Improving urban resilience, increasing environmental awareness: new challenge of architectural and planning education

Abstract

This paper considers recently introduced teaching methods at the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture, conceptualized as a response to the issues of climate change and environmental awareness. The courses Urban structure (conducted on the 2nd year of bachelor studies during year 2013/14) and Studio Project 4 (the final year of Bachelor studies 2012/13) are used as examples of this practice. The paper also attempts to review the results of different curricula, i.e. the working strategies applied during the teaching process, providing an insight into the possible directions of the architectural/planning education, formulated according to the latest priorities defined by various referential institutions (e.g. RTPI, EDUCATE – Framework for Curriculum Development Environmental Design in University Curricula and Architectural Training in Europe). The survey conducted in selected courses compares students’ acquired and experiential knowledge, evaluating their ability to understand a set of problems related to urban resilience and environmental awareness in the context of climate change. One of key findings is that in alternative teaching methods students are faced with the problem that they have to understand completely, which motivates them to disclose relevant knowledge, without pre-determined recipes, and generate creative solutions to identified problems.