Developing a low-carbon architecture pedagogy in Bangladesh

Rumana Afroz

doi:10.5334/bc.54

Abstract

Architectural education and training can help ensure low-carbon emission for projects. Despite some broad initiatives to address this, there are still gaps in the curricula, theory and practices. The current pedagogical trends and approaches in Bangladesh are identified and examined for how climate mitigation is addressed in the architecture curriculum. This has revealed a lack of awareness, limited education and training, and inadequate pedagogical (i.e. teaching) approaches for low-carbon education in architecture curricula. A lack of alignment exists between curricula orientation and the national agenda for climate change and low-carbon development. In order to integrate a sustainable low-carbon education in the architecture pedagogy, a set of recommendations for pedagogical approaches, education and training framework is proposed to offer crucial guidance to academia and other relevant stakeholders. Practice relevance Bangladesh is acutely affected by climate vulnerability due to its geographical location in the Ganges Delta. Although mitigation and low-carbon development policies are part of the national agenda, this has not been incorporated into the additional capabilities required by architects to deliver this. Low-carbon design and sustainability issues in architectural curricula are still in the initial phases of development. A lack of awareness, inadequate education and training, and lack of alignment between curricula orientation and the national agenda are identified as important factors. A set of scalable solutions and recommendations for education and training for architectural students is suggested.

Highlights

A large portion of total global CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is due to rapid urbanisation and massive infrastructure development designed by built environment professionals. Botha et al (2013) concluded that one of the key drivers promoting sustainable development (SD) in developing countries is driven by the contributions of professionals and future practitioners from the built environment (Allu 2016)
A renewed political commitment from the global community occurred at the Rio+20 Earth Summit and a process was initiated to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The aim of this paper is to examine the current trends and approaches in Bangladesh’s architectural education for creating a low-carbon built environment

Summary

Introduction

A large portion of total global CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is due to rapid urbanisation and massive infrastructure development designed by built environment professionals. Botha et al (2013) concluded that one of the key drivers promoting sustainable development (SD) in developing countries is driven by the contributions of professionals and future practitioners from the built environment (Allu 2016). A large portion of total global CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is due to rapid urbanisation and massive infrastructure development designed by built environment professionals. Botha et al (2013) concluded that one of the key drivers promoting sustainable development (SD) in developing countries is driven by the contributions of professionals and future practitioners from the built environment (Allu 2016). Given the growing relevance of the sustainability agenda to the professions of the built environment, one way to ensure that its mandates are effectively integrated in architecture and urban design is to revisit the role that education, at the university level, can play (Altomonte 2012: 54). The United Nations’ (UN) 57th Session declared 2005–14 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) (Boarin et al 2019) was created as a partnership between different UN agencies to provide a unique interface between higher education, science and policy-making (Paletta et al 2019)

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