UNStudio Report: Designing a Holistic, Sustainable Future Together UNStudio Report: Designing a Holistic, Sustainable Future Together
News - 31 March 2022

UNStudio Report: Designing a Holistic, Sustainable Future Together

In UNStudio’s latest report, we ponder the question: What are the challenges involved for architects in creating truly sustainable buildings, while also designing healthy and vibrant environments for the people that will use them?

For quite some time already, UNStudio, as an architecture practice, has been pre-occupied with questions surrounding the sustainability of our projects and how we can design our buildings with the health of the planet in mind. However, as a design practice, we equally have to ensure that our buildings and cities are healthy for people too.

At the heart of this goal, is the need to strike the right balance between our sustainable and design ambitions and our client’s wishes, budgets and commitment to environmental goals.

Navigating these inextricably linked aims is where we have found much success to date. In order to continue down this path – and maintain our commitment to research into everything from materials to structural solutions – we have established an in-house ‘Sustainability Engineering Group’.

Headed by our colleague Marc Hoppermann, who was the first architect in the Netherlands to be awarded the WELL building certificate, this group explores sustainability as a central guiding force in design and takes a holistic approach to creating not only sustainable projects, but ones that contribute to the overall health of users, while all the while retaining aesthetic qualities.

With the goal of creating meaningful environments for lasting impact, we know that reaching our sustainability goals requires a cross-disciplinary approach. As such, for this campaign, we also spoke to a number of collaborators - from a landscape architect and an engineer, to a global sustainable development strategist - about how they are overcoming the sustainability challenges they face within their specific disciplines.

In the end, the role of the architect is to combine knowledge and expertise – their own and that of all other stakeholders - into a holistic, integrated design that serves both the environment and the user.

As a United Network, we assemble the best teams of experts to work with on every project. In so doing, we learn from each other, we inspire each other and ultimately we tackle the challenges together, holistically.

To read the full report, click here.
Watch our entire four-part sustainability series, here.