Integral Building Design workshops : a concept to structure communication

Following the developments in (Dutch) building practice, where besides specialist skills a design approach is increasingly being asked, the Building Services chair of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning of Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e) initiated in academic year 2005/06 a multidisciplinary masters project ‘Integral Design’. In this first edition, architecture, building technology and building services students participated. As basis for this project served a learning-by-doing workshop approach, developed and tested with/on experienced practitioners from the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) and the Dutch Association of Consulting Engineers (ONRI). The (theoretical) background for the workshops is provided by two PhD projects running within KCBS, entitled ‘Integral design methodology in the context of sustainable comfort systems’ and ‘Integral design methodology in the context of collaborative engineering’. KCBS stands for Knowledge Centre for Building and Systems TNO-TU/e, cooperation between the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research – core area Built Environment and Geosciences and TU/e. In this paper the results of the first multidisciplinary masters project edition are discussed. At the same time a comparison with BNA-ONRI-KCBS workshops for practitioners is made. The conclusions of this analysis helped us to define improvements for 2006/07 edition of ‘Integral Design’ multidisciplinary masters project, which will take place in the first half of year 2007.