Redesigning architectural education: an exploration about the impact of worldwide energy problems on architectural education based on the changes in the education program contents of architecture schools Salih Ceylan Yıldız Technical University, turkey, salihc@gmail.com Since the second half of the 20 th century, energy problems have been the basis and focal point of sustainable development and ecological approaches worldwide. The reduction of energy resources forced authorities to search for alternative solutions to keep the systems in operation. Researches show that more than 35 % of energy consumption around the globe is used in construction industry and that indicates architecture and civil engineering as the leading disciplines in the field which play an important role in creating alternative ways and reducing energy consumption in industrial and residential areas. Nowadays most of the academic research in architecture consists of creating methods and finding ways to preserve energy and if possible- generate the required energy. With this purpose, the discipline of architecture works together with many other professions such as industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and thermal engineering in order to compose new technologies and products which support reducing energy consumption. In this context, the mission and contents of architectural education are also required to be redefined with to the emerging needs of today s society. Architecture schools, as the first and one of the most important steps of professional development in construction industry, have been reestablishing their education guidelines towards the direction of energy efficient design approach. This paper attempts to indicate the significant changes on the principles of architectural education through the direction of sustainable design and energy efficiency, about what the approaches of leading institutions consist of and how the architectural education should evolve in the future based on emerging requirements. KEYWORDS Sustainability, energy efficiency, architectural education, sustainable architecture, sustainable development Introduction 20 th century has been a great leap forward in the history of mankind with numerous inventions and the significant developments in science and technology. The industrial revolution, which started at the end of the 18 th century reached an advanced level in this century as the progression became rapid, common and widespread. Any encountered difficulty became possible to be solved through technological methods and devices. It was accepted that nature can no longer come up with any problems that would stop the progression of mankind. This period might be described as the time when human beings thought that they established their sovereignty over the nature using technology and science. Peterson (2002) indicated the uniqueness of the human kind with the ability to have control over their own destiny. He states that there is a fundamental difference between the natural and human thinking systems: the natural thinking systems work backward looking and experience based as human thinking systems work forward looking and planning based. Nevertheless, the second half of the century proved the forward looking thinking system as not working very appropriately. Resources of the nature, considered to be everlasting by the human beings, turned out to be at the edge of being consumed away. The population growth and industrial progression led to the increasing demand of energy and resources. Mankind lost sight of the billions of non-human creatures whose rights were also needed to be defended to live on the planet earth, so the corruption of the balance in the 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 87
nature came up with many issues: Along with the global energy crisis, a number of relevant problems occurred such as global climate change, deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, eutrophication, acidification and eventually the loss of biodiversity. The competition of economic and technological progress between developed countries caused the aforementioned problems to expand all over the world and to become almost unsolvable. In the early 1980 s, the world began to realize that some precautions were needed to be taken against the environmental problems which were getting severely dangerous to affect all kinds of lives on the planet earth. Authorities began to search for a different development method which offered a brand new way of approaching the environment and its relationship to everything else cared about in a society; it was named as sustainable development (Dernbach, 2002: 45). The first significant international attention on sustainable development occurred when it was mentioned in 1987 by the Bruntland Commission, World Commission on Environment and Development. The commission s report our common future states the following definition: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Figure 1: The Cover page of our common future. This definition was quoted repeatedly in the following years in different conferences and meetings such as United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Jenairo in June 1992, which is also known as Agenda 21, a global action plan for sustainable development, and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Since then, it is generally accepted that the main actors of development have to play their part and take responsibility to give the next generations their chance to build their own destiny. The role and responsibility of the architect on energy issues It is well known that construction industry plays an important role in the overall economic growth and that makes the industry an important actor in the energy and resources problem. According to the USGBC reports, 36 % of the overall energy consumption and 65 % of electricity usage in the US are caused by buildings. That means sustainable construction, the reflection of sustainable development in the construction industry, must be taken into account because any invention to provide energy saving in a building or efficient 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 88
use of materials can be highly beneficial from the financial, as well as the sustainable perspective. International Council of Construction (CIB) defines the goal of sustainable construction as creating and operating a healthy built environment based on resource efficiency and ecological design (Kibert, 2008). To achieve such a challenging goal, a multi-dimensional process needs to be prosecuted by a team consisting of experienced members coming from different disciplines. The process is generally led by an architect who is one of the most important actors in the design and construction industry. An architect who takes part in a sustainable construction project needs to have sufficient knowledge and consciousness about his/her roles and responsibilities in sustainable construction. International Union of Architects (UIA) mentioned in its Declaration Of İnterdependence For A Sustainable Future in 1993, Chicago, that sustainable design integrates consideration of resources and energy efficiency, healthy buildings and materials, ecologically and socially sensitive land use and an aesthetic sensitivity that inspires, affirms and enables. They also emphasized that they committed themselves to place environmental and social sustainability at the core of their practices and professional responsibilities; to develop and continually improve practice, procedures, products, curricula, services and standards that will enable the implementation of sustainable design; and to educate their fellow professionals, the building industry, clients, students, and the general public about the critical importance and substantial opportunities of sustainable design. The rising awareness on sustainability and sustainable design in the academic institutions as well as in the society, evoked the professionals to perform more research and development in the construction industry. The innovative approach brought improvements like the use of recycled materials, development of renewable energy resources or the effective use of water and reclaim of rain- and greywater. Similar implementations helped the constructions and buildings to be more energy efficient. Together with the widespread of these energy and resource saving applications, the necessity occurred to set standards which could be used like a handbook for architects and other professionals about sustainable design principles in order to unite them in an integrated design process. Building certification programs such as LEED, BREEAM or DGNB, which are created by energy efficient building foundations in different countries, accept sustainable construction and ecological design as the key strategy to overcome the problem about energy and resources and they establish their fundamentals on integrated process of sustainable design. The main criteria in these building certification programs, become the basis for any architectural design process which is considered to be energy efficient in the context of contemporary architecture and they are also used for educational purposes in architecture schools. The reflection of energy issues on architectural education The ongoing development in the construction industry had also its influence upon architectural education. Architecture schools which compose their program contents and curricula depending on actual trends in the architecture world, began to take sustainable design approach into account. Apart from individual attempts of certain academicians and architectural education institutions, there has also been a collective initiative which canalized and encouraged architecture schools to flip their direction onto sustainable design principles. In 1996, UIA and UNESCO created The Charter For Architectural Education in order to ensure the understanding that architectural education constitutes both the sociocultural and professional challenge of the contemporary world. In the general considerations chapter of the charter, it is declared that the new era would bring grave and complex challenges with respect to social and functional degradation of many human settlements. Later on, its stated that it is essential for projects and research conducted in academic institutions to formulate new solutions for the present and the future. It is also mentioned that the vision of the future world cultivated in architectural schools, should include the goal of an ecologically balanced and sustainable development of the built environment. The reconditioning of the architectural education institutions later on followed the direction indicated in UIA s charter. There have been several approaches about integrating sustainable design into architectural education. Basically it can be divided in two different approaches which place sustainable design in different positions and ranges in the practice of architecture. 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 89
Stand Alone Studies Focused on Sustainable Design Principles The first approach handles sustainable design as a unique domain of specialization that keeps it apart from the basic principles of architectural education. Elective courses, lectures, seminars, workshops as well as graduate and postgraduate programs focused on sustainable design can be considered as different methods of this kind of approach. According to Terenzini, Pascarella and Blimling (1996), it is asserted that multiple experiences in multiple areas that are educationally relevant have much influence on student learning. Examples of this can be found in anywhere in the world. School of Architecture of Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey specialises the course Architectural Design 4 as the sustainable design studio where the students are expected to create energy efficient buildings with sustainable design principles. In the first weeks, the students were primarily given lectures to get acquainted with the definitions about ecology, sustainability and energy efficiency. Students are also required to make researches about these topics in order to get to know the working systematics of the systems and be able to choose which features they can use in their design. The evaluation criteria of this design studio are also based on students ability to use the sustainability principles in their design and the energy efficiency level of the designed building. Completing the course, provides the students with the knowledge about sustainability and energy efficiency and the ability to choose proper ones from sustainable design elements and integrate them into their design. However, as the sustainable design studio doesn t get enough support and continuity in the following semesters and courses, the students do not get the consciousness to initialize sustainable design principles and as they are not required to use the energy efficiency methods in the next design studio courses, they generally would not convey sustainable design into their professional life in the future. There are numerous graduate or master programs about sustainable design or energy efficiency in architecture all across the World, and they are rapidly increasing in number through time. One of them, Master Of Science Program in Energy Efficient Buildings developed by Maltepe University in Istanbul, Turkey, offers a number of courses with an interdisciplinary approach to the principles of energy efficiency. Figure 2: Presentation poster of Maltepe University Master Of Science Program in Energy Efficient Buildings. (http://mimarliknew.maltepe.edu.tr/fakulte/lisansustu) The objective of the program is to educate professionals who are aware of the energy problems around the World, who are able to follow the development in technology to use proper energy saving systems in 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 90
their designs and who are able to minimize energy loss in a building in order to contribute to the development of the national and global economy. Although this master program has well built structure and useful courses, and favourable objectives, it needs to be based on a strong substructure. Without a bachelor education which gives the students the consciousness of energy efficiency and basic knowledge about energy efficient buildings, this program is unlikely to be successful in training professionals who can contribute to the World of energy efficient design. Embedding Sustainable Design Principles into Architectural Education Curriculum The second approach which is getting more popular and spreading wide in the last years is about adapting the principles of sustainable design and energy efficiency directly into the basic structure of architectural education. This means that the whole curriculum of architectural education needs to be revised. It is a radical modification of the concept, but taken into account that the definition of architecture in the World is changing irreversibly, it definitely needs to be done in a short while. According to Chickering and Gamson (1987), an undergraduate education should prepare students to understand and deal intelligently with modern life. The prominent architecture schools in the World have already altered their programs with concerns about sustainable design. Bachelor of Architecture program in Cornell University, USA embedded into the first semester of the curriculum a course about sustainable design with the name environmental systems I: Site and sustainability which examines the relationships between building, site, landscape and sustainability through the lenses of ecology and systems thinking (http://...). When the first semester course descriptions are examined, it can also be seen that the course Design I has sustainable design in its contents with practices on the transformation of physical environment and exercises aimed at the processes of environmental design. The tendency on sustainable design principles in Cornell Bachelor of Architecture Program, continues in the following semesters with different courses and approaches with the aim of educating architects who are truly aware of and well informed about the principles of sustainable design and who are able to apply their knowledge in the projects in their professional life. Figure 3: First year program of B.Arch. in Cornell University. (http://courses.cornell.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=14&poid=5303#core_42078) Another institution that adds sustainable design into its program is Pratt University department of architecture. In the bachelor of architecture mission statement, it is indicated that the program firmly committed to contemporary material practices is constantly integrating new Technologies into the curriculum. In addition to the goals and objectives section, it is intended that the students will demonstrate the ability to integrate sustainable practices, material research, and interdisciplinary approaches to find 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 91
sustainable design solution (http://www.pratt.edu/academics/architecture/ug_dept_architecture/arch_b_arch/). To achieve this goal, in different periods of the study, the students are canalized and encouraged to think broadly about what it means to design living and working spaces. Also in some of the courses, like Building Services and Building Environment the students are given information about certification systems like LEED in order to be prepared for the emerging needs of the Professional World of architecture. Conclusion Change is inevitable in today s world just like it has been in the history. People s instinctive need for change and the curiosity to know the unknown has brought the world to its current status. It is obvious that there have been many mistakes and failures, even disgrace in the history of mankind, but what is needed to do now is to accept the existing facts of the world and compose the future according to those facts. The primal instinct of all creatures is the need for survival and to accomplish this, they need to adapt to the prevailing conditions. The most explicit condition today is that there is not enough resource and energy for the whole population of the world. Sylvian and Bennet (1994: 23) assumed that there were 3 possible scenarios for the near future: Human population reduction, or less impacting lifestyles for many humans, or improvements in technology to reduce overall impact. For that reason, research is being done to generate alternative ways to produce energy, and to produce materials and methods which consume less energy. It is extremely important that the achievements of these efforts are spread out to the whole world and employed by the majority of people so that the demand for energy and resources may decrease. Architects play their part here as they are the ones who design the places where people live in, so they may have the influence to make them employ energy and resource saving technologies. Williamson, Radford and Bennets (2003: 31) state that the track record of architects over the centuries in finding technical solutions to innumerable problems inspires confidence that the same will happen in the future. However considering that the discipline of architecture - depending on the rest of the world- is in a continuous process of change, that it is a challenge for the architects to keep themselves up to date with contemporary requirements and prevailing trends in architecture. It is not impossible for an architect to improve himself and advance in knowledge about new technologies by his/her own, but the more appropriate way is that the architectural institution which educates architects equips its students with the necessary knowledge and consciousness about the actual circumstances of the world. Nowadays, most of the architecture schools are in a turning point to transform the contents of their programs towards sustainable design and energy efficiency. In some schools, the process runs swiftly as the other ones have some difficulties in altering their teaching methods and their contents. It is not easy to change an entire education program at once, but it is possible to transform it smoothly through time with different interventions. Lectures, seminars, workshops, elective courses and such single attempts are very important as they might be the starting point for the alteration of the whole program. Such attempts have to vary and increase in numbers in time. To prevent the impression that those attempts are single and inefficient implementations, they have to be followed and supported by different activities in the curriculum. On the other hand, academies have the mission of being the reference point of the profession in their field of interest. In this case, architecture schools are the first and one of the most important places where the students meet the discipline of architecture and also the place where the shape of the architectural tendencies in the future take form. The school might not only reflect the realities of genuine professional world the students will encounter after they have graduated, but also feed the architecture discipline with new approaches and solutions evolved in researches conducted by its members. Consequently it is a fact that the energy efficiency and sustainability issues will get into the contents of architecture school sooner or later, as it is approved that the energy and resources problems in the world are permanent for the rest of the time. The important point here is that the transformation process of the schools cannot be too long as the energy and resources problems are getting bigger every day. Architecture schools should prepare their strategy to embed energy efficiency and sustainable design principles into their programs and perform the strategy swiftly. The schools which do not fulfill this process in a sufficient period of time might face the danger of being out of date and inadequate compared to the rest of the schools in the world. 2014 Copyright remains with authors. First published by Eduserv Group Publishing Division, UK, 2014 92
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