MOOC LOW3-ZERO LIVING: Third and last in-person meeting at the Living Lab

The third in-person meeting of our MOOC course LOW3-ZERO LIVING took place at our Living Lab. It served for an exchange about the Learning Modules and their content, and specifically to discuss the different exercises, the latest on energy certification and embodied energy of our homes.

The meeting also served for a first feedback on the student satisfaction, as the mixed online and in-person format of the course is quite innovative and still unusual for our university. Students expressed to be very happy with the course and that the combination of learning online and through the exploration of a real prototype building creates a unique learning experience. 

Regarding their personal learning environment, students mentioned that they use to course the weekly modules generally at home, some also at university, going through the whole thematic guided visit, specific knowledge clouds, and self-assessments in one single session. This helps to stay concentrated and get the most out of each Learning Module. Students mentioned that the course delivers very specific and useful information, going deeper than many other classes they receive, and that they would like to have access to this information also beyond the official end of the course, when information is needed e.g. for specific design projects (TAPs) they develop. Exercises related to their personal homes and individual lifestyles have been reported to be very motivating, but also very time intensive, proposing a recognition of 3 instead of 2 ECTS for the course.

During the break, some solar kitchen experiments allowed to experience the power of the sun at first hand, measuring the velocity and peak temperature of heating up water, some building material surface temperatures and reflecting about the geometry of solar radiation. Even the "Campus Cat" came for a visit, what ones more describes well the "domestic" and therefor more personal, non-formal learning environment of our Living Lab.

This third and last in-person meeting of our MOOC ended with an outlook on the holistic energy transition of our cities, projecting the Roadmap for Energy (R4E) specific Smart Urban Spaces Roadmap video and discussing its vision for 2050.)

(R4E Roadmap video Smart Urban Spaces)

Once finished this first experience with our MOOC, we will evaluate the experience, format and contents, and decide in which form the course will be offered during the next academic year.

CISOL-ARQBAG meeting at LOW3

Members of ARQBAG and CISOL met for an informal lunch at the Living Lab for interchanging ideas, getting known to each other’s recent projects, and fostering new initiatives between both teams. 

The recently presented “Fem Mataró” project is still pending of resolution, new international Summer Workshops and innovation seminars are planned for July, and besides maintenance and use issues of the Living Lab could be discussed.

The LOW3 Living Lab is just that, an example of a so-called “transition platform” at our university, where actors can meet in a non-formal environment for developing new ideas, initiatives and projects while strengthening personal relationships among people. Places urgently needed in any kind of institution in order to foster participatory bottom-up initiatives driven by its stakeholders.

CESBA MED - Sustainability Asssessment of Neigbourhoods

Based on our experience in sustainable architecture and lifestyle, and our collaboration as experts in smart buildings and smart urban spaces in the R4E project (www.roadmapsforenergy.eu) we have been invited by the Municipality of Sant Cugat and the Catalan Housing Ministry to participate in the experts committee of CESBA MED.

CESBA MED is an European Interreg Mediterranean Project with the aim to develop indicators of sustainability for the holistic assessment of neighbourhood performance. https://cesba-med.interreg-med.eu

The local CESBA MED Committee for Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Vallès consists of a mixture of experts from academia, research and industry, and aims to discuss, co-develop and validate the selection of local key performance indicators for the assessment of sustainability of neighbourhoods.

CESBA (Common European Sustainable Built Environment Assessment) is a collective European bottom-up initiative that provides knowledge on harmonised built environment assessment. It has the mission to facilitate the diffusion and adoption of sustainable built environment principles among all the stakeholders of the built environment sector through the use of harmonized assessment systems in the whole life cycle of the built environment. (www.cesba.eu)

Visit of Master Sustainability students to LOW3

Students from the Master Sustainability of UPC visited the Living Lab together with their professors Albert Cuchí and Anna Pagès for getting known to its concepts of sustainable architecture and its technological solutions.

Engineers, architects and specialists in materials discussed about the LOW3 concept, embodied energy of its materials, the buildings lifecycle, active solar systems, space use and flexibility and many other aspects which define nowadays the overall sustainability of a project. The Live-at LOW3 house occupation experiment, which formed part of their former Master program showed them the environmental impact evalutation of LOW3 under real conditions.

Finally students got introduced into the results of the Roadmap for Energy (R4E) project through the R4E Roadmap video about Smart Buildings, getting an impression about how buildings might develop in the mid and long run. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf3q-Od9TQ8)   

New Educational Visit - Escola Pia Sarria, Barcelona

ETSAV and its Living Lab received a new educational visit by 18 students and their supervisors of Escola Pia Sarria, Barcelona, from Barcelona, which spent half a day at our campus visiting and exploring the Living Lab LOW.

Students split up into four groups, exploring the solar house and its installations. Energy control and management, bioclimatic concepts and mechanisms, photovoltaic energy generation and the solar thermal installation have been centre of the explorations and measurements.

Due to the cloudy day our solar-cooked popcorn did not achieve the necessary temperature, but at least we gave it a try, experimenting with the concentrated power of the sun through the parabolic solar kitchen.

Living Lab LOW3 at the ETSAV campus at Sant Cugat showed once more its potential as tools for a holistic education regarding a more sustainable architecture and life style, offering a platform for exploration, measurement and discussions.