Ehsan Fouladi - Master Student of Architecture, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran;
Hossein Samei - Master Student of Architecture, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran;
Vahid Sadram - Assistant Professor at Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran;

Awareness of the role that buildings play in the current climate crisis poses new onerous tasks for architectural educators and practitioners. There is a great deal of discussions in design, architecture, and construction circles on sustainable learning environments, and widely varying opinions as to how exactly sustainability can be introduced and approached. Investigating contemporary architectural practices reveals that there are two major missing dimensions. On the other hand, there is a heavy reliance on top-down policies and strategies with the aim of developing guidelines to be implemented for the betterment of learning environments. Strikingly, this takes place at the expense of other bottom-up strategies that aim at sensitizing users toward understanding the key issues underlying sustainability. This paper explores different definitions of sustainability as viewed by the international community such as Altomonte’s. It analyzes the problems associated with sustainable education in Iran, while considering related actions at some of the best universities in the UK and the USA.

Education, Architecture, Sustainability, Curriculum, Knowledge Transfer