Multidisciplinary Teaching: Engineering Course in Advanced Building Design

Abstract

Collaboration within the building process is difficult. This calls for employees who are experienced in collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. To fulfill this demand, a multidisciplinary course in “advanced building design” was developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The goal of the course is training of transprofessionalism and teamwork at the final stage of an engineering education. The collaboration of the students and professors participating in the course was studied in the present work. Questionnaires were answered by students and professors. The study has the following finding. The students and professors gained the experience that collaboration may be improved. The traditional role distribution may be disbanded and generally a flat team structure, where decisions are taken in consensus, can be induced. Transprofessionalism during the course was appreciated and, furthermore, it was experienced as a challenge. It is worthwhile to offer a multidisciplinary course and give engineering students experience in new collaboration methods.