This study provides an interdisciplinary account determining how children and adolescents understand urban and architectural aspects of sustainable development. The concept of sustainability implies complex relations between ethical, economical, social, technical and other qualities of our environment. The concept is difficult to understand for children who lack the abilities of abstract reasoning and multi-dimensional thinking. A new measure of sustainability understanding was formed based on pictorial rather than textual format and was applied to a large sample of over 2000 participants aged 6-19 years. The results indicated that girls had higher levels of appreciation toward sustainability issues than boys. The results also showed that understanding of sustainability issues increased progressively with age, particularly with adolescents from urban environments. The findings are discussed in terms of cognitive changes in adolescence and their implications for educational policy.

This article addresses visual language in architecture and spatial disciplines, using it as a means of communicating and conveying information, knowledge and ideas about space that are permeated by their interdisciplinary character. We focus in particular on the transmission of messages between professionals and the general public, arguing that this process aids the long-term formation of a responsible and critical public, which is then able to take an active part in sustainable planning and design practices. The article highlights some findings of an empirical study of 245 people that tested the effectiveness of selected presentation techniques in communicating spatial messages to the general public and placing them in the framework of existing knowledge

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The paper provide an insight into the research conducted by the University of Ljubljana, and the Urban institute of Slovenia committed to the assessment of the efficiency related to the management of local resources at the level of neighbourhoods. The reduction of energy consumption and energy efficient built environments are key objectives of many sustainability agendas which is followed by suitable assessment methods in urban analytics. However, there are two important hesitations occurring: first, traditional assessment methods that focus solely on the energy reduction and efficiency are often too narrow in their analysis and limited in their scope of impact. According to the recent advances in research worldwide, efforts solely related to reduction of energy consumption will unlikely lead to more responsive environments or rise the living quality. Thus, more comprehensive methodologies for assessing and monitoring the change and transformation in built environments shall be sought for to reach long-term sustainability. Second, to date, the majority of the evaluation methods - whether focusing to energy consumption or broader sustainability issues - are building- or household- oriented, thus systematically examining separate spatial and social entities, but neglecting the spaces between, the holistic aspect and the community aspect. The research develops structured evaluation model, where two main research pillars are addressed: 1) the development of the structured and modular system of indicators; and 2) the development of the methodology to interpret the resulting values. The paper presents first two stages of the research process and subjects the outcomes to the debate.

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