Educating the designer: An operational model for visualizing low-energy architecture

Awareness of the need to integrate sustainability at all levels has recently been gaining momentum in education to meet pedagogical university policy, government and employers’ expectations. Within the School of the Built Environment at Northumbria University, an integrated project base has been adopted for second year students. The project is based on integrating three modules, where on completion the students would be able to adopt a relational thinking process taking energy conservation right into the design phase. A questionnaire was conducted at the end of the academic year on 12 students to assess the pros and cons of the integrated project work. This paper intends to disseminate an operational model for integrating teaching and assessment between three modules dealing with design, assessing environmental performance and visualization, which have traditionally been taught and assessed separately, to achieve a low-energy house.