A proposal of practically oriented summer school at the University of Pisa: Sustainable Building Summer School

The paper describes a project of practically (design) oriented summer school at the University of Pisa (Department of Energy, System, Territory and Construction Engineering) for graduate students from Energy Engineering, Civil - Building Engineering and Architecture and Management Engineering. The main aspects characterizing this project can be summarized as follows. The summer school has duration of 4 weeks with the recognition of 15 ECTS. These credits can be recognized for Erasmus student mobility. Study activities are intensive (about 8 hours per day) and involve both lectures – seminars (morning) and student work in group (afternoon). Moreover, studies are multidisciplinary and involve competences from various engineering areas (Civil – Building Engineering and Architecture, Energy and Management Engineering). Lectures - Seminars and working groups are organized in order to overcome the difficulties arising from the different background of students coming from different areas. In other word the lectures - seminars make students aware of the technical problems and of the necessary competences. Working groups, which are similar to professional teams with different competencies, are composed of students from different engineering areas with their own competences. The working groups are asked to produce a preliminary design of real case histories. More specifically the following design problems are faced: - Energy efficiency and micro-renewables in existing buildings of the historical heritage and of new construction; - Seismic retrofitting of existing buildings of the historical heritage - Design of earth works for reduction of the hydraulic risk The design should be accomplished according to Eurocodes and well recognized International standards. The design should include all the relevant aspects: management, architectural, energetic, structural and geotechnical.