Educational Building and Sustainability
This interdisciplinary project combines research in architecture, environmental studies, educational science and public policy to explore how schools can provide better learning environments and encourage sustainable behaviour. The project looks in detail at participation methodologies as a means to achieve these aims, and examines the influence of cultural and societal attitudes towards sustainable lifestyles and sustainable technologies.
There are many current initiatives suggesting that participation is key to sustainability and that involving users will establish schools that are not only better learning environments, but more inclusive environments. In this way supporting the move towards sustainable communities.
However, the link is complex and the research sets out to evaluate both the proposed benefits and the limitations of child centred participation methodologies used in the design of learning environments, through literature, case study and through a series of interviews, exercises and research projects with children. It is a project shared by Schools of the Built Environment and Schools of Education and addresses a key strategic gap within the current portfolio of the Research Council Energy programme relating to research carried out within the Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy initiative.
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