In the last decade or so students entering architectural education are more attuned and interested in the crucial issues of the climate emergency and sustainability. Their awareness of the issues faced and eagerness to learn how to resolve said issues is excellent.
Often and as the students’ progress in stages, there seems to be an unfortunate disconnect to effectively link the ‘conceptual studio work’ with the required architectural technology and especially with regards to climate responses, tectonics, and constructability. Even though students have the knowledge, understanding and tools to successfully integrate their conceptual designs with the essential architectural technology, quite often this is only done quite superficially.
Sometimes students are overwhelmed by the prioritising of ‘conceptual design’ studio culture, other times the deliverables for the studio component are sizeable and students are left with no time to integrate technology into the studio work.
Furthermore, the stipulation and separation of 50% design 50% ‘other’ from the professional statutory and regulatory bodies requirements exacerbate the misalignment between design and architectural technology.

This submission aims to highlight how as the head of technology at the Mackintosh school of architecture, I have been trying to tackle the issue and effectively integrate architectural technology, climate literacy, tectonics, and constructability in the studio to enrich and develop the Design Thesis projects at stages 4 and 5, MArch programme.
The architectural technology component at stages 4 and 5, even though is marked and comprises a separate course (the equivalent to a module in England and Wales) require total integration with the design studio components. The component is weighted as 30 credits for each stage, half the 60 -credit requirement of the design studio year- long components. The technology course runs all year long alongside the studio, to reinforce its importance as part of design decision making to the students. There are various synchronous and asynchronous events taking place during the year, lectures, workshops, AT tutorials and invited specialist tutorials, all aim to streamline and incorporate climate literacy, tectonics, and constructability within the studio work.
The teaching and learning methods for the two stages have varying degrees of support, didactic mechanisms, student autonomy, critical thinking, analysis, and innovation.

The new mode and content of delivering architectural technology in stages 4 and 5 has been tested for the last 3 years. The results are quite promising, especially for the students populating the middle and low-grade bands, with regards to deep and sustained learning and effectively transferring their knowledge and skills to practice.