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Majors / Architecture / Specialization

Sustainable Architecture

Building with the climate instead of against it: passive design, earth and bio-based materials such as adobe and hemp, and counting a building's carbon over its whole life.

A specialization of Architecture. It assumes the first two years of the major and gives the last two a focus.

For: architecture students choosing a direction, self-builders and anyone planning a house who wants it to be healthy and low-carbon, and anyone curious why old buildings in hot or cold places were built the way they were.

Shaped by sustainable-design programmes such as the Centre for Alternative Technology's MSc in Sustainability and Adaptation in the Built Environment and CRAterre's earthen-architecture courses (Grenoble), the Passive House Institute's designer curriculum and the international standards for earth and hemp construction.

7readings
1.7 hoursof reading
2stages
4 reads · 3 deep dives
Not started
Start the path
Stage 1

Year 3 · Designing with climate and materials

4 readings · 59 min
  1. 01ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Environmental Systems in Buildings: Designing Comfort, Not Just Adding Machines

    Heating, cooling, ventilation and light in buildings.
  2. 02Deep diveInteractiveQuiz17 min

    Climate-Responsive & Passive Design: Let the Weather Do the Work

    Sun, wind, shade and thermal mass: comfort with little or no machinery.
  3. 03Deep diveInteractiveQuiz15 min

    Earth Building: Adobe, Rammed Earth & Cob

    Adobe, rammed earth, cob and compressed earth blocks, and building them to stand up to earthquakes.
  4. 04ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Bio-based Building: Hemp, Straw, Bamboo & Timber

    Hempcrete, straw bale, bamboo and timber: buildings grown in fields and forests.
Stage 2

Year 4 · Measuring and building it

3 readings · 41 min
  1. 05Deep diveInteractiveQuiz16 min

    Life-Cycle Carbon & Green Building: Counting a Building's Whole Life

    Embodied and operational carbon, life-cycle assessment, green building standards and retrofit.
  2. 06ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Climate Science: A Heat Balance Sheet for the Planet

    The climate science behind the targets.
  3. 07ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    The Design Studio: From a Brief and a Site to a Building

    Bringing it together in a design project.

Study it in depth, for free

These pieces give you the intuition. To learn the major properly, these are the courses and texts universities use, free to read or audit, and the standard textbooks if you want to own one. Links checked November 2026.

The whole major, free: MIT OCW 4.401 Environmental Technologies in Buildings for Year 3 climate and comfort, then the free earth and hemp readings below for materials, then LETI's Embodied Carbon Primer for Year 4 carbon.

Free courses and texts

  1. Environmental Technologies in Buildings · MIT OCW 4.401 · heating, cooling, ventilation, light and sound in buildings; Year 3
  2. Fundamentals of Energy in Buildings · MIT OCW 4.42J · energy flows through a building envelope; Year 3
  3. Daylighting · MIT OCW 4.430 · sun, shade and designing with natural light; Year 3 passive design
  4. Natural Ventilation and Thermal Mass · Whole Building Design Guide (US National Institute of Building Sciences) · wind-driven comfort and thermal mass; Year 3
  5. Ecologies of Construction · MIT OCW 4.406 · materials, their sources and impacts; Year 3 materials
  6. Preservation of Historic Adobe Buildings · US National Park Service, Preservation Brief 5 (free PDF) · how adobe is made, how it fails and how it is repaired; Year 3 earth building
  7. Proceedings of the Getty Seismic Adobe Project 2006 Colloquium · Getty Conservation Institute (free PDF) · how adobe and earthen buildings behave in earthquakes and how to strengthen them; Year 3 earthquake design
  8. Ressources: downloadable books · CRAterre (Grenoble earthen-architecture centre) · its resources page lists a section of free downloadable books on earth building (titles and languages vary and are best opened from that page); Year 3
  9. World Heritage Earthen Architecture Programme · UNESCO World Heritage Centre · earthen heritage worldwide and conservation approaches; Year 3
  10. The Use of Hempcrete in Single Family Home Construction · Penn State Pennsylvania Housing Research Center (free PDF research report) · hempcrete assemblies, performance and examples; Year 3 hemp
  11. Embodied Carbon Primer · LETI (London Energy Transformation Initiative) · embodied carbon in building materials and how to cut it; Year 4
  12. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) · Whole Building Design Guide · how to count a building's impacts over its life; Year 4
  13. Climate Emergency Design Guide · LETI · design targets for low-carbon new buildings; Year 4 project

The standard textbooks

  • Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Sustainable Design Methods for Architects (Norbert Lechner) · the standard US text on passive design and climate; Year 3
  • Sun, Wind, and Light: Architectural Design Strategies (G. Z. Brown and Mark DeKay) · passive strategies by climate; Year 3
  • Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture (Gernot Minke) · adobe, rammed earth, cob and compressed blocks; Year 3
  • Earth Construction: A Comprehensive Guide (Hugo Houben and Hubert Guillaud, CRAterre) · the reference on earth building techniques; Year 3
  • Essential Hempcrete Construction: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide (Chris Magwood) · building with hemp-lime, for self-builders; Year 3
  • Adobe and Rammed Earth Buildings: Design and Construction (Paul G. McHenry) · structural and seismic design of earth buildings; Year 3-4
Next path →

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