Developing students’ sustainability consciousness: the role of attitude and practice toward incorporating new uses of old buildings into architectural education

Abstract

Higher education institutions play a crucial role in achieving environmental sustainability. According to UI GreenMetric, higher education institutions should, more than ever, implement sustainable development across all subject areas. In this context, the research’s main problem is how architectural education can raise students’ sustainability consciousness more effectively. This paper aims to increase awareness of how incorporating the content of new uses of old buildings into architectural education can significantly influence students’ sustainability consciousness. In addition, this study seeks to determine sustainability consciousness and behaviors differ according to the lessons they take. Reviewing the literature and survey were defined as appropriate for this study. In the questionnaires, it was tried to determine the approach of the students to the concept of sustainability, the effect of the curriculum on this situation, the extent to which sustainable education was integrated into the project courses, and how it was perceived. Descriptive and inferential statistics analyzed the collected data through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. This study will help us better understand the mechanisms behind the development of sustainability behavior by revealing which variables are influential in students’ sustainability behaviors. Despite the rich variety, students’ sustainability consciousness has rarely been investigated within the scope of attitude and practice toward incorporating adaptive reuse of old buildings into architectural education. This paper is among the few works exploring students’ sustainability consciousness using approaches of architectural education.