Achieving Implementable Nature-Based Solutions While Reshaping Architectural Education: A Case Study of URBiNAT and BUILD Solutions

Authors: C. Farinea, A. Conserva, F. Demeur

Abstract:

Nature has often been something humans have fought against. However, with the changing climate and urban challenges such as air pollution and food shortages, to name but a few, it has never been more crucial to work with nature to find solutions that can help us to adapt to the current planetary situation and mitigate the challenges that we will continue to face in the future. Nature-based solutions (NBS) have been gaining ground as one strategy that can help to create more sustainable solutions for our planet and simultaneously, provide several ecosystem services. As designers, there are a lot of insights that can be extracted and gained from nature. However, nature is a complex and sometimes difficult to predict system and its implementation in cities requires a multidisciplinary knowledge. To keep up with the solutions and prepare the future generations of architects and designers with the skills to be able to implement NBS, educational systems also have to adapt with the times. Architecture is no longer solely about drawing buildings with beautiful forms. It is no longer discipline bound. With the input from different disciplines, the implementation of NBS can be significantly more successful. Transdisciplinary strategies can encourage architects and designers to think beyond their discipline, and ensure the success and realization of the NBS. The paper will demonstrate how transdisciplinary teaching methodologies, including also taking part in participatory processes with experts intended as gathering local knowledge, can be implemented with architectural master students to achieve implementable NBS. Through two projects co-funded by the European Union, strategies such as participatory co-design and transdisciplinary start-ups were implemented into seminars that focused on the development of NBS with a transdisciplinary approach. Within the “Design with Living Systems” seminar, students took part in participatory co-design strategies with experts to design solutions that will be implemented in Porto as part of a healthy corridor, and that respond to the needs of the users and site. On the other hand, within the “Design for Living Systems” seminar, the transdisciplinary start-up approach created start-ups with students of architecture, business and biology focusing on identifying a problem and designing a NBS as a product. Both seminars proved to be successful in achieving implementable NBS through strategies of transdisciplinary education and gave the students the skill sets to be able to work with nature in their future careers.

Keywords: Architectural higher education, digital fabrication, nature-based solutions, transdisciplinary approaches.

References:

[1] Michelsen, G. and Wells, P.J. (2017). A Decade of progress on education for sustainable development.
[online] UNESCO Publishing. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000252319.
[2] Farinea, C. and Demeur, F. eds., (2022). Connecting Biology, Design & Business Green Thinking to Green Action. 1st ed. Barcelona: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
[3] Farinea, C. (2021). Enhancing the integration of Nature-Based Solutions in cities through digital technologies. TECHNE Special Series, 2, pp.165–169.
[4] European Commission (2015). Towards an EU Research and Innovation Policy Agenda for Nature-based Solutions & Re-naturing Cities: Final Report of the Horizon 2020 Expert Group on ‘Nature-based Solutions and Re-naturing Cities, Publications Office of the European Union, Brussels.
[5] Urbinat. (2018). Urbinat - Healthy corridors as drivers of social housing neighbourhoods for the co-creation of social, environmental and marketable NBS. (online) Available at: https://urbinat.eu/ (Accessed 31 Jan. 2023).
[6] Moniz, G. C. eds., (2021). URBiNAT – D4.2 Healthy Corridor Concept, Coimbra, Portugal: CES.
[7] BUILDS. (2018). BUILD Solutions. (online) Available at: https://www.build-solutions.org/ (Accessed 31 Jan. 2023).
[8] Farinea, C. and Demeur, F. eds., (2022). Connecting Biology, Design & Business Green Thinking to Green Action. 1st ed. Barcelona: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
[9] Hilding-Hamann, K.E., Zacharias, N., Chaabane, B., Nunes, N., Ferreira, I., Caiatana, B., Mackenzie, T., Holz, S., Petrova, M.T., Bjorner, E., Andersson, I., Mateus, A., Lettoun, S., Bruni, I., Tavcar, A.K. and Duxbury, N. (2019). Strategic design and usage of participatory solutions and relevant digital tools in support of NBS uptake. URBiNAT, pp.25–28.
[10] Mussinelli, E., Tartaglia, A., Bisogni, L. and Malcevschi, S. (2018). The role of Nature-Based Solutions in architectural and urban design. TECHNE, 15, pp.116–123. doi:10.13128/Techne-22112.
[11] Green Skills for Cities. (2022). Green Skills for Cities. (online) Available at: http://greenskills4cities.eu/ (Accessed 31 Jan. 2023).
[12] Urban Shift. (2022). Urban Shift. (online) Available at: https://urbanshift.eu/ (Accessed 31 Jan. 2023).