Introducing regenerative design and circularity into architectural and engineering curriculum

Looking today to the challenges for planning and design of sustainable built environment including, carbon emissions, climate change, human health, water problems, biodiversity, scarcity of resources, depletion of fossil fuel, population growth and urbanization; sustainable architecture will play a key role for the sustainable development of society as a whole. In the context of an architectural design studio, this paper presents the experience of introducing the concept of regenerative design within a Belgian engineering faculty. The regenerative design objective and principles are used as a method to develop engineers’ capabilities to design within a circular economy paradigm. The aim of the study is to evaluate the adoption of circular economy principles and their influence on the decision making and final outcomes on third-year architectural engineering students at the University of Liege (Ulg), Faculty of Applied Sciences in 2014 and 2015. The paper utilizes two design studios outcomes in the form of projects evaluation and students feedback, in the form of interviews and surveys, in order to assess the students’ knowledge uptake, learned skills and design capabilities. Students completed a knowledge, skills, and attitudes questionnaire before the curriculum, after the final learning experience, and one year later. The paper provides results that shed light on the opportunities, challenges and architectural engineer’s needs to engage in a circular built environment.