This thesis is a case study that explores the implementation of Problem Based Leaming in architectural education. It aims to evaluate the appropriateness of Problem Based Learning for the pedagogical improvement and development of architectural education. The relevant literature from architectural education and the Problem Based Learning pedagogical approach, were used to identify the critiques and problems encountered in contemporary architectural education and to analyse the potential of Problem Based Learning in architectural education. The research questions look at why the implementation of Problem Based Learning in the Faculty of Architecture, the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, could not be considered as a complete success. This proposition required further analysis that led to the formation of research procedures focusing on three issues: identifying the research strategies, selecting interviewees and documentation review as data collection methods, and choosing content analysis as the main analysis method. The results of the analysis confirmed that the implementation of Problem Based Learning at TUDelft was not a success, due to resistance from academic staff and their misunderstanding of the true philosophy of the educational approach. From this analysis, the thesis then discussed how to adapt Problem Based Learning for use in architectural education, and which direction architectural research should go next, to improve the pedagogy of architectural education as a whole.

In recent years, the architectural design process has witnessed a mounting demand for qualified practitioners who can resolve the highly complex social, cultural, technological, and economical issues associated with ‘Sustainability’. Designers are thus faced with wider pallet of challenges, developing conceptual designs that are sustainably effective. Pressure is mounting on educational institutions to prepare architects that are well accustomed to the environmental design concepts and parameters, aiming to reduce the impact on the environment and preserve valuable natural resources to bring the building’s interior to comfortable living conditions. However, architectural education has been notably slow to respond effectively to the requirements introduced by sustainability. Evidently there are a number of pedagogical challenges that clearly impede the consistent endorsement of sustainability in the design curricula and thus hinder any potential values and opportunities that can result from its effective integration. This research project examines these challenges and investigates more into their nature and attributes. Accordingly, it proposes a method that endeavours to overcome the noted challenge and attempts to improve the design students' motivation and acceptance to incorporate sustainability. In essence, this method aims to mould the technical nature of Building Performance Simulation applications into the cognitive design process. In order to achieve this, the proposed method utilizes 3D games technology, incorporating Multi-Agent System and Data Mining techniques, to assist design students in achieving higher levels of motivation, engagement, and comprehension of the environmental design concepts. The research discusses the rationale for electing the employed technologies and discusses the methodology for developing the proposed tool. Following its development, the tool is presented to number of stakeholders for evaluating the pedagogical and conceptual basis. The recorded results and the provided feedback from these sessions are presented to assess the potential effectiveness of this method for improving students' understanding of various concepts surrounding sustainable design.

Across the globe, the historic (built) environment is counted among a country's most precious cultural commodities, which despite its popularity remains exceptionally vulnerable and in constant danger of deterioration and decay. Due to an unusually high density of historic structures in need of protection coupled with a strong property and construction sector, this issue is more prominent in the UK than in other developed country. Built environment professionals regularly encounter historic and protected structures in their professional practice and exhibit a general tendency towards principle support of the concept of conservation. Nonetheless, the heritage discourse and with it the discussion of architectural conservation principles, issues and implications in relation to other built environment professions is, by and large, woefully absent from formal professional education at the tertiary level. This thesis investigated various forms of conservation education in respect to their nature and extent in the context of UK undergraduate built environment degrees in a mixed-methods research approach. The findings suggest that while practitioners as well as educationalists and building conservation specialists all agree to the importance of conservation to both cultural fabric and built environment sector, neither shows concrete tendencies to introduce the heritage discourse into (built environment) higher education on a wide scale. Conservationists prefer to focus their heritage appreciation programmes on young children, while practitioners and built environment educationalists claim building conservation education to be of little relevance to their professional education. In between, the average built environment student is released into professional practice woefully unprepared for encounters with historic, let alone protected structures. This thesis proposes to include adult learners at tertiary level into the built heritage discourse on a much wider scale by suggesting the development of a curriculum for novice conservation education and a subsequent Conservation Game as a custom-created digital teaching and learning tool building on the principles of experiential and game-based learning to be implemented in higher education institutions across the UK. Modelled on Dawid W. Shaffer's Epistemic Games, the theoretic and conceptional background behind the Conservation Game is laid out as an interactive and engaging simulation of conservation practice to introduce conservation novices to concept and practice in a risk free, fun environment with the aim to increase baseline building conservation understanding and appreciation in young UK built environment practitioners.