The twelve lesson plans
One plan per Wednesday, 23 September to 9 December 2026. Each carries the question of the week, what you make, the SDG target the work serves in the resolution's own words, the IDG dimension it grows, the sources it stands on and the ENGAGE page it lives on.
- Live session
- Wednesdays 10:00 to 13:00online, every session recorded
- Own time
- 89 hours125 hours in all, the workload of 5 ECTS
- Applications close
- Wednesday 9 September 2026EUR 500, or EUR 100 with the 80 per cent subsidy
- Technical dossier
- Friday 8 January 2027to be confirmed against the UCC assessment calendar
How to read a plan
Each week names an SDG target and an IDG dimension. The reading behind that pairing is Maroun Tabbal's, 5 September 2026: the Sustainable Development Goals name what the world needs, the Inner Development Goals name what each of us grows in ourselves to meet it, and what you can be paid for is recognition, which here is the micro-credential. That is ikigai, the Japanese word for what makes a life worth living, read through the two frameworks; the four-circle diagram in circulation is a later popular adaptation and is used here as a teaching device with that said.
The targets are quoted as resolution A/RES/70/1 writes them. The IDG dimensions are the five the founding report names, and the plans stay at that level because the skill list differs between editions. The mapping per week is the module's own design, drafted 5 September 2026 and subject to confirmation. To build a path of your own from the four questions, open your path on ENGAGE; the entry for Ikigai on the platform carries the sources.
Week 1, Wed 23 Sep. Research methodologies, and choosing your track
Before you choose a subject, how will you know what you know, and which of the ten tracks does your question belong to?
The strand. Research methods, and capture as the first instrument
Read before the session. Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
You make. A method statement in your own words: the claim you will follow, how you will read a source and record that reading, and the coordinate frame your survey will work in. Then your track, chosen from the ten projects and held as a choice you can revisit.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. capture the scanned building beside the phone in yo
The plan. 10:00, the theory hour. What a research methodology is, and what separates it from a method and from a technique. Where a claim comes from, how a source is read, and what a record of that reading has to carry for somebody else to check you: a claim becomes a fact through the work of the people who cite it (Latour 1987), so an entry that names a source without recording the reading is an assertion with a footnote. Then the frames a survey works in, which decide what it can see. Moe's three: Cartesian, a fixed grid; Eulerian, flow through a fixed boundary; Lagrangian, a boundary that moves with the field. Choosing one is choosing what stays still in your account, and nothing on a site is still. The atlas that the mapping becomes in week five is Gaia-graphy, Alexandra Arènes' method with Bruno Latour and Jérôme Gaillardet: a change of instrument that moves a reading from a site on a geographic grid to an event in the living interrelationships of the Critical Zone. The platform carries this material and it is the shared source for the hour: the PhD Advisor Toolkit, the research methods pages and the Methodology Signal Toolkit. Maroun's instruction of 16 September 2026 is that the traffic runs both ways. What the room needs and does not find on those pages is what those pages are missing, and it gets written back. 11:00, the ten projects on the table, as tracks. A track is something to align to, to consider, or to pivot away from with a reason. You leave with one and you can change it, and the change is part of the record. 12:00, the repository entry: one claim, one source, one record of how it was read. The resource for this session on the platform: engage.curricula.dev/GroundedAIWorkflow, section Session one, the method step by step, with the research vignette SCOSA then and now. The deck exports from that page, and the same sources are packed for a notebook of their own (ai_fluency_hybrid_setup_v1), whose notes stay grey until a person has read them against the sources.
- Serves
Target 4.7. By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development
- Grows
Being (relationship to self)
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
Moe, Kiel (2013). Convergence: An Architectural Agenda for Energy
- Lives on
PhDAdvisorToolkit · Methods · MethodologySignalToolkit · Bibliography · Glossary · GraphicalLanguageReport · BantryTerraForma · RomeStudioBrief · RomeField · The seeing half, three instruments · The ten projects · What the ground can supply, three instruments · Forest First · Grasshopper and Ladybug · Givoni building climatology · Datum
Week 2, Wed 30 Sep. Many models, REDCAPE and Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science, put to work
Which of the seven REDCAPE outputs will your models produce, and can you capture a place well enough to model it?
The strand. Many models, and the seven uses of a model (REDCAPE); the ten projects chosen
Read before the session. Page, Scott E. (2018). The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You
You make. A REDCAPE declaration for your track, naming which of Reason, Explain, Design, Communicate, Act, Predict and Explore your models will produce. Beside it, your first capture: a scan or a photogrammetric record of one room or one facade, filed so that a later week can still use it.
The plan. 10:00, three bodies of work, taken together because none is sufficient alone. Page on many models: one model of a situation is a position, and many models of the same situation is a method (Page 2018; Miller and Page 2007). Alberti (2016) on the city as a coupled human and natural system, which is the frame the field weeks record into. Fuller on Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science, the argument of Critical Path (1981): an anticipatory claim carries a projection you can check, and a project that ends in a provocation stopped early. 11:00, reality capture in practice, which is the half of the week you take to Rome. Scanning and LiDAR from a phone or a tablet, photogrammetry, and what makes a capture usable months later: coverage, overlap, scale, lighting, and the note that says what you were standing in. Low-cost building documentation from a smartphone is a published method and not an improvisation (Askar and Sternberg 2023). The platform page /RealityCapture is the written version of this hour, and the same two-way rule applies: what the room finds missing on that page is what the page owes, and it gets written back the same week. 12:00, two REDCAPE declarations read by the room, and the first captures compared: what each one would let you model, and what it would not. 13:00, shared hour: AI fluency and the four competencies (Dakan and Feller 2025), placed before your first output. The session closes by naming what the field weeks will ask for, because there is no second visit.
- Serves
Target 4.7. By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development
- Grows
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Page, Scott E. (2018). The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You
Fuller, R. Buckminster; Kuromiya, Kiyoshi (1981). Critical Path
Fuller, R. Buckminster (1969). Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
- Lives on
RealityCapture · REDCAPE · Glossary · InvertedView · CoordinateSystems · FrameSchool · RomeModel · The seeing half, three instruments
Week 3, Wed 7 Oct. Field fortnight, first week: the situated survey
Field fortnight, released as a recording
What is standing here, what is being maintained, and what is being let go?
The strand. The situated survey: capture, archaeology as a reading of what stands
Read before the session. Askar, C. and Sternberg, H. (2023). Use of Smartphone Lidar Technology for Low-Cost 3D Building Documentation with iPhone 13 Pro: A Comparative Analysis of Mobile Scanning Applications
You make. A scan, a set of drawings, a walk and photographs of one building and the street it stands on, filed so that week 10 can still read them.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. capture the scanned building beside the phone in yo · archaeology monte testaccio beside the heritage bui
The plan. No live class and no lunchtime event: the session is released as a recording with the task. The MArch cohort works in Rome, 5 to 16 October. Everyone else works a site they choose, with the advantage of being able to go back. Record the building and the street: scan what you can (Askar and Sternberg 2023 is the low-cost method), draw it, walk it, photograph what a drawing will not hold, and note what is being maintained and what is being let go, which is Brand's (1994) question about how a building learns. The plates you draw are the first layer of the atlas that comes back in week 5.
- Serves
Target 11.4. Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage
- Grows
Being (relationship to self)
Relating (caring for others and the world)
- Lives on
RealityCapture · RomeField · RomeModel · The field-trip atlas · Rome city map services, 234 layers · Cadastral building outlines, CC BY 4.0 · SITAR, the archaeology beneath the street
Obligation 3 of the project brief lands here.
Week 4, Wed 14 Oct. Field fortnight, second week: constructional and structural systems, and the first pass at stock, process and flow
Field fortnight, released as a recording
What is held here, what transforms it, and what moves through?
The strand. Constructional and structural systems; building structures and materials science, classical beside future
Read before the session. Moe, K. (2026). Forest First: Timber Building
You make. A constructional and structural reading of what is standing, and a first stock, process and flow diagram of your site, with the measurements that week 6 will turn into a number.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. building structures the pantheon beside the timber · building materials science imperial roman mortar be
The plan. Released as a recording with the task. Read the constructional and structural systems off the standing fabric, layer by layer. Then draw the site as stock, process and flow: what is held, what transforms it, what moves through (Miller and Page 2007 for the vocabulary), and take the measurements Odum's emergy account (1996) will need in week 6. This is the week the later weeks depend on, and it is the one that cannot be repeated.
- Serves
Target 12.2. By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
- Grows
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Odum, H. T. (1996). Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making
Brand, S. (1994). How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They are Built
- Lives on
AECO2BIMCanvas · RomeField · RomeModel · The field-trip atlas · Lazio orthophotos, ten epochs from 1994 · Atlante del Patrimonio, the city's 3D mesh
Obligations 1 and 2 of the project brief land here.
Week 5, Wed 21 Oct. What came back: sharing, analysis, and the next question
What do you actually have, what does it show, where are the gaps, and how do you judge which gap is worth following?
The strand. What came back: the atlas, Terra Forma, the Rome field
Read before the session. Aït-Touati, Frédérique; Arènes, Alexandra; Grégoire, Axelle (2022). Terra Forma: A Book of Speculative Maps
You make. Your data shared with the room and read beside the other nine sets: what it shows, what is missing from it, and one argued call on which gap you will follow, with the reasoning that got you there. Your plates in the field-trip atlas are part of it, and the Rome atlas is due this week.
The plan. 10:00, everything on the table. Each track shows what it brought back, in whatever state it is in, and says how it was captured. A set that came back thin is as useful to the room as a full one, because the reason it is thin is itself a finding. 11:00, analysis. What does this material show, and what would a standard drawing of the same site have left out? The atlas is the form the answer takes: a set of situated records that argue, against a site plan that locates (Terra Forma is the worked example). Alberti (2016) is the reading on what a city is for when it is read as a hybrid ecosystem. 12:00, the gaps, and the judgement. Name what you do not have. Then argue for the one gap you will follow, against three tests: can it be answered in the weeks that are left, would the answer change the claim your project is making, and is anybody else in the room already holding it? A gap that fails all three is interesting and it is not yours to chase this term. Maroun's instruction of 16 September 2026: the call and the reasoning behind it are both assessed, because the reasoning is the transferable part. Obligation 3 lands here.
- Serves
Target 11.7. By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities
- Grows
Collaborating (social skills)
Relating (caring for others and the world)
- Stands on
- Lives on
InvertedView · Glossary · RealityCapture · Bibliography · RomeField · RomeModel · The field-trip atlas · The seeing half, three instruments · Urban Atlas building heights, Rome, 10 m · Open Data Roma Capitale, 365 datasets · TINITALY, 10 m elevation · ORBIS, the Roman world as a model you can change · Show Your Stripes, Rome 1850 to 2025 · Technology adoption, and what "adoption" hides · Parable of the Polygons, a model to run
Obligation 3 of the project brief lands here.
Week 6, Wed 28 Oct. Complex adaptive systems: stock, process and flow, and Odum's emergy accounting
How much available energy of one kind went into making this, directly and indirectly, and where in the adaptive cycle does your site sit?
The strand. Stocks and flows, systems thinking; emergy; thermodynamics and entropy against flux
Read before the session. Meadows, D.H (2008). Thinking in Systems: A Primer
You make. An emergy account of your site on the Emergy Explorer, with the transformity of each input named, and the adaptive cycle located on the site: growth, conservation, release or reorganisation.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. building materials science imperial roman mortar be
The plan. 10:00, Holling's adaptive cycle, growth, conservation, release and reorganisation, nested across scales (Holling 1973; Gunderson and Holling 2002), with Miller and Page (2007) for the computational reading. 11:00, workshop on the Emergy Explorer: Odum's emergy accounting (1996), the available energy of one kind used up, directly and indirectly, to make the thing, with transformity as the exchange rate (Brown and Ulgiati 2004) and Srinivasan and Moe (2015) for the method applied to buildings. The stock, process and flow drawing from week 4 becomes a number here. 12:00, two accounts read by the room. Obligation 2 lands here.
- Serves
Target 12.2. By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
Target 7.3. By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency
- Grows
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems
Odum, H. T. (1996). Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making
Srinivasan, Ravi; Moe, Kiel (2015). The Hierarchy of Energy in Architecture: Emergy Analysis
- Lives on
Obligations 1 and 2 of the project brief land here.
Week 7, Wed 4 Nov. The model of the building: BIM, digital twins and simulation
What does the twin contain, what does it leave out, and what is a simulated number worth?
The strand. BIM and the digital twin; construction automation and 3D printing, a strand with no source yet
Read before the session. Eastman, C.; Teicholz, P.; Sacks, R.; Liston, K. (2011). BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling
You make. A BIM model or a digital twin of your site with the building physics and the climate file under it, and a written list of what the model leaves out. AIARG briefed.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. archaeology monte testaccio beside the heritage bui
The plan. 10:00, what a digital twin is and what it is for (Grieves 2014; the Gemini Principles 2018), and the building physics and climate data underneath any simulation, on Givoni, Ladybug and infrared.city. Selvaraj (2025) is the reading on twins put to work for urban SDG targets. 11:00, guest: BIM, digital twinning and AI-driven environmental simulation in practice. 12:00, two models on the table. Then the AIARG briefing: Architecture in the Critical Zone, Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November at UCC, which the cohort attends and brings back to week 8. Obligation 4 opens here and closes in week 9.
- Serves
Target 9.4. By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities
Target 7.3. By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency
- Grows
Thinking (cognitive skills)
Acting (enabling change)
- Stands on
Grieves, M. (2014). Digital Twin: Manufacturing Excellence through Virtual Factory Replication
Bolton, A.; Enzer, M.; Schooling, J. (2018). The Gemini Principles
- Lives on
AECO2BIMCanvas · DigitalTwinSensing · infrared.city · Grasshopper and Ladybug · Givoni building climatology
Obligation 4 of the project brief lands here.
The All-Ireland Architectural Research Group annual conference, hosted by CCAE at University College Cork. It costs the module no session: week 7 briefs it and week 8 reads it back.
Week 8, Wed 11 Nov. The Critical Zone, ecology and scale
Which of your claims survive a change of scale band?
The strand. The Critical Zone, ecology and scale; non-isolated ecosystems; energy and climate; innovation at the scale of the city (West)
Read before the session. Alberti, M. (2016). Cities That Think like Planets: Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems
You make. Your site read one scale band up and one band down, with the soil, water and living systems it sits in written into its technical description, and the conference read back.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. energy and climate the heat island s energetic basi
The plan. 10:00, AIARG read back. The Critical Zone, the thin skin of the Earth where all terrestrial life happens (Brantley, Goldhaber and Ragnarsdottir 2007; Arènes, Latour and Gaillardet 2018; Latour 2018), treated as part of a building's technical description. Then scale bands, from material to building to district to territory, and what translates between them: Moe (2013) on the frames a claim is computed in, Osborne and colleagues (2023) as the worked case of a forest and its building stock read together. 11:00, guest: ecology, coastal resilience and the Sustainable Development Goals. 12:00, two scale readings. Obligation 1 lands here.
- Serves
Target 15.9. By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts
Target 13.1. Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
- Grows
Relating (caring for others and the world)
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Latour, B (2018). Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime
Moe, Kiel (2013). Convergence: An Architectural Agenda for Energy
- Lives on
CoordinateSystems · ScaleFreeBridge · InvertedView · SDGExplorer · Datum · The seeing half
Obligation 1 of the project brief lands here.
Week 9, Wed 18 Nov. The instrument beside the twin: sensing and IoT
Where the reading and the model disagree, which one do you believe, and why?
The strand. The instrument beside the twin: sensing; wellbeing, the measured interior beside the outdoor room
Read before the session. Grieves, M. (2014). Digital Twin: Manufacturing Excellence through Virtual Factory Replication
You make. A measurement from your site set beside the twin's prediction of the same quantity, the disagreement made visible, and a note on how the measurement was taken.
Case studies, on the Canvas course. wellbeing the piazza and the courtyard beside the m
The plan. 10:00, instrumentation and sensor networks (Pesch, Rea and O'Flynn 2012), and what a measurement is worth once you know how it was taken. A prediction and a reading are two different kinds of number, which is why weeks 7 and 9 are kept apart: the disagreement needs somewhere to surface. 11:00, guest: the Internet of Things and sensor networks. 12:00, two disagreements on the table. Obligation 4 closes here.
- Serves
Target 11.6. By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
- Grows
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Grieves, M. (2014). Digital Twin: Manufacturing Excellence through Virtual Factory Replication
- Lives on
DigitalTwinSensing · WellbeingOccupancy
Obligation 4 of the project brief lands here.
Week 10, Wed 25 Nov. Geogames for urban design and community engagement
How do you collect spatial reasoning from people who do not draw, and what changes when they help design the mechanics?
The strand. Geogames with the people a site affects; GeoGaming, a strand with no source named yet
Read before the session. Strand, K., Marullo, S., Cutforth, N., Stoecker, R., & Donohue, P. (2003). Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices
You make. A playable rule set for your site, tested with people it affects, and a record of what they changed.
The plan. 10:00, a game as a research instrument, and the principles of research done with a community as co-investigators (Strand and colleagues 2003; Brydon-Miller 2022 for participatory research on climate). 11:00, guest: participatory geogames in planning. 12:00, two rule sets played by the room. Playable Ground and Infrastructures of Subjugation were built for this week, and every project puts the people affected at the table. The platform holds no geogames source yet; the pair for this week is open and the bibliography says so.
- Serves
Target 11.3. By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries
Target 16.7. Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels
- Grows
Collaborating (social skills)
Relating (caring for others and the world)
- Stands on
Brydon-Miller, Mary (2022). Participatory research to address climate change and sustainability
- Lives on
Geogames · SPACEGeoGame · Glossary · simSPACE · Solving for Zero
Week 11, Wed 2 Dec. Unbuild, reuse and retrofit
What comes down, what stays, what gets added, and what does each cost in energy over time?
The strand. Unbuild, reuse and retrofit; circularity
Read before the session. Silva, E. A. (interviewer); Moe, K. (interviewee) (2023). Nonmodern architecture: on alternative frames of reference
You make. The unbuild account for your site: the case for keeping, the harder case for taking down, resolved over time with a dynamic life-cycle assessment, and the energy bill of unbuilding.
The plan. 10:00, Moe on unbuilding (Silva 2023; Unless, 2021), Brand (1994) on how buildings learn, and Levasseur and colleagues (2010) on dynamic life-cycle assessment, where the time a flow happens changes what it costs. SEAI (2024) is the Irish reading on adaptive reuse and deep retrofit. 11:00, guest: adaptive reuse and retrofit. 12:00, two unbuild accounts on the table. Obligation 5 lands here, and it is the hardest of the six to defend.
- Serves
Target 12.5. By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
Target 9.4. By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities
- Grows
Acting (enabling change)
Thinking (cognitive skills)
- Stands on
Moe, K. (2021). Unless: The Seagram Building Construction Ecology
Brand, S. (1994). How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They are Built
SEAI (2024). Reviving Buildings: adaptive reuse and deep retrofit of the existing stock
- Lives on
AECO2BIMCanvas · EmergyExplorer · Glossary · Forest First
Obligation 5 of the project brief lands here.
Week 12, Wed 9 Dec. Seminar
What did you inherit, what holds, what did you change, and what are you leaving for the next cohort?
The strand. The seminar; regenerative design, and what it takes in a city
Read before the session. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
You make. A fifteen-minute presentation with questions from the other nine, and your repository entry deposited in the Living Commons under your own name, with the critique of the inherited construct and a development pathway for the next cohort. The technical dossier follows on Friday 8 January 2027, a date to be confirmed against the UCC assessment calendar.
The plan. Ten projects presented, ten dossiers deposited. Obligation 6 is what makes this a commons (Ostrom 1990; Frischmann, Madison and Strandburg 2014): you name the construct the 2025-26 work was built on, its settings and its assumptions, say where it was right, propose the modification, and leave the same for whoever comes next. Boyer (1996) is the reading on why work done in dialogue with others counts as scholarship. AI use is disclosed in both components under the Diligence competency (Dakan and Feller 2025).
- Serves
Target 4.7. By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development
- Grows
Collaborating (social skills)
Acting (enabling change)
Being (relationship to self)
- Stands on
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
Frischmann, B.M., Madison, M.J., & Strandburg, K.J. (2014). Governing Knowledge Commons
- Lives on
OpenScience · Bibliography · TakePart · AT6012 Living Commons
Obligation 6 of the project brief lands here.
Dates, fee and assessment read from the UCC module descriptor at ucc.ie/en/at6012, updated 7 August 2026. Weekly subjects follow the programme revised 24 August 2026. SDG targets quoted from resolution A/RES/70/1 through the UN Statistics Division SDG API, read 5 September 2026. The SDG and IDG mapping per week is the module coordinator's own design, drafted 5 September 2026 and subject to confirmation. Guest names appear once each acceptance lands. Rendered from the ENGAGE record (learning_path_module, migration 332) on 22 September 2026. Module brief · The twelve weeks · The ten projects · Your path on ENGAGE.