Innovative features in training methods for sustainable architecture design

The adoption of environmentally friendly materials and constructive solutions is one of the most effective action to reduce the relevant environmental impacts generated by the building construction and renovation activities. Since architect plays a decisive role in performing these strategies, his training should be oriented to make him aware of this responsibility, by providing them knowledge and skills suitable to include sustainability as an objective that the design must achieve at all scales. This requires a coherent and incisive intervention on both methods and contents of architect training, developing adequate and effective teaching tools right from the initial stages of the learning process, within the schools of architecture. The paper provides the first results of a comparative study carried out on the architecture degree courses of three Italian universities (Bologna, Reggio Calabria, Iuav Venice). A mapping of structure, contents and organization of the five years of training has been performed, to detect the type and weight of the supplied relevant skills related to building sustainability, as well as to identify the applied learning models. In particular, two main topics have been deepened: the knowledge provided on designing constructive solutions and selecting eco-friendly materials; the use of sustainable building rating systems (SBRS) and other tools for the environmental impacts assessment. The collected data are then elaborated through comparison matrices, in order to bring out qualitative and quantitative aspects related to both the learning models used in the three Universities and the methods by which the acquired skills are assessed.