Approach to sustainable development through architectural education: insight to the perceptions of sri lankan students

Abstract

Sustainable development is considered as a multi-dimensional problem for integration of economic, environmental, institutional, political, social and personal human problems. Therefore, interdisciplinary interaction will be essential to reach the ultimate goals of sustainability. Architecture, as a key profession in the construction sector, plays a significant role in promoting the interdisciplinary interaction and a holistic approach to sustainable development. This approach requires a high amount of knowledge, skills and attitude which could be obtained through architectural education. The need of approaching sustainable development through education was accepted by the United Nations and has declared 2005 to 2014 as the decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Therefore, this paper intends to explore the relationship between the architectural education and sustainable design practice in the Sri Lankan context. Architectural educational content on sustainable development has two folds, such as, the technical component and non-technical component. The technical components mainly focus on providing knowledge and skills, which are more applicable towards the latter parts of the design process (design detailing). Non-technical components not only provide knowledge and skills but also attitude and could be applied from the early stages of the design process (Concept development, brief interpretation, etc). The methodology adopted is a survey (structured) research approach where data generated through a social survey and a literature survey would be analysed to reflect some thoughts. Social survey would be conducted through a structured questionnaire given to undergraduates and young practitioners of architecture from the two main schools of Architecture in Sri Lanka (City School of Architecture, Colombo and Department of Architecture, University of Moratuwa). Student perception on Sustainability would be explored through the parameters of personal interpretations, application frequency and satisfaction to non-satisfaction ratio. Reflections would include that the technical knowledge and skills need to be in equilibrium with the non-technical knowledge and attitudes given in architectural education to obtain a more holistic sustainable design approach.