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The article presents the potentials and capacities of extracurricular activities such as student workshops for strengthening existing curricula and introducing emerging specialised areas, topics, and challenges into architectural higher education. The specific objective of this study is to enhance and test different pedagogical models for learning on the sustainable rehabilitation of mass housing neighbourhoods (MHN), as a specific type of modern heritage, through innovative extracurricular teaching practices based on interdisciplinarity, flexibility, and adaptability. This research presents three student workshops focusing on the rehabilitation of mass housing neighbourhoods (MHN), involving students, academics, and professionals from the field, organised in Germany, Serbia, and North Macedonia in 2022. Moreover, it engages a comparative analysis of the learning formats and approaches developed within this discipline-specific cross-border collaboration. The study provides (1) an insight into the comparative analysis of learning capabilities and (2) the formulation of workshop models supported by diagramming of the workshop structure. The conclusion of the article summarises the findings and highlights the essential aspects for engaging student workshops, as an instrument for generating operational knowledge in the field of mass housing rehabilitation.

In the vortex of the environmental and ecological crises, it is clear that the cosmopolitan way of living is facing uncertainty with no easing in sight. Looking beyond the horizon at what the aftermath will yield, it is quite clear that the meaning of urbanity has to be transformed; the urban life has to support social and ecological well-being, and the city has to intertwine more closely with nature. Therefore, wild urban woodlands (WUWs), often morphologically exclusive, culturally contradictory, and biologically heterogeneous, are recognized together with the other informal wilderness of the city as catalyzers of a newly constructed identity and the first line of defense when the question of the socio-ecological resilience of the city is raised. The present study focuses on how the biocultural diversity of WUWs can be stimulated by architecture and on which principles and restorative components an architectural design should stand on. Taking War Island on the river Danube, in the very heart of Belgrade, Serbia, as the particular case study, a specific assignment was given to students of the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade to affirm, recuperate, and stipulate the relationship between the nature and the culture of the site. On the threshold of interdisciplinarity, a net of coordinated values is set up based on a theoretical, analytic, and typo-morphological approach, gathering the eco-cultural aspects, components, and characteristics of the place. On the bases of the students’ research-based design propositions, the results show different design paths promoting accessibility and security, restoring social responsibility and awareness, and regaining the socio-ecological well-being of the place. The conclusions drawn from the study open the perspective of the alliance between nature and culture through an architectural infrastructure that heals the landscape and induces its therapeutic properties, enhancing the biocultural diversity of the place and proclaiming a kind of hedonistic sustainability for the future life of cities.

At this moment, and under the circumstances that surround us, we have recognized as a definite global challenge the problem of climate change, and in general, the ecological misbalance of cities. In an attempt to meet this challenge, we will try to discuss possibilities of implementing the "Eco-Infill" strategy (fragments of nature incorporated into abandoned artificial environment) as a viable, somewhat ?alternative?, urban development strategy. The contemporary matrix of the post-industrial urban landscape is dotted with large and small fragments of abandoned spaces, which need to be incorporated into the city texture. Belgrade is a city with a potential, one of the larger capitals of the region, standing on the threshold of the European Union and undergoing an intensive process of political, economic and social transition. Similar to other large cities, it was previously an industrial city, but is now increasingly relying on the tertiary sector, promoting itself through its geographical, morphological, and cultural advantages. The consequences of privatization during transition and an exceptionally long and difficult political and economic crisis produced Brownfield and other abandoned spaces of the city centre with a complicated proprietary-ownership status, and no realistic guidelines for a much needed regeneration of the city centre in terms of contemporary problems linked to ecological, social and cultural values. In this article, there is a tendency to define principles on which the transformation of these abandoned places is based on and to try to apply these strategies onto the Belgrade shipyard on the river Sava. If we accept the previously set general views, these spaces can become crucial in developing a strategy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Although these effects are primarily aimed at confronting climate change, they are bound to upgrade the quality of life and offer new life styles, potentially affecting all aspects of urban life, considering that most of the eco-infill we are talking about consists of active public space.

This paper is built on the assumption that architecture is the establishment of the relationship between past and future, built and unbuilt, within the inherited and natural context and in direct connection with the overall culture. Unlike a traditional approach to heritage generally limited to considering only the visible values of the place, this research stands on the belief that, in the context of heritage, the implementation and application of behavioral knowledge in architectural discourse contributes to the intensification and enhancement of these relations. In accordance with the need to re-examine existing and explore new forms of the relationship between future life of heritage and social wellbeing, the main goal of the research is to examine the possibility of improving this relationship through a value-based architectural programming methodological framework. This paper was conducted through: (1) theoretical framework that intertwines environment–behavior theories and architectural programming as the value-matrix methodology for the reuse of heritage; (2) exploring the established framework through design results gathered within the design-based studio on “heritage reprogramming” at the University of Belgrade—Faculty of Architecture with a particular focus on the modernist architectural heritage; and (3) discussing the overall principles through the multiscale and value-based approach. The evaluation of the results indicates the possibility of improving the social dimension of heritage protection and reuse, as well as the need to shift the focus from exclusively material and formal values of heritage to social and cultural aspects in accordance with the needs of contemporary society and culture. Results indicate that the multidimensional nature of architectural programming methodological approach in the context of modern heritage and, accordingly, the synergy of different programming values (environmental, human, social, systemic, temporal, economic, aesthetic) provides sustainable access to heritage and has the capacity to improve the social wellbeing of individual users but also of the wider community.

This paper addresses the challenges of architectural higher education to cope with a state of continuous change within the relationship between heritage and sustainability. The initial assumption is that research activities based on design taxonomies—terms used in architectural discourse of heritage and sustainability—followed by fruitful analysis and discussion can contribute to the advancements in curricula design and development. Accordingly, the paper aims to develop a new methodological framework for addressing sustainability and heritage, enriching curricula design and assessment strategy. Data collection on identification and analysis of terms was carried out within the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership titled Enhancing of Heritage Awareness and Sustainability of Built Environment in Architectural and Urban Design Higher Education (HERSUS). After the process of filtering, interpretation, and comparison of project findings, a three-fold comprehensive analysis was conducted: (a) learning outcome quantitative analysis, (b) cross-cutting analysis of spatial scales and course types, and (c) synthesis. The paper results in the methodological framework that reinforces different pedagogical approaches to heritage and sustainability derived as a result of the applied research process. The main conclusions are concerned with the applicability of the methodological framework, designed for the improvement of existing and development of new comprehensive courses and programme contents.

Mass housing neighbourhoods (MHN) represent the leading pattern of urban transformation and expansion in the second half of the 20th century, and accordingly evaluation, regeneration and redesign of the MHN represent a necessary and challenging task in the contemporary research context. In the practical scope of MHN rehabilitation, various holistic approaches and design strategies are identified that affirm both ecological transition and social transformation of these urban settings. However, the level of application of such approaches across Europe varies greatly, and requires research initiatives of a comparative nature that open a cross-geographical debate at the European level. Although there is a series of evidence-based studies that define the conceptual framework of MHN, i.e., large-scale housing settlements, through historical-interpretative and chronological analyses, the academic debate on practical and feasible MHN rehabilitation and their sustainable integration into the urban development of cities at European level is underdeveloped. The specific objective of this paper is to establish preliminary insights into the current level of MHN rehabilitation and to identify challenges for further actions through (1) a comparative analysis of MHN role models from the second half of 20th century, and through (2) insights from an implemented expert questionnaire. The research engages a comparative case study analysis as the primary method and analyses MHN in Germany (as a representative of Western Europe) and in the two ex-Yugoslav countries, North Macedonia and Serbia (as representatives of Eastern Europe). This research has highlighted the main obstacles and challenges for MHN rehabilitation and demonstrated the importance of a multiscale approach to MHN analysis, having in mind that through the distribution of design values at the analysed spatial levels (neighbourhood level, building level, and apartment level) the application of affirmative indicators within different design values group is recognised.

This article highlights how “place-based education” can be used to raise awareness about sustainability and potentially influence design process decisions that have environmental and cultural implications. “Place-based education” is a term used to describe an educational worldview based on development of curriculum centered on the local, social, economic, and ecological resources of a community. The study shows results of Masters Students’ research on situating a housing complex in the context of the agrarian landscape of Vojvodina, Serbia, considering it as a resource for a new sustainable urban lifestyle. During the first year of Masters Studies at the Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade University, an architectural design studio with 15 students had the task of exploring the potential of expanding the city of Belgrade across the agrarian landscape, as to affirm the role of place in contemporary everyday life. Students were expected to explore the possibilities and limitations of the relationship between man and agrarian landscape via architecture, re-thinking how various architectural design approaches could balance and harmonize the impact of the built environment on the agrarian landscape. The paper shows that “place-based education” possesses elements necessary for the inclusion of a wider spatial-cultural context in the process of architectural design and prioritization of environmental literacy and responsibility, as one of the main components of sustainable development.