Over the past ten years we have noted the embracing of sustainability as a core precept in both the architectural profession and in schools. Where before energy issues, sustainable materials and development, the energy cycle and lifetime cost of a building was seen as specialist territory, these issues, and the knowledge and practical skills needed to integrate them to any design problem, are now embedded in all architectural practices no matter how small, how remote. This has been due to a whole series of factors - a growing understanding of the impact of development on the environment, UK and EU legislation, crisis in the construction industries, and not least rooting the concept of 'greenness' in the public's imagination.
Thus students entering any design course are likely to have encountered the concepts of energy consciousness, sustainable resources and the global environment particularly from primary school where much project work and creative play will be involved in bringing the subject to life and making it relevant to their own circumstances.
How then are these ideas becoming manifest in the output of students? What are the possible vehicles for fostering and demonstrating good practice in this area? This paper examines the teaching of sustainable design within one school of architecture in the UK. In examining the range of teaching practices in the Mackintosh School of Architecture it explores the experience in recent years in realigning sustainability to a core position within the syllabus, and asks how we support and nurture sustainable design practice within architectural education in the UK.