Learning about building technologies for sustainability : design guidelines for a nearly-zero-energy residential buildings in Barcelona : case study.

There It is an increasingly urgent need to cut global CO2 emissions and thereby avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. In the EU construction sector, action has already begun to help minimise carbon emissions and reverse their current negative impact on the environment . These initiatives have so far been based on introducing the mandatory construction of “Nearly –Zero- Energy- Buildings” (NZEBs) from 2018 onwards, in compliance with an EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (2010/31/EU) [1]. The NZEB project not only constitutes a technical challenge but also a challenge for the design process. It must be accompanied by the introduction of new, specialised programmes at Schools of Architecture. This article points out how this quest for design strategies to produce NZEBs has been converted into pedagogical content in the Polytechnic University of Catalonia’s (UPC) MSc in “Architecture & Sustainability: Design Tools & Environmental Control Techniques”. As an example of the work done and the results obtained, we present a project designed for a residential building in Barcelona, Spain. This was developed by a team of students from the MSc course and presented as their final project