Mark Dekay and Susanne Bennett joined the School of Architecture and Built Environment as visiting scholars for two weeks in March. Dekay and Bennett worked with the five 2017 Integral Design Futures (IDF) project teams including around 30 of the School’s researchers, and a significant number of Early Career Researchers (ECRs).

Dekay’s and Bennett’s input helped formulate how IDF can inform research collaboration in practice, how the process results can be articulated as research outputs, and how the real-world impacts of the research might be disseminated to the public-at-large.

Susan was educated as an archaeological anthropologist at Columbia, Susanne is a master public speaker with more than 35 years’ experience in the fields of personal growth, building science, and environmental issues. She is the editor of Sun, Wind & Light: architectural design strategies, and Integral Sustainable Design: transformative perspectives. Susanne served in Masschusetts on the Board of Health and Conservation Commission and has drafted environmental legislation. She taught continuing education courses to architects and contractors for 7 years as a Certified Commercial Building Envelope Specialist with DuPont.

Mark is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Tennessee, specializing in sustainable design theory and tools. He is author of Integral Sustainable Design: transformative perspectives and primary co-author of Sun, Wind, and Light: architectural design strategies – a valuable text for teaching undergraduate sustainable design

Mark teaches and lectures internationally on climatic design, design education and integral sustainability. His current work includes: designing for the urban wind field, integral theory applications to architectural photography, an integral approach to design research, narratives and worldviews about nature in architecture and a co-authored book on design strategies for rich human experience of nature and natural forces via buildings. He collaborates with scholars in Scotland, Australia, California, China and Greece. Mark and his wife, Susanne, were trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leaders and offer lectures internationally on “Solving the Climate Crisis by Design.”

Their work consisted of two half-day workshops with each of the project teams; leading to a Symposium in Melbourne on March 23rd that launched IDF publicly. The projects presented at the symposium were:

During their visit, DeKay and Bennett helped select four new IDF seed projects for 2018. The four projects were funded for up to $9000 each. Two projects were led by ECRs. The four new projects are:

  • Engaging with rural communities Integral design Futures framework (IDF) to sustain the culture of building: the case of Anganwadi Ajjarkad in India
  • On a Mission: redeveloping a resilient community centre for a Lorne church
  • Towards End-user Engagement in Australia Green Star revolution
  • Integral Life Cycle Appraisal (LCA) of a Hybrid Media façade building project