ARCH4CHANGE: A new ressource for learning and teaching sustainable architecture

09.03.2022

Five universities are working on a joint project aimed at improving how sustainable architecture is taught. The title is ARCH4CHANGE.

Something needs to happen – that much is clear. In politics, in our culture and also: In architecture and the way it is taught today across the globe.

Climate change affects us more every day and demands more of us. In light of this naked fact, five universities have joined forces to help develop a new education platform for sustainable architecture everywhere.

Strengths and weaknesses

The ARCH4CHANGE project aims at providing an open-source platform where teachers and students of architecture can go to find inspiration and knowledge about sustainable architecture.

”We have trawled through 120 curriculums to identify strengths and weaknesses, and we have conducted surveys with more than 500 students providing answers about how and what they are currently taught about sustainable architecture”, says associate professor Elizabeth Donovan at The Aarhus School of Architecture.

Next phase

In the next phase, the project partners will begin work on the content of the digital platform, including video lectures and resources.

And in more than one sense, ARCH4CHANGE draws on collaboration as a means to achieve more than would otherwise be possible: For one thing, the universities together can provide much more detailed knowledge, and for another, the choice of an open platform means that everyone will be able to update and develop it once it is launched.

”The international collaboration is essential. For example, Bologna have specific knowledge on earthquake design that we don’t have in Scandinavia for obvious reasons. And we tend to know a lot about social issues in architecture like welfare and co-living concepts. Dublin, for their part, can focus on passive design. So, together we just cover more ground, making the platform that much more applicable globally in the end”, says associate professor Urszula Kozminska at The Aarhus School of Architecture.

Inspiring a new practice

Corona permitting, the five partners meet every six months to coordinate the work. They are Tampere University, University of Bologna, Technological University Dublin , Tallinn University of Technology and The Aarhus School of Architecture.

Two sister projects led by Tampere University are in the works involving Chinese, Ghanaian and American universities, which will further diversify the resource geographically.

The third phase of ARCH4CHANGE is the testing, implementation and launch of the platform. It is meant to go live in 2023.

Hopefully, it will inspire and inform the practice of teaching sustainable architecture, so that the architects tomorrow will be better equipped to challenge the current practice and to provide better solutions.

You can see more at https://www.arch4change.com/