Abstract
To make sustainability transitions happen, it is crucial not only to have strategic planning processes committed by the top
management, but also to encourage community engagement, approaching and promoting a bottom-up process. In the specific
case of a University Campus, that means the involvement of the students not only as consumers, but with a leading role in the
sustainability process. DICAM department of University of Bologna has recently started the implementation of some practical
actions to create a sustainability campus Terracini. These activities are parts of the Sustainability Plan of Unibo. A multifunction
group, called Terracini Transition Team is managing some of these actions located in Terracini Campus. Moreover, a new model
of pedagogy, called flipped classroom, has been experimented. Therefore, Terracini Transition Team has been proposing an
innovative and engaging idea that could support sustainability measures: the realization of a space for students designed by
themselves with an inclusive and participative approach. To meet environmental performances, the space will be planned with
the use of appropriate building technologies, employing low impact and local materials. In addition, the space will be realized in
auto-construction, in order to strengthen the involvement of final users, the students. This paper will show an evaluation of
appropriate building technologies with an LCA approach. Finally, the reported LCA case-studies has provided the robustness to
drive the choices of low impact solutions for the sustainability of Unibo. Finally, the paper demonstrates the efficacy of the
adoption of whole-system approach integrating experiential learning with sustainability assessment.