Living buildings as communication tools and informal learning environments for sustainable building education

Abstract

The idea that sustainable buildings can be used as teaching tools for both formal and informal environmental education and sustainable building education (SBE) has gained attention in both research and practice. Evidence bases from existing studies show that buildings can engage their users in sustainability themes through architectural design, organization, and programming and communicate various SBE messages. However, the nature, process, and components of this architectural communication remain largely unexplored by empirical researchers. This dissertation research links the theories of communication and pedagogical architecture to address this gap and offers a conceptual framework--Components of Informative Architectural Communication in Sustainable Buildings--to explore (a) the source (design and programming team) and their educational intentions; (b) channel (the building itself with their features, communication strategies, etc.); (c) messages (the content for sustainable building knowledge); and (d) receivers (building users such as occupants and visitors) and their learning outcomes. Comparing the intended and received SBE messages provides a way to measure the success (effectiveness) of the mentioned communication. This qualitative case study uses the offered conceptual framework to examine three living buildings, types of sustainable buildings with higher performance goals and educational intention. Interviews with design team members and occupants (which include personal meaning map drawings), field observations, and documentations are the main data collection methods, and the data is analyzed with mixed methods. Findings show that several architectural, interpretational, interactional, and promotional strategies are employed in living buildings to communicate sustainable building knowledge. And occupying living buildings for lengths of time on a daily, weekly, and/or annual basis, compared to people who come for short periods of time, makes a significant difference in receiving the messages (sustainable building knowledge gain). Based on both theoretical and empirical findings, this work concludes with key insights and implications for practitioners and future directions for research on pedagogical architecture and living buildings.