The brief for all studio sections during Spring 2019 semester reads, “in the Net Positive studio, architectural design integrates design excellence, beauty, and theories of architecture with the achievement of performance standards. Historically, these standards have been checklist based and focused on the built environment as being less bad rather than having positive effects. The goal of the studio is to evolve high performance design strategies, apply processes and techniques to improve performance, and redefine architectural beauty from a socioecological perspective.” Furthermore, all sections of the Net-Positive studio share the following key topics: first, utilizing design processes and methods to explore the form-giving potential of ecological and performance-driven design; second, measuring ecological sustainability with assessment tools, guidelines, metrics and frameworks; and third, developing, assessing, documenting, and representing the interaction of architectural form and environmental factors and systems. The studio brief was written by studio coordinators, Mary Guzowski, Professor (University of Minnesota) and Richard Graves, Associate Professor and Director of CSBR (University of Minnesota).

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Further information regarding the pedagogy of Malini Srivastava's cooperative learning studio can be accessed in her article Cooperative learning to redesign existing buildings for net positive performance.

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