GBS 2026 – it’s a wrap!

Celebrating an intensive three-week learning journey, the 16th Green.Building.Solutions. Summer University (GBS) came to an end on Saturday, August 1, 2026. Uniting 64 students and professionals from 34 countries, GBS once again turned TU Wien into an international hub for sustainable development.

From Tanzania to Canada, this year's cohort joins a worldwide network of more than 1,200 alumni from 109 nations, committed to acting on the pressing need for climate-sensitive design.

On July 13, 2026, GBS was launched together with our Alternative Economic and Monetary Systems (AEMS) Summer University at Arena21 in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier. With over 250 guests from politics, academia, and the building industry, we welcomed 121 change makers from over 30 countries.

Under the guiding theme "Who Builds the Future?", architect Doris Österreicher, climate scientist Daniel Huppmann (IIASA), and activist Marlene Engelhorn discussed the role of power distribution in responding to the ecological crisis. Moderated by Michael Bauer-Leeb, the evening encouraged dialogue between experts and the audience, setting the tone for interdisciplinary exchange. Read full article here.

Our Highlights

GBS 2026 approached this question across different scales. Departing from Vienna's urban context, the program steadily moved closer to the building envelope by studying materials, energy, and comfort.

Through experts from the City of Vienna, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), superwien, Passivhaus Austria and leading universities, participants started to explore compact cities, Positive Energy Districts, and community-oriented planning. Complementary excursions – such as to the Sonnwendviertel and our annual Social Housing Tour showed how these approaches are already being implemented across Vienna.

Week two narrowed our focus towards the inhabited space through simulations of thermal indoor and outdoor comfort, life-cycle assessment, and environmental performance. Hands-on workshops on One Click LCA, Honeybee, and the newly launched INFRARED-City plug-in allowed participants to test their own design choices in practice. At the Light Lab at theUniversity for Continuing Education Krems daylight simulations were conducted under an artificial sky using 3D models of this year’s project site.

The popularPASSATHON bike tour once again offered participants the opportunity to experience exemplary sustainable architecture across Vienna, including Aspern Seestadt, OeAD student housings’ GreenHouse and Popup dorms. Excursions to pioneering Passive House retrofits and energy-efficient renovations in Kauergasse and SmartCity Baumgarten provided further inspiration for the GBS design project.

The knowledge gained was finally integrated into ten design proposals, collaboratively developed by interdisciplinary student groups for Vienna’s Fassfabrik in the 23rd district. These climate-friendly and sustainable solutions were presented on August 1st at TUtheSky.

Outside the classroom, sports evenings, waltzing classes, movie nights, and international dinners built lasting friendships and strengthened our GBS community.

To this community, we want to say:

A Big Thank You!

We thank every student, speaker, tutor, partner, and sponsor who made GBS this year possible.

Your contributions are helping shape this program and with it a more sustainable, inclusive, and livable built environment.

See you (again), at GBS 2027!