teaching process. In contrast to engineering disciplines, the student of architecture is able to look at the issue of designing in a holistic way. However, he is overwhelmed by a large number of topics and subjects that must be addressed. The issue of "sustainability" thus often gets on the edge of his interest. As part of the studio teaching at the Faculty of Architecture of CTU, we are looking for methods to naturally integrate sustainable thinking into the architectural concept already in the early stages of the design. The paper focuses on the so-called design-build projects, as one of the paths that lead to an integral design and an effective way of implementing sustainable design into the architectural concept.
Journal of Green Building, 2019
Design is a structured process or a tactical guideline to accomplish a unique expectation of a product, while a design studio is the environment where students are taught the skills to design the product, which may be a building. Hence, the design studio course is the most important component of the architectural education curriculum; it is where the students get an opportunity to apply the theoretical knowledge gained through lecture-based courses. Yet most theory is not put into practice; consequently, the principles of sustainable design solutions are developed. There is an urgent need to teach future architects how to integrate sustainable design principles into their projects in order to prevent or mitigate environmental degradation due to the negative impacts of building projects. This experimental study initiated a new design studio pedagogy and a novel teaching structure for integrating sustainability principles into the architectural design projects of 3rd year students. It...
Shaping Sustainability in Architectural Education: The Integrated Design as a Tool
Journal of Design Studio
Climate change is bringing new challenges for architectural education and calls for a new paradigm in the way we teach architecture and urban design. Therefore, a shift has become crucial to enhance the implementation of sustainability within university programs. This paper is, an experimental study taking place, in the first year of master's degree in civil engineering and architecture at the University of Liège, and within the context of an integrated design. The interconnection between design studio and theoretical course on sustainability allows students to develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of sustainability issues by integrating the environmental quality of the building into their designs. During this studio, and to respond to their architectural choices, several tools are applied within the design process to help students develop their building designs, such as interdisciplinary contributions. Our study is constituted of data collected via questionnaires and int...
Education In Sustainable Architecture for the FutureFor
gin.confex.com
The paper shortly presents a teaching method, the Integrated Design Process (IDP), used for the Architecture specialization at Architecture & Design in the problem based learning environment at Aalborg University (AAU). It also explains the difference between this approach and traditional design approaches to buildings. When using this IDP method designing sustainable buildings we can lower the energy use in the building with a considerable amount. The IDP focuses on combining the architectural approach with engineering parameters in order to achieve a more inter-disciplinary and holistic approach to environmental sustainable architecture. The goal is to reduce the use of energy for heating and cooling and thereby bringing down the emission of CO 2 by reducing the amount of fossil fuel consumed by the built environment, addressing this issue already in the early stages of the design process. Since 2005 the Master of Science education in engineering with specialization in Architecture has been offered in English at AAU enabling foreign students to participate in the master program. The education has lecturers from architecture and design and civil engineering. Graduates from AAU are highly valued in industry, typically because their expertise in group work and their focus on problem-solving in context are well developed compared to graduates from traditional engineering and architecture programs. The students are trained in inter-disciplinary problem solving and how to build low energy buildings. The paper also includes a case of a housing proposal in Environmental Sustainable Architecture from the master program and discusses barriers and benefits from that approach.
2016
The new generation of architects will have to face an inconvenient situation caused by overall resource depletion. It is inevitable that nurturing them will require a more rigorous approach regarding the concept of sustainability than in the past. This article aims to present new approaches and methods of teaching an architectural design studio for the Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) programme at Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand, which have been created according to the concept of sustainable education. Knowledge and skills on sustainability and architecture are additionally taught through several specially prepared workshops. The activities have been designed to enforce self-awareness, self-evaluation and self-criticism in order to reform and transform them towards sustainable design.
Teaching Architectural Design through Creative Practices
METU JFA I METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, 2019
This article provides investigation details of teaching architectural design as a fundamental part of the architectural discipline. This line of research delves into learning about the most creative action of the architectural production process, design, taking into account that creativity must be complemented by disciplinary training that combines both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Considering these observations, this text provides information about the experience accomplished by four teachers from the School of Architecture of the Universitat Politècnica de València (ETSA-UPV) on the subject of Design Studio 1 for the first-year studies. The propaedeutic character of this subject shows additional difficulties given the complexity of introducing the students into the field of architectural design. The article begins with a description of the historical background of teaching architecture, contextualizing the object of study and also the different processes used as reference during the accomplishment of the teaching experience. The second section includes a description of basic methodology of the specific case of the first-year subject taught in the ETSA-UPV. It provides analysis of its evolution, detection of the problems and suggested variations of the learning method in order to improve the final results. The canonical teaching method is based on a linear process starting with the theory, followed by architectural analysis, finishing with project synthesis, which generates important doubts for the first-year students when implementing the theory in the project phase. Therefore, resuming the cycle of circular learning studied by David Kolb, several creative practices have been introduced into the subject, where the order of the stages depends on the particular characteristics of each individual and learning takes place by combining practices of perception and comprehension. Keeping in mind the main goal of the new teaching approach, the third part of the text includes a description of several activities. They are designed using a methodology capable to promote the transfer of knowledge between the analysis phase and the project phase. Creative practices are based on the learning by doing process, where reflection, conceptualization and experimentation are carried out with two basic tools: hand drawing and the three-dimensional model. With the practices and these two manual tools we seek a triple objective for students: to acquire a greater creative capacity, to develop spatial vision and to recognize how materiality affects the definition and perception of space. The methodology of the practices includes thinking with the hands, folding the space, inhabiting the space and building the space, and it is compared to the results obtained during the academic year 2017-2018. Finally, these results, together with the surveys completed by the students, lead to following conclusions: introducing creative activities in the first year of architectural design has shown a substantial improvement of the work carried out by students and has allowed settling the acquired theoretical knowledge. It helps to understand it not only as concepts that can be observed and analysed in reality, but also as tools of the creative process itself. On the one hand, the construction of models supports intuitive learning, allowing the students to directly recognize the consequences of their actions during the constructive process and its implications in the final result. On the other hand, the activities developed using hand drawing techniques confirm the value of the drawn plans as a tool to define the results and verify their correctness. Experiencing architecture with the hands implicitly involves a work of reflection through which the students are able to understand that space is the actual key element of the architectural project.
SHS Web of Conferences, 2016
Sustainable development has been approved by many experts as the only suitable model for the growth of the next generation. Education has a valuable role to distribute sustainable approach to all subject fields like architecture. Sustainable development is gaining a central position in the conceptual framework of architectural education in universities. Universities are complex organizations that are frequently quite stable in the short term, but inevitably evolving over the longer term in response to changes in the societies. At the moment, there are various debates for changing non-renewable with more renewable and efficient architectural design strategies. Architectural Design has always attempted to merge the practicalities of engineering, technology, culture, and economy with the subtle elements of interface, social concerns and aesthetic desire. It has a crucial place for to engage with the sustainable strategies that provide countless environmental, economic, community, health and safety benefits. The education of the students about opportunities, risks, benefits and scientific knowledge of sustainable approach provide valuable contribution towards integral relationships. The theory lessons concentrate mainly on climate, thermal comfort, materials, and optimization of performance, environment and energy fields. Curriculum, knowledge and the teaching methods are connected with each other, especially on the search for the innovative ideas. As innovative ideas emerge, data available for the design process increases. However, such new data cannot be integrated to the design education as desired by current conventional teaching methods in a reliable context. At some points, this situation inhibits the creation of innovative ideas in architectural design. In order to acquire such data and to flourish a sustainable society accordingly, fast and efficient access to knowledge databases is needed. In this study, the research evaluates the current architectural education in Yasar University and suggests a proposal for the integration of theoretical courses and design studio under Sustainable Development.
Sustainability in Urban and Architectural Design. Teaching Future Architects
Proceedings of the conference specialized in Sustainable Architecture titled as: The SB13 International Conference “SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS CONFERENCE” CAIRO, EGYPT SB13 Cairo is part of the Regional Sustainable Building (SB) conference series Hosted by: Ain Shams University – Department of Urban Planning, the German University in Cairo – Architecture and Urban Design, together with the international partner the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart The conference site: http://www.sb13-cairo.com/ Conference Proceedings available at: ISBN 978-3-8440-2366-4 ISSN 0945-067X Sustainability is a growing trend within the field of urban and architectural design. It is currently the most pressing and challenging agenda facing international architectural education. In recent years, the profession of sustainable architecture design in Egypt has evolved, but its educational process, especially in national (state) architectural institutions, has been slow to respond to this alteration. Unfortunately, most national Egyptian architectural institutions continue to propagate old teaching methodologies that have sustained their particular dogmas for decades, while many innovative learning ideas and strategies for teaching the sustainable architectural curriculum are available today. Few researches have been made in this aspect. The research aims at proposing new teaching strategies for urban and architectural design faculties (especially architectural institutions with limited resources) in order to overcome problems and limitations of sustainable design education in Egypt. The study adopted a methodology, which directly corresponded to the objective stated. The methodology is based on analysing existing problems and limitations in sustainable design education in Egypt as well as determining basic sustainability principles to be embedded within the architectural design curriculum. Parallel, an exploration of some new and old (yet effective) architectural teaching methodologies and learning experiences is done. A link is then drawn between the existing teaching problems in architecture institutions, with limited resources and large number of students, and corresponding teaching strategies. Some international teaching examples are presented as well as the author's personal teaching experiences in sustainable design's learning tools, exercises, games and studio projects.
Updating the ideas that shape our buildings: teaching design with sustainability in mind
Ideas that shaped buildings were based on principles and specific design processes. Traditional architectural education focuses on the process across the design studio sequences, whilst engineering training usually concentrates on applied sciences principles. Synthesis of these two approaches is both the major goal and challenge. The ideas that shaped architecture were mainly formal aesthetic, functional, technical and economic aspects of buildings. Since the 1970s, the desire to apply scientific methods and concerns for users, have sought to improve both architectural design and education. Engineering education, on the other hand, has greatly benefited from the development of IT instruments, equipment and software, that indeed facilitate calculations but introduce new variables and risks connected to the so called "black box syndrome". New ideas have come to the forefront, such as: 1) innovation, 2) environmental comfort; 3) psychology; 4) urban impacts, 5) larger insertion of computer aided design tools and foremost 6) sustainability. This paper addresses some related questions: Has the accumulated knowledge on the creative process been applied in architecture and engineering formal education? Does user comfort deeply permeate design proposals? Must designers be made more accountable for their action? Can computers participate more effectively in the design process and its teaching? What kind of changes is needed in design education? Is the concept of sustainability clear in its application to building design? Reflexion on these questions indicates that the implementation of "green building design" cannot be simply prescriptive or based on a traditional design process with its distinct phases of: analysis, synthesis, evaluation and definition. There is a need to deepen the conceptual knowledge of designers of the first principles of sustainability. New team compositions are necessary to share the same knowledge and achieve what is termed collective intelligence. The information transfer rate must be rapid. Education should focus on the strategic, tactical and operational management of a sustainable building design process. Productivity and a recognized quality of sustainable solutions are among the questions that remain and should be studied in professional practice and in formal design education. Index Terms design and engineering education, sustainability, building design.