Green-Pscyt Pre-Certification Self-Assessment

In the last semester of the Bachelor's Degree in Architecture, students have a subject that integrates the knowledge of the entire degree and which is specified in what would be the constructive development of a project for the execution of a building designed by each student, complying with all the Spanish technical and performance regulations. This experience has been reinforced with two theoretical-practical classes of 2 hours each on how to design a zero energy and sustainable building, and a second class taught by GBCE on how to evaluate a sustainable building according to the VERDE tool developed by the Green Building Council Spain, and how a self-assessment can be done as a pre-certification. Students incorporate energy efficiency and sustainability strategies into their projects and apply the tool to their project by qualitatively assessing each and every one of the 46 evaluation topics for buildings. Students not only gain an in-depth understanding of all the qualities sought in a sustainable building (a 700-page manual on why and how to evaluate them is provided), but also have the option to improve their project by incorporating these strategies between the mid-December and mid-January deliverables, learning how to incorporate them into a real project. It is hoped that with the additional voluntary activity the students will become aware of sustainable design, understand the globality of the aspects that must be integrated, and will be able to apply this knowledge to make buildings and cities more sustainable in their daily professional activity in the future.