177 2nd PALENC Conference and 28th AIVC Conference on Building Low Energy Cooling and Advanced Ventilation Technologies in the 21st Century, September 2007, Crete island, Greece Evaluation and evolution of the course ecology in architectural design P. Caputo, A. Roscetti University of Lugano, Switzerland I. Rega USI-SUPSI, Switzerland ABSTRACT Ecology in Architecture Design (EAD) is a project with the main aim of developing a blended (face to face lec- tures plus online activities) learning course about how to integrate ecology in the architectural design, both at the level of a single building and of territory. EAD started in July 2004 as a project founded by the Swiss University Conference within the Swiss Virtual Cam- pus (SVC), the national program studying the introduc- tion of information and communication technologies in universities and universities of applied sciences. EAD partners are Swiss universities, laboratories and tech- nical schools with expertise in architecture, energy, ecology, technology, design and communication and its main target are students in architecture. After two years of development, due to the positive results achieved, EAD has been selected also to enter the maintenance phase ending in December 2007. EAD has been tested during academic year (a.y.) 2004-05 in Accademia di Architettura of Mendrisio, the project leader, and since then EAD has been used in Switzerland, Italy and Bra- zil. Results of the applications are very positive and encourage partners to improve contents and tools and to explore new uses and targets. 1. INTRODUCTION The idea of the course started from the remark of a cul- tural and educational lack [1] [5]: often the relationship between environment and design is not well integrated in laboratories of architecture schools and not even in the processes and products of buildings and cities designers; EAD would represent a model to promote an advanced educational path for developing sustainable architectures. The project is run by the Accademia di Architettura of Mendrisio, in association with the Centre Universitaire d’Etude des Problèmes de l’Energie (CUEPE) of the Université de Genève, the Hochschule für Technik und Architektur (HTA) of Fachhochschule Zentralschweiz (FHZ) of Luzern and the Institute for Applied Sustaina- bility to the Built Environment of the Architecture, Con- struction and Design Department (DACD) of SUPSI of Lugano. The eLab (the eLearning laboratory of USI and SUPSI) guarantees assistance and technical support for educational and graphic design and technology [4] [5]. EAD main aim is to develop a blended learning course about how to integrate environmental themes in the architectural design and to transfer to the next genera- tion of architects the skills to include these components in their professional activity; at the end of the course, students are be able to follow an ecological approach in design, to understand the consequences of different choices and to evaluate alternatives, in order to opti- mize the given project [1] [5]. Thanks to EAD, students experience innovative didacti- cal tools [1] [4] [5] within the 12 modules ordered by two main sections (building and territory). The overall structure, the module organization and the components of a module are represented in table 1. Table 1: EAD’s structure, sections and modules Acrony ms Section Study of the rela- tionship between: Tools of each module B_C Building (B) B and climate (C) Presenta- tion, readers (with studies in depth and external sources), tests, tasks, interviews, case studies, virtual tours... B_A Building (B) B and air (A) B_W Building (B) B and water (W) B_G Building (B) B and ground (G) B_E Building (B) B and energy (E) B_P Building (B) B and population (P) T_C Territory (T) T and climate (C) T_A Territory (T) T and air (A) T_W Territory (T) T and water (W) T_G Territory (T) T and ground (G) T_E Territory (T) T and energy (E) T_P Territory (T) T and population (P) PALENC 2007 - Vol 1.indd 177 3/9/2007 1:23:56 µµ