ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 302

4 Workshop discussion
Nineteen students (seven from Australia and thirteen from Brazil) participated of the workshop.
The Brazilian students were enrolled on Master´s or PhD Architecture and Urbanism programs
at USP, UNICAMP and UEL. The Australian students were cross-cultural postgraduates mostly of
Urban Planning or Design backgrounds (only one student was enrolled on the Architecture program). They were divided into four groups: one with four students (named group A) and three
with five students (B, C and D). The sole criterion for the group formation was the mingling between Brazilian and Australian students. Each group had three students from Brazil and two from
Australia, except the smallest group, which had only one student from UniMelb. The groups were
formed on the second day of the workshop, before the site visit. Students were freely allowed to
decide on which group to participate. On the one hand, this decision enabled them to choose
their same-country-colleagues of affinity, which improved their communication during the quick
phase of designing. On the other hand, Brazilian students grouped themselves according to the
same supervisor/main research subject, which made their final product inadequate regarding
aspects they usually do not deal with. Figure 8 shows the final results for the main house design
of all groups.

Group A

Group B

Group C
Figure 8 - House design overview - Groups A, B, C and D.

Group D

Theoretical basis
The phase of theoretical basis included several activities, as previously explained in the Methods.
Considerations about some of those activities and their positive and negative aspects are addressed below.
The UK Code for Sustainable Homes was presented for the students’ learning activities and considered an important parameter of aspects that influence the building energy efficiency (and
sustainability as a whole). However, as Brazilian climates are quite different than those of the UK,

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy