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INTBAU Online Modular Short Course Series in Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism

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You or your group can use these courses as supplements to your workshop or event, or just to spread awareness of urgent and scholarly issues of urbanism, architecture and building. You only need to email the link to this page, or to specific modules.

The modules are based on short courses developed by Michael Mehaffy, secretary of INTBAU’s College of Chapters, and Ben Bolgar, Prince’s Foundation Senior Design Director, while Mehaffy was Director of Education and Bolgar was Director of Architecture at the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community in London. The five modules were later developed as standalone modules in partnership with the Council for European Urbanism and the Leonardo da Vinci Programme of the European Union, under a pilot curriculum project called “the European School of Urbanism and Architecture”. The pilot project included five universities and seven other partners representing seven countries. Hundreds of students have taken the modules and the process has been carefully evaluated by the Leonardo da Vinci programme (see http://www.esua.org/ for more information). They are offered here by INTBAU USA, Sustasis Foundation, and INTBAU Scandinavia.

The modules are entirely open and free to disseminate, although you are requested to give credit to the creators and sponsors above.

Instructions: Download and read the modules in order, or take them individually. Follow up as you want with additional reading and exploration.

Exam questions and answers for each module are available here.

MODULE ONE: Whatever Happened to Urbanism? Essential concepts of urban history and modern planning. An Introductory Course in the Principles of Sustainable Urban Design.

MODULE TWO: The Craft of Place. An introductory course in the “culture of building.”

MODULE THREE: What is Sustainable Urbanism? An introduction to concepts, metrics and strategies.

MODULE FOUR: Evolving Settlements. Participation and emergence in the built environment.

MODULE FIVE: The DNA of Place. An introduction to the topics of local identity and heritage, and their continuing importance for the human environment.


Spitalfields Market, London. Drawing by Ben McCabe.