Studying Sustainable Building Design

More people live in cities and towns than in rural areas. This creates a lot of pressure on the environment as the swelling urban population creates an ever increasing demand for land, water, energy, clean air and food. How can we make city dwelling more sustainable and environment friendly?

One way we can achieve this is by constructing sustainable buildings. A simple example of this would be to favour high-rise buildings (that accommodate hundreds) over detached houses. These buildings could also be designed to receive a lot of natural light (to minimise need for electricity for lighting) or have rain water harvesting system (to refill underground water reserves).

Sustainable building design is the engineering branch dealing with making these kinds of changes and adjustments to regular buildings. There is a huge demand for professionals with a knowledge of sustainable design as a result of the wider push towards being eco-friendly and responsible consumers.

The UK is at the forefront of sustainable building design teaching, learning and research. There are nearly 16 universities offering courses in this subject.

Couple of universities where you could study sustainable building designin the UK include:

• University of Greenwich
• De Montfort University (DMU)

Salary and Career Prospects

Sustainability design experts are employed by construction companies (Balfour Beatty, AECOM, Carillion, and Skanska, architecture firms (Atkins, Fosters + Partners) and government departments.

They work in roles likeSustainability Consultant, Sustainable Places Planning Advisor, Sustainable Design Specialist and Sustainable Accommodation Specialist.

Salaries vary with location, qualifications and experience. As a guide, recentgraduates are paid up to £25,000 (23 lakhs INR), but with experience this could jump to£60,000 (58 lakhs INR)

Why UK?

The UK is a world-renowned seat of learning, teaching and research with 3 universities in top 10 and 7 in top 50 in THE World Rankings 2018.

British government is investing heavily in major engineering projects like HS2, Cross rail (rail projects), Birmingham City Project, Hinkley Point (nuclear power plants) and in motorway upgrades. Major cities like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Birmingham are undergoing a lot of building and development in their city centres.

The country is home to some of world’s most prestigious engineering companies like Balfour Beatty, AECOM, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Siemens and Skanska.

It is possible for students to remain in the UK after finishing their studies provided they meet the prevailing visa requirements.