An instructive model of integrating sustainability into the undergraduate design studio

Abstract

Architectural education prepares the students for their professional lives by teaching them design skills and technical knowledge. The design studio is a special course within the architectural curriculum, while the design itself is a structured process to accomplish a unique expectation of a product. The concept of sustainability in design is intended to ensure that the design product is in harmony with people and nature. The literature presented a lack of an instructive method of integrating sustainability into the design studio. This paper presents a comparison for the three executed consecutively experimental studies of integrating sustainability principles into the architectural design studio as well as presents a discussion of the experimental studios together with the evaluations and assessments. Also, it presents the post-course interviews' results, discussion, and conclusions. The paper's objective is to present an instructive model of Sustainable Architecture Design Studio (SADS) work that will provide the academic area a complete method that can be followed to integrate sustainability principles into the design studio.