Low Carbon Developments in Practice: A Cross Border Experience

The built environment professions are responsible for the design and operation of buildings. This paper presents the experience of the development, implementation and associated assessments of an elective course on low carbon developments led by a built environment school at a university in Australia. The course involved majority students from various disciplines comprising the built environment working closely with students from the architecture discipline at an Indonesian university. The course focused on the development of a green educational facility in a village in Indonesia. The Australian students prepared the needs analysis for the green educational facility, with the Indonesian architecture students preparing the concept designs. This experience led to positive outcomes for students, staff and the community. For the Australian students, the experience challenged them to define and re define triple bottom line sustainability for the community and benchmark this definition against their own expectations/standards, while learning to work with their peers from a different culture and industry context. The staff found developing assessments in fluid conditions most challenging. The community benefited the most through a real project that served community needs. A challenge for all parties was the differences in expectations and managing these expectations.