ARCHITECTURE IN SHANGHAI
AGREEING ON SUSTAINABILITY
Taking as point of departure that sustainability is an interpretive and interactive process depending on the outcome of how well the groups were integrated, we now discuss what type of consensus of sustainability the groups reached, and how they got there.
Each of the four groups chose a different design approach, and different types of active and passive systems. In terms of microgeneration technologies to power and heat the facilities, they all chose a similar set-up: a mixture of PV, small wind turbines, battery storage and/or fuel cells. Another important feature for the four groups’ assessments of the sustainability of the research facility was the siting of the facility (see Figure 6). Group 1 thought that there should not be any fixed installations in such pristine area. They decided to design a floating installation that could be pulled out to the islands when needed, and also moved around according to weather and research needs in other locations.
Group 2 and 3 decided to locate their facility at roughly the same place, namely close to an already existing installation on the islands with boat landing facilities already in place. It was argued that this would create minimum impact since infrastructures already were in place. Both groups were inspired by local environment and materials, such as the local reed, sand, and changing climate conditions in the area, and were seeking to ‘blend in with the nature, to be one with nature and to not disturb it more than necessary’ (Final report, Group 3). Group 4 chose an altogether different approach by locating the research facility in the sea between Shanghai and the islands. It was argued that this location would not create any impact at all, and it would also create an additional purpose: to serve as a landmark visible from Shanghai that would inform citizens about the presence of a fragile and pristine natural environment represented by the wetland islands. They wanted to make the city connect with the island and create a relation between them.
The four groups chose two main siting strategies connected to their understanding of sustainability:
Group 2 and 3 went with a type of intervention but with the aim to ‘blend in’. Group 1 was very clear about non-intervention and Group 4 intended to create a new connection and relationship with the city.
Both latter designs were thus opening up for other purposes than strictly being research facilities for these particular wetland islands. Reaching this sort of consensus in each group about how to interpret sustainability was a rather cumbersome process. The main challenges as documented both through the group discussion and in the final survey was the language barriers that existed, particularly for the Asian students. The presence of an intermediary person in the group was of great advantage. For example, Group 3 discovered early on that there was another building on the wetland islands, and this finding shaped their design and decision about siting. This was achieved in large part because the group had a student who mastered both English and Chinese, giving members of the whole group access to a larger amount of information in Chinese. However, despite having an intermediary person, during the next phases of the design process this group struggled for some time to come up with the final design. In other words, the initial advantage of an intermediary was not enough to create a well-functioning team.
On average, the European students were much more talkative from the outset, but they soon realised they had to give space to the Asian students in order to draw from their expertise in the project. A shared experience was that no one was expert in doing this particular task, and they had to build on each other’s knowledge in order to find good solutions. Asian students were more cautious about saying their opinion, but the practical and hands-on situation appeared to aid them. One Korean engineering student put it this way:
The summer school is very useful for me because usually I just solve problems on my computer or in my lab, and I usually start with calculations first and then find a solution to an equation, but
AMPS, Architecture_MPS; London South Bank University 09—10 February 2017
this is not the same: there is no equation here. We have to talk and communicate, and I feel that this is very helpful to me.
The group games that were organised also speeded up the process of getting to know each other and were useful in building trust between members quickly. Since language barriers were prominent and impeded the collaborative process, the group games made the students feel more relaxed about making mistakes and knowing that they would have the chance to be heard and explain themselves.
Figure 6: The different siting strategies chosen by the groups
CONCLUSIONS
What we can conclude from this research is that there was great diversity in the proposed solutions, and each solution provided well-grounded arguments for their choice. Therefore, what is sustainable depends on the assumptions made and the process in which the end result is reached. For the four groups of this summer school, we saw priorities ranging between different matters of concern: ‘blend-in’ or no intervention, fixed or floating installations, high comfort or a bare minimum of energy production, a landmark or more functional designs. Group 2 won the final design competition with a jury consisting of representatives from research, industry and the local municipality that considered building the research facility. It is possible that they won because it was the most visually appealing concept or because the group performed better during the final presentation, and not because it was the
AMPS, Architecture_MPS; London South Bank University 09—10 February 2017
most sustainable design. Such considerations should also be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of a chosen architecture.
When dealing with sustainability the learning effects from meeting new ideas, ways of doing things, disciplines and cultural backgrounds contribute immensely to what sustainability is or can be in each case. Arguably, a sustainable project is not achieved unless all parties have taken part in the design process. In the summer school, this experience was manifested in the importance of these master students gaining a mutual understanding of what they wanted to achieve, before they embarked on their final design. The mutual understanding was sometimes facilitated by what we call an intermediary person that masters both English and Mandarin. Nevertheless, arriving upon different choices, for instance, of whether to go for a fixed installation or a landmark was a process marked by a constant re-negotiation of their mutual understanding. Hence, the sustainability of these four designs was always anchored in the agreements and consensus they were able to achieve within their group.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The SEniC 2016 summer course was supported by the Joint Research Centre in Sustainable Energy between SJTU and NTNU, and funded by the Research Council of Norway - UTFORSK programme (UTF-2014/10069), of the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU).13 The authors wish to thank all the students and staff involved in the summer course as well as all the industrial partners and municipal officials for having actively taken part in the summer course.
_ REFERENCES
1 Arjen E. J. Wals and Bob Jickling, “‘Sustainability’ in Higher Education: from Doublethink and Newspeak to Critical Thinking and Meaningful Learning,” Higher Education Policy 15(2) (2002)
2 Ibid. 224
3 Ibid. 223
4 Ibid. 226
5 See e.g., Rietje van Dam-Mieras, Angelique Lansu, Marco Rieckmann and Gerd Michelsen, “Development of an interdisciplinary, intercultural master’s program on sustainability: Learning from the richness of diversity,”
Innovative Higher Education 32(5) (2008); Kerry Shephard, “Higher education for sustainability: seeking affective learning outcomes," International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 9 (1) (2008); Ralf Hansmann,
“’Sustainability learning’: an introduction to the concept and its motivational aspects,” Sustainability 2(9) (2010);
and Benjamin Karatzoglou, “An in-depth literature review of the evolving roles and contributions of universities to education for sustainable development,” Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013)
6 Paula Jones, David Selby and Stephen R. Sterling (Eds.), Sustainability Education: Perspectives and Practice across Higher Education, (London, New York: Earthscan, 2010)
7 See e.g. Paula Jones, David Selby and Stephen R. Sterling (Eds.), Sustainability Education: Perspectives and Practice across Higher Education, (London, New York: Earthscan, 2010); and Arnim Wiek, Lauren Withycombe and Charles L. Redman, “Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development”, Sustainability Science 6 (2011)
8 See e.g. Janet Moore, “Seven recommendations for creating sustainability education at the university level”, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 6(4) (2005); Rietje van Dam-Mieras, Angelique Lansu, Marco Rieckmann and Gerd Michelsen, “Development of an interdisciplinary, intercultural master’s program on sustainability: Learning from the richness of diversity,” Innovative Higher Education 32(5) (2008); Arnim Wiek, Lauren Withycombe and Charles L. Redman, “Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development”, Sustainability Science 6 (2011)
9 Rietje van Dam-Mieras, Angelique Lansu, Marco Rieckmann and Gerd Michelsen, “Development of an interdisciplinary, intercultural master’s program on sustainability: Learning from the richness of diversity,”
Innovative Higher Education 32(5) (2008)
10 Janet Moore, “Seven recommendations for creating sustainability education at the university level”, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 6(4) (2005), 331
AMPS, Architecture_MPS; London South Bank University 09—10 February 2017
11 Arjen E. J. Wals and Bob Jickling, “‘Sustainability’ in Higher Education: from Doublethink and Newspeak to Critical Thinking and Meaningful Learning,” Higher Education Policy 15(2) (2002), 227
12 See e.g. Piet Van den Bossche, Wim H. Gijselaers, Mien Segers and Paul A. Kirschner “Social and Cognitive Factors Driving Teamwork in Collaborative Learning Environments,” Small Group Research 37(5) and Naomi Miyake and Paul A. Kirschner, ‘Chapter 21: The Social and Interactive Dimensions of Collaborative Learning’, in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences: Second Edition, ed. Keith R. Sawyer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 434
13 Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, “Joint Research Centre of SJTU and NTNU within Sustainable Energy,” SJTU and NTNU, 26 May 2010. [Online]. Available:
https://www.ntnu.edu/jrc. [Accessed 06 May 2016].
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Hansmann, Ralf. “’Sustainability learning’: an introduction to the concept and its motivational aspects,”
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Jones, Paula, David Selby and Stephen R. Sterling (Eds.). Sustainability Education: Perspectives and Practice across Higher Education. London, New York: Earthscan, 2010.
Karatzoglou, Benjamin. “An in-depth literature review of the evolving roles and contributions of universities to education for sustainable development,” Journal of Cleaner Production 49 (2013): 44-53.
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Miyake Naomi and Paul A. Kirschner. “Chapter 21: The Social and Interactive Dimensions of Collaborative Learning”, in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences: Second Edition, edited by Keith R. Sawyer, 418-439. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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Wals, Arjen E. J. and Bob Jickling. “‘Sustainability’ in Higher Education: from Doublethink and Newspeak to Critical Thinking and Meaningful Learning,” Higher Education Policy 15(2) (2002):121-31.
Wiek, Arnim, Lauren Withycombe and Charles L. Redman. “Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development”, Sustainability Science 6 (2011):203-218.