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This paper aims seeks to reflect on the transition of a school of architecture to incorporate sustainability principles as a core part of its undergraduate (Part I) programme. The paper offers a brief overview of the processes undertaken and outcomes of this to an integrated problem-based learning approach and with sustainability at its core changing both knowledge content and pedagogical approaches.

Reflecting on the transition to a sustainability-based curriculum, this paper makes use of a mixed methods approach incorporating a review of literature on sustainability in architectural education, pedagogical approaches and epistemology, as well as educational issues in sub-Saharan Africa. The main study made use of an ethnographic approach, including document analysis, interviews, observations and one-on-one informal interactions with students, faculty and alumni.

While the transition to a sustainability-based curriculum was achieved, with integrated studio courses at second- and third-year levels, this did not come without challenges. Divided opinions of formal education, linked to preconceived ideas of what constituted architectural education led to some resistance from students and professionals. Nevertheless, the programme serves as testament to what is achievable and provides some lessons to schools seeking to transition programmes in the future.

The paper contributes to discourses on sustainability in architectural education, examining the transition taken by an architectural programme to incorporate sustainability as a core part of its curriculum. The outcomes of this process provide advice that could be useful to schools of architecture seeking to integrate sustainability into their programmes.

As the first architecture programme in East Africa to integrate sustainability principles into its programme, this study provides an insight into the processes, experiences and outcomes of this transition. This reflective engagement highlights value of an enabling environment in any transitional process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Catholic district offices support school leaders’ instructional leadership practices at times of major reform.

The paper employs the theory of practice architectures as a lens through which to examine local site-based responses to system-wide reforms in two Australian Catholic secondary schools and their district offices. Data collection for these parallel case studies included semi-structured interviews, focus groups, teaching observations, classroom walkthroughs and coaching conversations.

Findings suggest that in the New South Wales case, arrangements of language and specialist discourses associated with a school improvement agenda were reinforced by district office imperatives. These imperatives made possible new kinds of know-how, ways of working and relating to district office, teachers and students when it came to instructional leading. In the Queensland case, the district office facilitated instructional leadership practices that actively sought and valued practitioners’ input and professional judgment.

The research focussed on two case studies of district offices supporting school leaders’ instructional leadership practices at times of major reform. The findings are not generalizable.

Practically, the studies suggest that for excellent pedagogical practice to be embedded and sustained over time, district offices need to work with principals to foster communicative spaces that promote explicit dialogue between teachers and leaders’ interpretive categories.

The paper contends that responding to the diversity of secondary school sites requires district office practices that reject a one size fits all formulas. Instead, district offices must foster site-based education development.

The paper adopts a practice theory approach to its study of district support for instructional leader’ practices. A practice approach rejects a one size fits all approach to educational change. Instead, it focusses on understanding how particular practices come to be in specific sites, and what kinds of conditions make their emergence possible. As such, it leads the authors to consider whether and how different practices such as district practices of educational reforming or principals’ instructional leading might be transformed, or conducted otherwise, under other conditions of possibility.

Providing improved access to nature within educational settings can promote stronger child–nature connections and is conditional on making evidence-based decisions for the planning, design and refurbishment of school architecture. The study offers insight into ways of reconnecting children with nature by examining the distribution and classification of diverse natural elements for enhancing children's visual and non-visual experiences of educational environments.

This study combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of data gathered through measurement and observation at three schools in Glasgow, with a total of 75 students, to identify key issues influencing child–nature multi-sensorial connections within indoor and outdoor environments and on building envelopes and layouts. It applies children's open-questions and diagrams to investigate children's discovery of nature, their feelings around natural attributes and their environmental preferences within school contexts.

This study's findings reveal that architectural features and landscape settings have significant influence on the quantitative and qualitative degrees of children's natural exploration through visual and non-visual sensorial modalities and environmental preferences.

The limitations of this study are that the data was gathered in the Spring season and with different groups of children from The Glasgow Academy who received the same educational curriculum. Thus, there is a need for further investigation on children's experiences of nature based on temporal and contextual differences, and varying educational-socio-cultural and economic factors.

The findings suggest that applications of natural diversity, accessible and flexible pathways and indoor natural settings, are potential approaches to connect children with nature within their study and play environments.

The authors provide a deeper understanding of how nature-based settings, including indoor and outdoor environments, constructively benefit children's multi-sensorial experiences, knowledge and biophilic feelings toward nature.

This paper aims to present the integrated teaching activity carried out in the Studios of the Master of Science “Architecture-Building Architecture” held at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of the “Politecnico di Milano,” Milan, Italy. The integrated teaching activity related to the structural disciplines was in Sgambi et al., 2019; here the structure of the MSc training and its disciplinary synergies will be presented. Indeed, this type of activity characterizes all the Studios of this Master of Science and involves all the disciplines that contribute to the development of an architectural and cultural heritage preservation project.

In the Studios of the aforementioned Master of Science, teachers of different subjects are involved, working together to guide the student in the development of an architectural project sustainable in all aspects. The fundamentals of each discipline are taught using the best suited teaching methodology and the application phase of each discipline is carried out directly on the students' projects in the form of “learning by making.” The students are thus stimulated to deepen their basic knowledge of each single discipline, making their design choices sustainable.

This experience, born in 2003 and still active, has also achieved good results in employment. Students train using the “learning by making” method to acquire proficiencies in various disciplines of design, giving them the ability to communicate competently with experts belonging to different construction sectors.

The approach illustrated in this paper does not represent the didactic experimentation of a single discipline, but it is typical of the study program of an entire Master of Science. Although this approach is entirely built on a “learning by making” and “active learning” philosophy, it maintains the teaching of the theoretical contents of disciplines at a significantly high level when compared with the contents of a frontal-taught theoretical course. The development of this structure required a strong commitment on the part of the teaching staff in their search for effective teaching methods in each individual discipline and aimed at the architectural project. The results obtained give an added value to the training of future architects.

The unparalleled crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic has displaced the existing normal in every field of higher education. Especially architecture education with high dependence on institutional studio based pedagogical participation has been affected. Consequently, there is a critical necessity to reinvigorate pedagogical approaches in order to ensure continuity of pedagogical pursuits.

A systematic approach is used to conduct an interdisciplinary study. The research mainly attempts to externalize the basics of virtual design studio composition. In concurrence role of instructional design in providing an underlying framework for enabling virtual discourse is also explored. Primarily, the process commenced by identifying objectives and queries which needed to be addressed. In order to deal with the concerns rationally, the research used exploratory approach. The primary data were based on focus group interactions. The secondary data were based on relevant subject-oriented literature reviews; explicit information based. Explanatory mode of analysis is used to interpret the outcome.

A pedagogical design; an instructional design process model for effectively structuring the virtual design studio has evolved as part of the research. In addition detailed insights have been derived about the key integrals that make up the constituent phases of the virtual design studio.

The research provides insights into the methodological structure of virtual design studio. The inferences would provide the pedagogues a comprehensive and rational overview to envision and conduct architecture studio discourse virtually.

The study presents a unique contribution to the limited literature available on virtual design studio pedagogy and instructional design in virtual mode.

City planning and construction have embraced circular economy principles, converting them into various indicators. Particularly in the European context, the question “what architecture for circularity?” is answered with policies focusing on techniques, materials and disassembling construction. This paper analyzes a new approach to sustainable design and explores the concept of Km0 architecture. The objective is to demonstrate the design strategies of a contemporary architecture based on local resources and knowledge, an architecture that works with the shortest possible loop in circularity, i.e. with the cycle that consumes the least amount of energy.

The paper presents two ways of understanding sustainability in architecture: the first as a result of policies and the second associated with the design and innovative-based New European Bauhaus initiative. Within the scope of this last understanding, the authors analyze three cases on the Spanish Mediterranean coast that have recently received media attention and prominence. The selection responds to a specific climate adaption through a certain typological and functional diversity of the works.

The studied cases exhibit a more equitable and cost-effective circularity based on the time factor, have long life-cycle designs and serve as repositories of cultural identity. Km0 architecture reduces emissions using local resources and mitigates environmental conditions by combining traditional and modern design strategies.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study the local understandings of the built environment that would ensure a more fair and inclusive European green transformation.

There is an urgent need to develop a systematic tool for urban design in the cities of the Klang Valley, Malaysia. Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) proposes ideas to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. This paper approaches this goal through land use, integrated into an effective connectivity network. It offers a scientific and systematic approach. The research employs Space Syntax of the University College London as a tool for urban analysis and the principles of Sustainable Street Networks developed by the Congress of New Urbanism to respond to connectivity issues.

The paper employs empirical research through case studies. A systematic literature review is conducted on the diversified applications of the Space Syntax correlations, which steered the fundamental analysis of the elements of deconstruction to structure and land use. Space Syntax and Sustainable Street Network characteristics were the essential research methods. It is important to note that these data a new finding on the Syntactic Maps of the two case study cities.

The paper summarises a set of results on (1) international comparison of spatial intelligence, (2) patterns from the Eastern cases and (3) theoretical guidelines for spatial intelligence through the Syntax by offering key characteristics of the New Urbanism principles, which could be considered, while revitalising the cities in the Klang Valley, Malaysia.

The findings are specific and applicable to the oriental contexts. However, such results have been further compared to the Western context.

The study develops a toolkit for urban planners and designers and architects in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

The research has focused and will add value for SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Theoretically, the paper offers insights to urban design readers.

It is important to note that the data itself is a new finding on Syntactic Maps of the two case study cities. The investigated setting is unique, and the first attempt in generating a Space Syntax map to the cities of Klang Valley, and the findings, therefore, offer a new set of knowledge-base to the city planners, urban designers, researchers and architects.

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, it highlights the importance of the presence of active teaching experiences in architecture courses. Such experiences can lead to an improvement in the teaching of technical disciplines, such as structural engineering. Second, it purports to demonstrate the relation and interaction between the active teaching strategy here presented and the learning outcomes required by the study programme.

The paper reports an active didactic experience (addressed to students of architecture and performed at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), from its conception to its development in the classroom with the students. The experience is reported by discussing the three main steps of which an active didactic experience should be composed: the stimulus, the practice and the discussion.

The experience seeks to find innovative methods to stimulate the study of structural engineering by students of architecture. Through this experience, based on the study of a square silicon pot mat, students are able to learn concepts related to the mechanics of structures. In addition, students find in their experience direct connections with structures of considerable architectural importance, such as the structure of the New National Gallery by Mies van der Rohe.

This experience is original in two aspects. First of all, the introduction of an active didactic experience to improve courses that are generally structured in a passive way. Second, in an era where the importance of numerical technology is growing, this experience goes in a different direction by choosing a low-tech but no less interesting approach.

The Covid-19 crisis has inflicted a disruptive impact on the conventional institutional format of architecture studio pedagogy. As a result, there is a critical suddenness for an alternative approach to ensure continuity. The research pursues is to pursue a multidisciplinary study with a focus on the following domains: architecture, the science of learning and e-learning architecture. Inference from the study would become the basis for a theoretical proposition for improvement of the existing pedagogical framework. Moreover, the literature would add valuable insights to the knowledge base.

An exploratory research approach is used for this study. The inquiry-based approach enlightens on the role of the architect in society. Also, the nature of architectural design education that existed prior to the Covid-19 outbreak is examined. Further, the paper explores the impact of the paradigm shift from institutional mode to e-learning mode overnight. Purposefully multi-disciplinary studies are pursued to develop a broad understanding of the associated domains. This could effectively contribute to developing an effective pedagogical framework. This would facilitate the conduct of architecture studio discourse in a structured manner during the current scenario.

The confluence approach – a theoretical proposition for effective structuring of architecture studio pedagogy has evolved as part of the research. Further, the proposed virtual learning pyramid enlightens on the drive to continue on with augmentation of students existing creative acumen. Which is one of the universally sought-after goals of studio pedagogy even during times of uncertainties.

Pedagogues would find the study very meaningful for the conduct of architecture design studio in e-learning mode. They would also acquire a broad understanding of factors to be considered. The research would pave way for future studies in this area from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

The current Covid-19 crisis deters architecture studio discourse from being conducted in an accustomed institutional format. Therefore, it becomes important for institutions to ensure continuity of architectural education with the help of new measures. In concurrence, the research envisions an alternative approach: virtual design studio using e-learning mode. This would ensure continuity of architectural education even when the instructor and students are separated in either time or place.

The study presents a unique contribution to the limited literature available on architecture studio pedagogy during the e-learning scenario.

As the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan celebrates its first centenary, this paper presents a critical reading of the development of architecture in the Kingdom reflecting the transformation of national identity.

The paper achieves this aim by performing an analytical diachronic survey of the main architectural styles and trends that emerged in Jordan and links the architectural styles and trends to four main historical periods that characterize the national temporal trajectory, supported by examples of buildings, projects and architects that represent each period.

The results show the impacts of different forms of architectural modernism on local practice and explore attempts to create a national architectural identity that range in their ideological drive from Pan-Arabism to Jordanian localism.

The research adds to the discourse on Arab cities and architecture and shows the development of architectural trends in an Arab Muslim country, focusing on the interaction of architectural modernism with local variables. The research aims to supplement literature on Arab architecture with a critical and nuanced historical account of Jordanian architecture in the English language to serve a global audience.