A serious dearth of data on the status of existing architectural curriculum and teaching methods was identified as a major hurdle towards understanding the state of architectural education in the country and, consequently, towards engaging into a meaningful activity aimed at enhancing or re-structuring it. The ECO-III project, therefore, embarked upon the ambitious task of collecting data on the structure of architectural curriculum in various institutes all over the country through a questionnaire designed to gather information specific to the curriculum content related to sustainability and energy efficiency in buildings.
Objectives
Understand the state of architectural education on following counts:
- Curriculum Analysis
- Faculty knowledge and need for skills enhancement
- Infrastructure facility
- Professional requirements
Propose measures to enhance institutional capacity to integrate fundamentals of building science and encourage use of diagnostic tools within the existing curriculum
Accomplishments
- Formed a group (originally) of 18 premier architecture and engineering institutes as project partners with the objective of long-term capacity building, on the basis of a nationwide survey of architectural curriculum.
- Conducted a second round of architectural curriculum survey involving 75 architecture colleges to widen the group of existing institutional partners by addition of 11 new architecture institutes.
- Prepared a paper titled ‘Preparing the Next Generation of Architects and Engineers to Design and Construct Sustainable Buildings - An Educational Initiative’ and circulated it to project partners to solicit ideas on the next round of activities under the ongoing program.
- Developed, as a long term strategy, course material on ‘Sustainable Building Design Education - An Introduction to Building Physics’, to be made available for use as part of the curriculum of various architectural schools for capacity building of teachers and students.
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- Network of Building Science Educators in India – Google Group
- Society of Building Science Educators
- Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE)
- Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT)
- Alliance to Save Energy (ASE)
- ECO-III Project Partner Institutes
