With its Internet-based online Master courses of study, the University of Stuttgart already created an innovative range of opportunities for further education for the working population at an early stage. Now the spectrum of subjects is to be extended by the new online Master course of study “Climate and Culture-Friendly Architecture”. The University of Stuttgart is receiving 570,000 Euros for designing and structuring the new program in the framework of the competition “ Advancement through Education: Open Universities” from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The course of study is to commence from the winter semester 2017/18.
Since time immemorial, it hasn’t just been the local climatic conditions that have characterised the architecture for the “protective roof” over one’s head but also the social structures and cultural aspects, the availability of building materials and the economic as well as the technical parameters. In this respect a diverse range of architecture and building forms sprung up in various parts of the world. Today, in contrast, as a result of globalisation, planning principles have asserted themselves, leading to an almost standardised architecture in all regions of the world. The principles of climate and culture-sensitive architecture are thereby completely disregarded: instead of this the learned formula without adapting to the respective climate and respect for the culture of a country is mostly transferred to another country. This not only leads to an anonymous and outlandish kind of architecture but often harbours the risk of building defects and building damage.
Although the topics of “climate-friendly architecture” as well as “socio-cultural aspects of architecture” were already frequently a subject of research in the 20th century and before that, up to now no interdisciplinary course of study has existed to consolidate these topics. This gap is to be filled by setting up the course of study “Online Master Climate and Culture-Friendly Architecture“. The interdisciplinary sandwich course of study will offer the future graduates an international competitiveness through its topicality and practical relevance. New target groups, such as working people with family obligations, people returning to their careers, unemployed academics as well as Bachelor graduates who wish to work alongside studying are addressed through a time and place-independent design of the learning process.
The Chair for Building Physics at the University of Stuttgart directly responsible for setting up the course of study has already been dealing with the principles of climate and culture-friendly architecture for some time now. In this respect a comprehensive excursion reader “Climate-Friendly Architecture – Tradition & Modernity” was published in 2009. In 2011 a symposium took place “ Clay Hut or Glass Facade? The challenges of climate-friendly architecture“ at the University of Stuttgart. Through the course of study “Master Online Building Physics“ the Chair also has sound experience in the field of online teaching. Further positive aspects are the close cooperation with the Fraunhofer-Institute for Building Physics, the proximity to research as well as the contact with numerous international partners.
The University of Stuttgart struck out in new directions with the online Master courses of study that commenced in 2007 in order to fulfil the increasing, rapidly changing qualification requirements in the working world. The special feature of these practical further training sandwich courses is the intensive application of the approaches of blended learning (mixture of face-to-face and online teaching), whereby the focal point is on e-learning with around 80 percent. This enables the students to study the lecture contents independent of time and place to a large degree. Achieving a respected university degree (Master of Science), family life and securing income can be constructively combined with each other. In total, the University of Stuttgart offers four further education courses: the online Master courses of study Building Physics, Logistics Management and Integrated Gerontology as well as the face-to-face course of study Construction Economics. Along with the Master online offer of Climate and Culture-Friendly Architecture, ranges are being prepared in the fields of International Construction Law, Acoustics and Intra- and Entrepreneurship (Stuttgart Media University. www.uni-stuttgart.de/moa/.
Further information:
Prof. Schew-Ram Mehra, University of Stuttgart, Chair for Building Physics, Tel. 0711/685-66578, Email: bauphysik@lbp.uni-stuttgart.de
Andrea Mayer-Grenu, University of Stuttgart, Department of University Communication, Tel.
0711/685-82176,
Email: andrea.mayer-grenu (at) hkom.uni-stuttgart.de
