SUMMARY
There are many methods used for evaluation of buildings and methods that help us to achieve that the structures are built sustainably. They differ not only in methodology, but also in the target group, to whom the evaluation is determined.
Each sustainable building represents extra-standard for now and it should be the basis from which each architect should proceed. An architect can influence the future of the building and predict the degree of its ‘sustainability’ in the process of design of its concept. For this reason it is really important to focus on application of sustainability assessment in architecture education and to teach students to investigate the basic principles of the project sustainability in the development of an architectural concept.
At the Faculty of Architecture in CTU, in the Design Studio of Assoc.prof. Ing.arch. Schleger, an evaluation method called ‘ecoparameters’ was developed. Thanks to the so-called ‘eco-parameters’ the level of sustainability of a building can be influenced in early stage of the design process. The process of sustainable building design is not only based on the technical parameters and physical properties of individual components of the building, but especially on the experience and the talent of the architect and the team. It is not posible to reach the quality and comprehensive architectural design with just the use of all specified parameters on the list. It should be noted that a sustainable quality of the building is given rather more with the clear architectural concept based on thorough knowledge and philosophy of the architect.
Participation in international competition SolarDecathlon can be considered as an example where students have the opportunity to learn how to design a sustainable building. It is a prestigious student competition where twenty university teams selected from around the world are confronted in the design and construction of an attractive, energy-efficient house powered only by the solar energy. Participation of students of the Faculty of Architecture CTU in this international competition in 2013 is a great success.