Introducing Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Principles in Architectural Education: Towards Designing Climate Neutral and Inclusive Buildings

In implementing the INCEPT project, the participating universities begin with the understanding that architectural education plays a fundamental role in achieving a sustainable built environment by preparing future professionals who can integrate sustainability into their practice. Moreover, in order to envision a sustainable climate neutral built environment, it covers a fundamental understanding of the link between sustainability, technology and design. The project aims to develop and implement forward-looking upgrade of architectural education curricula within the existing Master of Architecture programmes at the participating universities based on the understanding of the utmost need to establish a balanced integration of creativity and sustainability approaches. The starting point for the initiation of the INCEPT Project is the awareness of the critical need to align the Master of Architecture curricula with the contemporary requirements for sustainability and radical energy performance improvements of the built environment. The project is also driven by the understanding of the strong relation between architectural education and the profession itself.

As main objective INCEPT Project was to develop, validate and implement a curricula on sustainable architecture within the Master of Architecture programmes at the participating universities. This curricula was designed to provide knowledge and build digital and green skills of architecture students on the major principles of sustainability and energy efficiency in the design of different building typologies. In addition to its main objective, the project aimed to achieve the following specific goals: - Enhance the knowledge of architecture students on key energy efficiency principles across the entire building life cycle, addressing both operational and embodied carbon as well as advanced climate smart, energy efficient and inclusive building design. - Train architecture students in designing more energy efficient, less carbon intensive and more sustainable buildings in the wider multi-faceted urban context allowing room for creativity and aesthetic decisions. - Validate and implement the newly developed educational curricula and design studio on sustainable architecture for architecture students. - Establish a digital educational platform to support e-learning and facilitate inter-university knowledge exchange.

The project enhanced the educational curricula within the Master of Architecture programmes at the participating universities by developing and validating the INCEPT Compendium, Design Atelier and Training Course as key intellectual outputs. It was focused on advancing the quality of architectural education in line with the high academic standards also set by the European Association of Architectural education. The implementation of the Design Atelier was developed to test low- and zero-energy design concepts and tools as part of an experience-based training in a "living lab" ecosystem. INCEPT also created and operated a digital educational platform to support e-learning and inter-university knowledge exchange. The dissemination and exploitation of the project outputs at inter-university, national and EU level strengthened the impact and transferability of the results. Within INCEPT the dissemination and exploitation of project outputs and results was ensured at inter-university, national and EU level. Communication and dissemination activities were designed to reach a broad spectrum of target groups - from architecture students to energy efficiency and sustainability experts, as well as professional organisations.

The INCEPT project successfully developed and validated the following key intellectual outputs: 1) a Compendium on the Green Transition to Affordable and Clean Energy in Buildings, Sustainable Cities and Climate Resilience for Architecture Students and compendium-related lecture course, 2) a Climate Neutral Building Design Atelier for Architecture Students, and 3) an Online Training Course on Sustainable Architecture. The project established and tested a digital educational platform for e-learning, enabling the delivery of online courses on sustainable architecture to the wider professional community. In addition, the project created the INCEPT Community on Zenodo – EU Open Research Repository – serving as the main digital platform for disseminating and ensuring the transferability of the project’s final intellectual outputs to the broader academic community at the EU level. The project team participated in more than 20 specialised events at both national and EU levels, further strengthening the project’s impact. Throughout the project, the initial consortium evolved into a strong team of academic educators and researchers, thereby strengthening inter-university collaboration in the long run.