Many studies have developed green strategies and technologies for urban construction, but they sometimes ignored the intensive and dynamic relationships between people, buildings and the natural environment. This study focused on how to generate green building design strategies dealing with a coupling relationship between geomorphology and climate, which took an insight into the built environment in a particular locality of the Yangtze River Delta region in China. First, we imported climatic data from six cities into a bioclimatic evaluation tool, named ‘Weather Tool’, to assess the effectiveness of the existing passive design strategies (passive solar heating, thermal mass effects, exposed mass and night purge ventilation, natural ventilation, direct evaporative cooling and indirect evaporative cooling). Second, we employed the topological method to identify the characters of the vernacular dwellings by interpreting their adaptations to the local topographical and climatic conditions. Consequently, the green building design strategies in the Yangtze River Delta region were developed through the macro, middle and micro levels to examine group patterns, single-building forms and building components in a particular locality. The main findings were shown as follows: (1) the common passive strategies played a role with different effects in the Yangtze River Delta region, which acted as a basis for choosing the most effective strategies; (2) the local dwellings presented a comprehensively sustainable paradigm with architectural prototypes that could be selectively inherited and applied in contemporary design. (3) Those particular strategies, which were evaluated through bioclimatic tools and developed from the vernacular dwellings, gave specific suggestions on green building design in the Yangtze River Delta region, providing approaches for architects and developers to promote more environmentally responsive sustainable development.

Purpose: The application of massive open online courses (MOOCs) helps integrate sustainable development goals (SDGs) into architectural curricula. The essence of MOOC development is building an education platform that promotes the sharing and continuing of global education resources.Design/methodology/approach: This study establishes a four-dimensional evaluation model based on the four characteristics of MOOCs. The quadrilateral area evaluation method is used to create an evaluation radar chart to comprehensively evaluate satisfaction and demand in the traditional teaching model of architectural technology. This study discusses whether the curriculum is suitable for the development of MOOCs and how to optimize the sustainable pedagogical mode according to its characteristics to meet future teaching needs and realize the sustainable development of education.Findings: Satisfaction evaluation found that current education is not open enough from the students' perspective; therefore, MOOCs enhance students' participation and significantly reduce future learning costs. Through demand evaluation, it was found that both teachers and students believed that the lack of direct and effective communication between them and the difficulty in ensuring the learning effect were problems that must be addressed in MOOCs.Originality/value: This study focused on the sustainability of MOOCs in curriculum development. It emphasizes the combination of MOOCs' teaching modes and the course itself and provides specific guidance and suggestions for improving the course. It uses an evaluation method for objective analysis and visualization.