Transforming Building Design through Integrated Project Delivery in Architectural and Engineering Education José L. PERDOMO 1 and Humberto CAVALLIN 2 1 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Puerto Rico- Mayagüez, PR 00680, PH (787) 265-2815, josel.perdomo@upr.edu 2 Associate Professor, School of Architecture, University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, humberto.cavallin1@upr.edu ABSTRACT Changes experimented in the interaction of the different disciplines involved in building science during the XXth Century have increased the divide between what is taught in the classrooms and what is then later expected by the real world of professional practice. However, recent advances in computer technology and demands that come from contemporary professional scenarios have challenged this divide. This new reality has given birth to the development of an integrated interdisciplinary approach, under the umbrella of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). Through IPD, the traditional consultant based model has been substituted by an integrated one in which the different professions are required to work together from the beginning of the building project. The purpose of this paper is to describe an initiative aimed to implement an integrated minor degree to provide the substantial knowledge required to address these new professional scenarios. We have called it “Transforming Building Design through Integrated Project Delivery in Architectural and Engineering Education.” Through this initiative, students from both architecture and civil engineering schools will be jointly face scenarios that mimic real professional challenges. This initiative will provide students the opportunity to develop solutions to real building design projects collaboratively, using BIM and a project-based learning. INTRODUCTION It is common knowledge nowadays that there is a clear professional divide between the different disciplines involved in the design of buildings; mainly because the academic preparation of architects and engineers usually takes place in different and separate educational environments. These divisions encompass aspects that go beyond the disciplinary knowledge, affecting the values and roles that stakeholders play in the design, development, and execution of building projects. The theorist of education Donald Schön (Schön (1983), Schön (1987)), pointed out that this divide is due to an ‘epistemology of practice’ that can be traced back to the American scholars that imported this philosophical approach from Germany at the end of the XIXth century. Schön (1987) refers to this perspective as “epistemology of technical rationality”. This epistemology assumed that universities were the place in which ‘pure’ knowledge had to be taught, separating this type of knowledge from the professional practice, and therefore establishing a distinction between theory and practice in the professions. Once the theoretical knowledge is acquired, students were expected to seamlessly apply it to the problems that they would face in practice. This 359 Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014