Methodological start-up of student design projects: effects of a systematic approach

The increasing complexity of sustainable building design makes it necessary to consider different ways to design. More and more requirements are made on the operation of the product, with minimal energy depletion and environmental pollution. Increasingly, the need is felt to achieve early integration of disciplines and parties. The traditional initiating and dominating role of the architect must be changed into a more intensive interaction with other disciplines and stakeholders in already the conceptual design phase. However this is difficult to achieve and this is why the Dutch professional organizations of architects and consulting engineers started together with TU Delft the project Integral Design in 2000. This lead to research with workshops organized with professionals to test a specific design method based on Methodical Design and the extensive use of Morphological Charts and Morphological Overviews. The research project was continued at the TU Eindhoven and lead to two promotions as well as a method which had proven its added value in workshops with experienced professionals. As we now had an improved method from practice we implemented it in the educational program of the Faculty of the Built Environment of the TU Eindhoven. In connection with the Integral design research project for professional in the Dutch building industry, we developed an educational project, the master project Integral Design. The concept of the integral design workshop for professionals was implemented within the start-up workshop of our multidisciplinary masters’ project. The different design assignment all were related to the design of zero energy buildings. These complex tasks require early collaboration of all design disciplines involved in the conceptual building design and as such let the students experience the added value of the design method. Master students from architecture, building physics, building services, building technology and structural engineering participated in these projects. The basis of this project, which serves as a learning-by-doing start-up workshop for master students, is a method with extensive use of morphological charts combined to a morphological overview of the design team. The master project Integral design was initiated by the chair of Building Services in the 2005/06 academic year and since then was held every year. During the start-up workshop professionals participated in the student’s design teams and this specific intervention within the design process has been investigated. The frame work of the approach will be described as well as the positive effect on the collaboration between the design team members as result of the morphological approach of the Integral Design method.