Abstract:

As near zero-energy buildings (NZEB) become the new standard of residential and some other arts of new built buildings. As the European Commission has adopted the directive on Energy Performance of Buildings new challenges arose for architects and engineers of other technology fields involved in the design of this kind of houses. Environmental, economic and social considerations have to be taken into account by the designers. Therefore, it is important not only to build awareness about these fields but also to implement it interdisciplinary in the curricula of higher education institutions in order to educate students on how to reduce the energy needs of the building, but also to attempt to produce the necessary energy locally, mainly from renewable energy sources.

A cross-border project with the name “Veduca2” is running now by Croatian and Hungarian universities for developing guidelines and suggesting an innovative curriculum for educating students in professions related to architecture, construction, mechanical and electrical engineering about the near zero-energy buildings. An interdisciplinary curriculum has been developed as a pilot program and implemented during a summer school organized in both countries for students of different professions, including theoretical and practical teaching. In the second stage of the project, this curriculum has been improved and adapted for implementation in undergraduate professional studies of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering.

In this paper, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Veduca2 project is described detailing the results of the applied curriculum and the summer school as expected new competencies of the target groups, i.e. professors and students. At the final phase of the project students showed what they have learned. Experiences have shown that the developed methodology can be applied to the development of other interdisciplinary curricula.

Keywords:

Near-zero energy buildings, curriculum, interdisciplinary, renewable sources.