An Interdisciplinary Approach Towards Academic Education on Sustainable Building Design

Book excerpt: The built environment is witnessing a worldwide concern followed by intensive consideration of its environmental impacts on the one hand and influence on public health and wellbeing on the other. Respecting both priorities mentioned above, the trends in current design tend to be in line with multiple dimensions of sustainability. Next to its occurrence in scientific research and practice, the topic of sustainable design is ever more emerging within the courses at universities, whereby the educational approaches can be beneficial if interrelated to different scientific or expert disciplines. As universities are recognized as complex organizations inevitably evolving over a long period of time period and responding to changes in society and environment, attempts to improve the efficiency of academic teaching have been intensively introduced also in the study programs of the University of Maribor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture (UM FGPA) through implementation of various activities related to development of innovative approaches towards education on sustainable design of built environment. The publication presents the interdisciplinary approach to the academic education on sustainable building design through integration of different activities. In addition to basic educational courses, the transfer of latest research findings, implementation of practical student workshops, development projects and various activities aiming at integration of different knowledge transfers makes the level of academic teaching more active and efficient. The book consists of six chapters. The first chapter describes the general aspect of the integrative approach to education on sustainable built environment through the experience of the interdisciplinary course. Chapter 2 introduces a comprehensive set of urban design criteria for creating residential neighbourhoods and emphasizes the role of high-quality open space and green areas, which significantly contributes to liveability. Chapter 3 deals with sustainable transport in connection with the living environment, and emphasises the interdisciplinary approach. Chapter 4 presents the inclusion of energy-efficient building design with the integrated use of new digital technologies, such as building information and energy modelling. Chapter 5 describes the main types of timber structural systems and presents a sustainable design perspective of contemporary prefabricated timber-glass buildings with further development of multi-storey prefabricated timber buildings with enlarged glazing areas. The last chapter is prepared as a graphic summary of interdisciplinary workshop projects which demonstrate the complexity of design and the respect for diverse interdisciplinary principles of sustainable planning.