NABI-HFT

As part of the further development of the structural and development plan (StEP), HFT Stuttgart has expanded its strategic focus to include the key areas of ‘climate-competent - resilient - networked’. This sharpened profile addresses key societal challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity and sustainable urban development. With this focus, the university aims to make an active contribution to solving these problems, which has an impact on both the curricular design and the research specialisations. A central goal of the current StEP is the integration of transdisciplinary teaching formats on the topics of ‘Sustainable Development/Climate Literacy’ and ‘Digitalisation/Artificial Intelligence’ into all degree programmes by 2027. 

The funding applied for as part of the ‘CZS Rethink’ initiative aims to further deepen these transdisciplinary approaches in the area of ‘Sustainable Development/Climate Literacy’ and focuses on a more efficient use of finite resources in planning and construction under the aspect of ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’.

In order to promote the transition to a sustainable, resource-efficient circular economy and simpler, sustainable and affordable construction, new materials and construction methods that focus on reuse and recycling are to be brought into the focus of courses in the Architecture and Civil Engineering degree programmes.

Through measures such as the development of cross-degree programme and cross-faculty teaching formats, the creation of a joint knowledge database and collection of materials as well as the implementation of 1:1 demo projects, the university aims to further sharpen these topics in research and teaching, firmly anchor them and make them more visible to the outside world. These measures are intended to involve students more closely in practical research and promote forward-looking skills. The content of the research project builds on various HFT research projects, including iCity and Solar Decathlon.

• What content is best suited to achieve the above objectives? How can the respective disciplinary perspectives in these areas be best combined and synergised? How can the highly complex content be structured in the best possible way and made accessible to the target groups? How can this be achieved in such a way that the structures created can be further developed and utilised in the long term and sustainably?
• What characteristics should teaching/learning formats have to best achieve the above-mentioned goals? How could these be designed in concrete terms? Do these teaching formats fulfil the formulated expectations when implemented? How can they be further improved after initial implementation? 

A mixed methods approach is used to answer the research questions. Both empirical surveys and experimental approaches are used to develop and evaluate the teaching/learning formats.

The project is therefore located in the area of content-related research and teaching/learning research.

The findings will be used to derive specific changes and recommendations for the further development of the curricula of the participating degree programmes.