Integrating Sustainability Within Architectural Education in Cairo

Abstract

Architectural education has great potential to move the entire industry towards sustainability within buildings and cities. Having the fundamental knowledge to apply the sustainable strategies can help in solving different environmental challenges being faced today. Sustainability is then recognized as a core topic in architecture and to reflect this recognition, it is crucial to integrate it into the architectural education curriculum. Many approaches are used to introduce the concept of sustainability into the architectural programs ranging from integrating the concept into existing modules to adding new modules that are entirely dedicated towards this subject. The design studio is the most dominant module in architectural education having the highest credit hours per week, and being a pool within which all subjects dissolve. The studio is characterized by creating a unique learning environment modeled around a problem-solving practice. Introducing sustainability into design studio was then found to be a key potential that enables graduate architects to make sustainable decisions within their design process rather than handling it separately. Realizing that potential; architectural educational institutions used different approaches in order to include sustainability within their curricula. This paper sheds lights on the education of sustainability within the architectural curricula in a number of Egyptian universities. It discusses the teaching and learning of sustainable design then, identifies and analyses different approaches used in integrating the concept of sustainability into the curriculum. Follows, a qualitative analysis takes place from a semi-structured interview conducted to practitioners and educators from various universities in order to stand on methods used to integrate sustainability into their architectural curricula. The findings are to develop recommendations that could help discovering the best practices that could enhance the learning experience for integrating sustainability in design studio modules.Sameh El-Feki, Inji Kenawy / Proceedings of Science and Technolgy pg. 2 education and added that they are to be considered after mastering the core aspects. He (2016) added that some regions including East Africa also considered that the concept of sustainability only belongs to developed countries claiming, "Our concern is for development, and this sustainability thing will drive up this cost". Adjusting the existing busy curricula to achieve integrated teaching is another challenge, especially with the ambiguous nature of the term sustainability. Covering the different pillars of sustainability including environmental, social, economic, and cultural is another complexity facing the change in the curricula. As Altomonte, et al. (2012) explained, solving these concerns is subject to the legislation, professional qualification criteria, as well as the accreditation frameworks; which are the main responsible factors of integrating sustainability within architectural education. This would by its ...