Training Students in Understanding and Coding nature fore reHarmonIzing natural and built environment - TSUCHI

The ultimate scope of the TSUCHI project is that of strengthening long-lasting collaboration between educational programs at the faculties of architecture and engineering at NTNU and Japanese Universities with the purpose of training students in the creative development of design solutions for a more sustainable built environment. The project, collecting dedicated teachers and initiatives prized for quality in education at NTNU, looks at the constructive collaboration between architecture and engineering programs as a key-component for the developing teaching and learning activities - TLA - where scientific knowledge is used as a meaningful platform for the design of sustainable buildings. The project is hosted at the MSc in Sustainable Architecture and the Minor of Architecture at the faculty of engineering, both collecting architects and engineers in multidisciplinary design processes. It moreover relies on facilities built thanks to the Climate HubLAB project, a pedagogical laboratory initiated and developed through the Toppundervisning program at NTNU. The project aims to build a collaborative platform for training students in the development of integrated solutions where structural and environmental performance complement each other.

Purpose & Approach

TSUCHI, meaning earth in Japanese, stays for Training Students in Understanding and Coding nature for reHarmonIzing natural and built environment. Japanese academics and practitioners involved look at a deep understanding of ecology and principles in nature as the basis for educational activities and practices where technical knowhow is combined with poetics. Activities include: 

• a series of experimental multidisciplinary design workshops where to test alternative collaboration patterns, two in Japan and two in Norway.
• a series of long term students exchanges on both directions
• invited visiting practitioners for enhancing connection with the industry.

The project is also used as the opportunity for revising courses at NTNU in a way to foster students’ tacit knowledge and enhance creativity, moving learning outcomes from the ability to control environmental impact to the ability to creatively envision alternative and better futures.