European Commission funds "Teachers' Resource Portfolios" for climate responsive architectural design
In a significant initiative aimed at changing the design of European buildings, the European Commission has recently funded the development and launch of three "Teachers' Resource Portfolios" to support the teaching of climate responsive architectural design. This initiative was financed by the Renewable Energies unit of Directorate-General XII (Science, Research and Development) under its SOLINFO project which is aimed at developing the use of solar energy among architects and engineers. Based on the results of more than a decade of highly-productive EC R&D, these portfolios are intended to assist and promote the teaching of environmentally conscious design and solar architecture in 300 schools of architecture across the European Union. They provide useful and focused course material for courses in solar architectural design, with each portfolio relating to a different building type: residential, educational and commercial/institutional. The portfolios were developed by the Architectural Association Graduate School in London, the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and the School of Architecture, University College Dublin, in Ireland.