Climate-Culture-Building in Building Physics
What will you learn?
Explore key principles of building physics, including heat, moisture, acoustics, and light.
Understand how traditional and vernacular building knowledge can inform contemporary design.
Discover passive design strategies such as shading, cross-ventilation, and thermal mass.
Learn to develop buildings that are energy-efficient, climate-responsive, and socially embedded.
Course Description
Developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of Europe’s leading research universities, this course is affiliated with the Chair of Building Physics, part of TUM’s School of Engineering and Design. In the QS World University Rankings 2026, TUM ranks 1st in Germany, 1st in the EU, and 22nd worldwide.
The course draws particularly on the Climate-Culture-Building research group, which explores how traditional and vernacular building knowledge can inform contemporary design. Its work focuses on passive strategies such as shading, cross-ventilation, and thermal mass to create energy-efficient, climate-responsive buildings that enhance occupant well-being and reduce reliance on active conditioning systems.
Course Content
Instructor
Stefanie Marie Gocht, M.Sc., is an environmental engineer born in Lima, Peru, and educated at the Technical University of Munich. She has been working for approximately three years as a research assistant and lecturer in the field of building physics. She is affiliated with the Chair of Building Physics at the Technical University of Munich, where her teaching and research focus on climate- and culture-responsive buildings, urban building physics, urban comfort, and climate zone categorization.
Her teaching experience includes courses and seminars in advanced building physics, energy efficiency in buildings, climate- and culturally adapted buildings, as well as lectures on urban building physics and urban comfort. In her teaching, she places particular emphasis on the relationship between vernacular and modern architecture, and on how climate-responsive design principles can be transferred from traditional buildings to contemporary urban and architectural practice.
Stefanie Marie Gocht received the “Doce et Delecta” teaching award for the course Seminar Climate-Culture-Building. She has also contributed to current research in the field, including the publication: Gocht, S. M., Mayer, A. J., Engel, N. (2025): A Comprehensive Analysis of Vernacular and Modern Houses in Quito, Ecuador: Assessment of Buildings’ Performance Regarding Climate and Climate Change, Embodied Emissions, and Material Costs. In: Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics.
This course was developed by Stefanie Marie Gocht with the support of her mentor, Dr. Anica Mayer, to help students from different disciplines, including environmental engineering, architecture, and civil engineering, understand the importance of integrating vernacular building knowledge into modern design. The course highlights how traditional building cultures developed climate-responsive solutions over decades and how this knowledge can still support the design of more comfortable, energy-efficient, and socially inviting buildings and cities today.