Architecture and the Biosphere Environment in Pedagogy: Design Visions for Sustainable Dwelling Communities,

Abstract

Architecture today must evolve out of the bounds of its immediate built limits to extend into environmental surrounds and must concern itself more holistically with questions of natural preservation and sustainable development. Through design, architects need to inherently address questions related to the natural environment, and the integration of building and landscape, while promoting sustainable strategies that not only tackle the performance of the built structure but also extend to its natural context and community. In areas of biosphere reserves, especially in buffer zones, architectural development should involve conceptual, formal, behavioral and programmatic strategies that can support and connect to the extended community of the biosphere, through communal projects that integrate sustainable living, working, and connecting to the natural terrain. In this paper, I will address the pedagogical experiments of engaging with the biosphere reserve of Jabal Moussa in Lebanon, through the work of 3rd year architecture students at AUB. The paper will discuss the pedagogical methodology, the contextual framework of Jabal Moussa, and select design visions that try to imagine potential sustainable housing community that can work symbiotically with the biosphere. As such, the work presented here reflects on the necessity to address biosphere reserve areas through architecture in a holistic sustainable approach moving beyond the limits of the built form to encompass usage, integration, material, and the extended natural and human environments.