"What’s Next for Architectural History? Sustainability and the Architectural History Survey," Where Do You Stand: The 99th Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Montréal, Canada, March 3–6, 2011. (original) (raw)

Design for the Ecological Age: Rethinking the Role of Sustainability in Architectural Education

Journal of Architectural Education, 2013

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Reinterpreting Architectural Education: Exploring Methods for Incorporating Sustainability Themes

Arcc Conference Repository, 2014

This paper explores prospective means of incorporating sustainability and green building themes into formal architectural education. By unpacking and understanding the most common and perceived successful methods of including these themes in curriculum, suggestions can be made to steer and capitalize on the effective integration of sustainability and green building topics within the framework of architectural education.

Guilty by Association: Addressing Sustainability in Architecture Education

International Journal of Environmental Science & Sustainable Development, 2020

Despite the growing interest in sustainability, negative associations of this term with naïve discourses, green-washing, or low-quality design are still common within some areas in the discipline of architecture. Through a literature review and an examination of the programs of the top ten architecture schools, this article explores the causes and implications of this slight but persistent discredit of sustainability in the field of architecture. The article discusses how some of the perceived downsides of sustainability are reflected on the university curricula, as the fragmented understanding of environmental problems or the overly technical approach to their solution within technology and design. The discussion also addresses the improvements brought by recent multidisciplinary explorations of environmental issues made within the architectural humanities, that provide students a comprehensive historical, social, and cultural understanding of the issue.

Sustainability and The Architectural History Survey

Architecture and urbanism have engaged sustainability as an action-oriented objective through the practice of green design and sustainable urbanism, which have several iterations. Architectural history has yet to produce a significant body of work in response to environmental discourses that are currently dominated by sustainability. The architectural history survey – when taught from an environmental history perspective – can serve the purpose of understanding not just sustainability, but the relationship of architecture and urbanism to the environment through history. I address the question, how can sustainability, a 1980s paradigm, be addressed in the teaching of the architectural history survey that ranges from prehistory to contemporary times? Sustainability is a dominant contemporary paradigm of environmentalism produced through economic development discourses of environmental management. I argue that the architectural history survey can provide opportunities to engage environmental histories in unearthing and disseminating ecological histories of architecture and urbanism. The architectural history survey – when taught from an environmental history perspective – can serve the purpose of understanding the environmental discourses that have informed sustainability historically, across different times and cultures. I propose that teaching architectural history within the larger field of environmental history is one way through which sustainability, as an environmental management paradigm, can be grasped, defined, and critiqued. Environmental history is one of the fastest growing fields of history, and is not a subdiscipline of history but a metadiscipline, given its scope and inclusivity. Writing architectural histories within the metadiscipline of environmental history is emerging as a new way of producing architectural histories. The architectural history survey taught from an environmental history perspective can contribute to an understanding of fundamental concepts about architecture and cities within the environmental discourse and therefore position the idea of sustainability historically.

From Words to Action: Incorporation of Sustainability in Architectural Education

Schools of architecture play a major role in motivating and inspiring students to gain competencies in sustainability through pedagogical practices. However, at the operational level, the incorporation of sustainability within architectural programmes needs to be integrated into both the curricula and teaching methods. There are few studies on how architectural programmes' curricula and pedagogical practices can be institutionally articulated, as well as on how the required coherency among components can be empowered operationally. Since the interrelation of the courses form the structure of the curricula and provide certain inputs for the students' knowledge and skill, any operational risk can harm the quality assurance. Therefore, an operational framework aimed for a coordinated incorporation of sustainability in architectural programmes is required. In order to achieve this, scrutinising substantial equivalence programmes could provide constructive outcomes for the improvement of the existing programmes and future experiences for students. In order to determine the articulation of sustainability issues in architectural education, in this research, a recently accredited school in the Eastern Mediterranean region was chosen as a case study. The study includes an analysis of course descriptions, teaching methods, and teacher and student perceptions about the incorporation of sustainability into the courses. Also, jury sessions' evaluation criteria are assessed as a pedagogical tool. Then, the horizontal and vertical articulation of courses within the curricula and their coordination were studied accordingly. The findings reveal that horizontal and vertical relations between different course types that share similar learning objectives are very important. However, this relation and continuum should be perceivable by students, tutors, and the relevant stakeholders; otherwise, any attempt would remain superficial. Accordingly, the association of sustainability with pre-defined evaluation criteria for grading is very important. The methodological tools and lessons from this study can assist young architecture programmes with the incorporation of sustainability into their programme without changing its spirit, through the coordination of courses within curricula and adopted pedagogical tools.

Addressing sustainability in architectural education from urban to building scale: Reflections on the environmental design studio

2013

Over the past decade, new approaches have emerged to renewable energy education to address the needs for sustainable energy supply systems. In addition, unlike conventional architectural education, which does not cover renewable energy issues in its curriculum, these days, renewable energy education has an identity of its own within the discipline of architecture. The fluid and multi-layered structure of the environment requires a broader perspective with a more expanded, cross-boundary knowledge and skills. In addition, a set of academic obstacles impeding the development of sustainable architectural education is explored such as ambiguous definitions and lack of experts in this field. This paper mainly concentrates on the structure of architectural studies and the significance of environmental design. The study presents a descriptive reading through the experiences in the environmental design studio in the Architecture Department-Epoka University, and in this sense evaluates the o...

Historical and Sustainable Sensibilities: A Socio-Cultural Speculation within Architectural Education

Although sustainability is more of a constant inquiry rather than a definition, it can be reassuringly projected as the ability and the potential of all species and physical environments (manmade and natural) to survive. Sustainability’s accountability to survival into the future is intrinsically linked to the longevity of cultural architectural and urban artifacts that range from historic buildings to everyday spaces that are somehow significant to social relations. The paper is drawn from a study that explores how architectural studio participants approach, understand, interpret and apply values of preservation when designing for culturally sensitive areas, and while employing the principles of sustainable design. Since it is broadly stipulated that studio participants engage in processes and express notions of cultural heritage in ways that respond to a variety of stimuli, the study examines the contemporary cultural subtexts, as well as the role of architectural education and idiosyncratic sensibilities. Through a range of studio participants’ projects set in historical buildings and in cultural and traditional neighborhoods, the study aims to detect and codify trends and iterative courses that inform the decision-making process. Design projects considered include contemporary retrofits in interstitial spaces, elevated structures embracing historic structures, industrial reuse and others. Since the meaning and practice of sustainability are key components to the architectural education of the participants whose work is examined, the paper also explores the theoretical underpinning that frames an understanding of sustainability both as a social and as an environmental condition. Thus a narrative is created that aims to connect social sustainability to a cultural understanding. The study embarks on a socio-cultural speculation of causalities and cultural nuances, which combined with more structured pedagogical methods, influence participants’ design priorities and perceptions in local architectural academies. Knowledge is drawn from the authors’ five-year ¬¬involvement in advanced architectural design studios where architecture and urbanism have been considered from a distinct position of sustainable priorities.

Beyond Sustainability: Architectural Education in an Ever-Changing Climate

Conference Proceedings

Within a rapidly changing climate, never have humans seen such rampant degradation of their environment. From water shortages and overpopulation to massive flooding and storms, we are beginning to test strategies of resilience at the urban and architectural scale. With the scientific evidence of our warming climate system being unequivocal, design professionals must be cognizant of the impact of these changes on theory, pedagogy, and practice. An integrated and resilient approach to ecological design of buildings, landscapes and communities within this changing climate is imperative. Too often we teach students to look solely at technological means as the solution to our ailing building design, however it is important to understand precise constraints of climate to produce rigorous design solutions. This starts with a knowledge of larger environmental systems. This paper will outline a three-pronged approach recently employed to ensure undergraduate design students grasp larger frameworks impacting the future of architectural practice within the Anthropocene. Using varied modes of interrogation, students are required to delve more deeply into a series of analytical exercises developed collaboratively to elicit thoughtful, appropriate and responsible massing, orientation and material strategies throughout the sequence. By designing an extensive framework beyond the simplistic, superficial separatism of modernism, the designer is enabled to understand architecture as in an open-exchange with the larger bioclimatic, social and ecological worlds.

Amalgamating Sustainable Design Strategies Into Architectural Curricula

ijs.cgpublisher.com

In the era of climate change, rising sea levels, the hole in the ozone layer and current food crisis, sustainability is no longer a matter of choice; it is a must. While the term sustainability manages to embed itself in all aspects of contemporary life, sustainability in the built environment ...

A novel approach to architectural education for sustainability: a quest for reformation and transformation

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.