New master’s education: innovative teaching of sustainable design approaches for handling uncertainty

The climate emergency requires all sectors of Society to work together in seeking less polluting, better functioning, and more sustainable solutions. The building sector with a huge negative environmental impact currently is a segmented industry - with responsibilities, but also visions, values, and approaches that are fragmented. In the search for more holistic approaches/solutions that will reduce/revert the negative impacts of the building sector collaboration across disciplines is essential. This is both the vision, starting point and main aim of the new master’s education at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen - Architectural Technology. Designed as a two-year professional master’s program for constructing architects, it started with new students in September 2021/22. Through the innovative teaching of sustainable design approaches, the graduates are better positioned to handling design uncertainty including scarcity of materials, structural robustness, adaptability, new design requirements etc. The paper presents the aims and vision for the program, the Nordic educational context, course structure and modules descriptions, project examples as well as a reflection for further developments.