People

About me

My passion is for sustainable architecture and sustainable housing design teaching, practice and research that makes a difference and responds to current societal and environmental challenges. Originally born in Belgium, I am a UK chartered architect (ARB/RIBA) and have dedicated over 20 years to advancing sustainable architecture and creating more sustainable living environments.

Responsibilities

I am honoured to Chair the ASUTUT - Sustainable Housing Design research group. Our research group investigates and re-imagines new approaches to housing design and its spatial and architectural quality in an ever-changing world (e.g. climate change, finite resources, ageing populations, declining health and well-being, loneliness, pollution, urbanisation, affordability). ASUTUT aim to make meaningful societal change through holistic research in order to influence and support the design of sustainable living environments and resilient communities now, and in the future. The research group combine unique areas of expertise that include:

AGILE DESIGN: Spatially adaptable, flexible and user-centric housing design, transformations and housing solutions for a diversity of users, including solo-dwellers and older adults. It also includes climate chnage adaptations (e.g. overheating prevention).   

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN: Energy efficient and zero energy/zero carbon design, user well-being, designing for good indoor environmental quality (IEQ, e.g., thermal and visual comfort). Building performance and post-occupancy evaluation (POE and BPE).  

INCLUSIVE DESIGN: Including and encountering human diversity in design cultures, practices and environments, including various models of co-housing and shared spaces. Includes designing for ageing populations (older adults) and the inclusion of nature and non-humans in living environments. 

SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE PEDAGOGY: values, integration of sustainability in design studio, peer-learning, blended learning, democratic processes, transformational learning.

In addition to PhD, Masters thesis supervision and guest lectures elsewhere, I chair and teach (together with colleagues) 4 courses in the architecture unit: 

1. Fundamentals of Urban Housing Design (FIN, year 3) 

2. Societally Responsive Housing Design (EN, year 4) 

3. Experimental Architectural Design (EN, year 5) 

4. Sustainable Architecture (EN, Masters)(recipient of Tampere University’s 2021 Honorable Mention for Good Teaching and Teaching Development)

Other responsibilities include:

# Visiting Professor at the Sheffield School of Architecture (on the Sustainable Architecture Studies Masters course)

# Member of PROFI 6 STUE Research Platform (Sustainable Transformations of Urban Environments) 

# BEN Faculty Representative on the Professor's Council 

# Founding member of ACAN Finland (Architects Climate Action Finland, www.acan.fi ).

Field of expertise

Together with colleagues, I strive to make a difference through holistic real-world research and teaching, in order to influence the design of sustainable housing environments and resilient communities now, and in the future. My focus is on ’every day’ housing architecture with specialty in ecological, low energy and low carbon, affordable housing design and housing adaptability. I am particularly interested in how homes and spaces work in reality and how they are used and change over time (i.e. actual performance and user satisfaction (BPE and POE)). 

My current research focuses on the resilience and capacity of residents and their living environments to respond to and adapt to current and anticipated societal and environmental challenges and changes. This includes spatial and environmental adaptations to respond to residents’ needs, changing demographics and a changing climate.

Alternate description

My passion is for architecture teaching, practice and research that makes a difference and responds to current societal and environmental challenges. My specialty is low energy, adaptable, affordable housing design and housing retrofit. I am particularly interested in how buildings and spaces work in reality, and how architecture exists and changes over seasons and time. This includes how building use and users change and adapt buildings (i.e. actual performance and user satisfaction (POE/BPE)), and how architecture shapes uses and users. I am also interested in pedagogical methods for embedding transformational values and holistic sustainability approaches in architecture education. In my work I attempt to bridge the information gap between research and architectural practice. 

I thrive on genuine collaboration with others who are also striving to make the world a better and more sustainable place. For projects, outputs and activities see https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/persons/sofie-pelsmakers  

Research topics

Generally, my research spans across (and often combines) three areas, all of which are co-researched with scientists in our sister disciplines (e.g. social sciences, engineering, gerontology, geography etc.):

1) sustainable living environments (e.g. low energy/low carbon and nZEB homes, climate change adaptability, building performance and user satisfaction (POE/BPE), and health and well-being)

2) basic housing design research (e.g. accessible and inclusive design, designing for ageing population, adaptable and dweller-oriented housing design and flexible housing solutions, shared spaces and new co-housing models)

3) sustainable architecture pedagogy (values, integration of sustainability in design studio, peer-learning, blended learning)

For research projects see www.sustainablehousingdesign.com.   

Core team members (*part-time researchers in our group):

Post-docs: Jyrki Tarpio*, Tapio Kaasalainen*, Raul Castano de la Rosa 

PhD researchers: Katja Maununaho*, Sini Saarimaa,* Taru Lehtinen*, Anna Helamaa*, Troels Rugbjerg (DK based), Mo Elsayed (Venice University funded double PhD degree), Lena Jegard, Essi Nisonen 

Research assistants: Heini Järventausta*, Karoliina Kivimäki

Other close associated BEN researchers*: Jonathon Taylor, Teemu Hirvilammi, Jenni Poutanen 

Research unit

ASUTUT - Sustainable Housing Design - www.sustainablehousingdesign.com

Research fields

1) sustainable living environments (e.g. low energy/low carbon and nZEB homes, climate change adaptability, building performance and user satisfaction (POE/BPE), and health and well-being)

2) basic housing design research (e.g. accessible and inclusive design, designing for ageing population, adaptable and dweller-oriented housing design and flexible housing solutions, shared spaces and new co-housing models)

3) sustainable architecture pedagogy (values, integration of sustainability in design studio, peer-learning, blended learning)

Research career

In addition to my bachelor and masters architecture degree, I hold 2 specialist masters degrees: an MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies (UEL, 2000), and a Masters in Research (MRes) in Building Energy Demand from UCL (2012). After practicing sustainable housing design as a project architect for several years at Levitt Bernstein Architects in London, and while also teaching sustainable architecture part-time at the University of East London (2001-2011), I completed my PhD at the Bartlett, UCL's Faculty of the Built Environment on the retrofit of the UK's existing pre-1919 housing stock, in particular investigating ground floor heat loss (2012-2016). I used in-situ U-value measuring techniques and undertook pilot studies to validate the effect of insulation interventions on floor heat loss. 

In October 2015, I took up a part-time Environmental Design lectureship at Sheffield University School of Architecture where I also co-led the MSc in Sustainable Architecture Studies and undertook UK industry and government funded research. I was also part-time Head of Research at ECD Architects (London + Glasgow) where I supported architects with evidence-based design. 

Following the UK Brexit referendum, I joined the Aarhus School of Architecture (Denmark, 2018-2019) as Assistant Professor in Sustainable Architecture where I co-founded a collaborative and transnational research group 'Nordic Sustainable Architecture' with Elizabeth Donovan and Ula Kozminska. I now chair the Sustainable Housing Design research group at Tampere University (2019-present). 

About me

In the current political context, the first thing I would like to say about myself is that I believe climate change is real, that we are in the midst of multiple environmental and social crises, and that all of these crises —societal, environmental and climatic—are the result of our careless relationship with the planet and with each other. Addressing these challenges mobilises my work, my thinking, my dreams, my life. I am convinced that there is still a place in academia - in research and teaching - to address these issues. 

Responsibilities

Research

My research interests include grassroots, radical, and insurgent spatial and planning practices, urban activism, and spatial justice; more recently I have become increasingly interested in home and home-city geographies and the way individuals arrange their living environments. Ontologically and epistemologically, I position myself within feminist and decolonial perspectives and I mobilise (and advocate for) critical, creative, and narrative methodological approaches. 

In August 2023, I started my role as project manager (work package 2) and researcher of the project T-winning Spaces 2035 funded by the Academy of Finland. The aim of our work package is to investigate the social and spatial implications for working futures and to propose and design novel spatial and land-use concepts focusing on work conducted predominantly at and from home and adjacent living environments. Our approach aslo aims to recognise and respond to multiple social, environmental, and climatic crises and challenges that disable working futures for a diversity of people.

Since September 2017, I have been working on my doctoral research which lies at the intersection of architecture, urban planning, and critical urban studies. My research critically investigates appropriations of abandoned urban spaces in different Latin American cities. 

Teaching

I have over 10 years teaching experience, both in Mexico and Finalnd. My teaching vocation began in 2012 in Mexico, where I became part of the teaching corps of the School of Architecture at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro. I have developed the curricula and taught about eight courses since. Currently, I teach the courses of Sustainable Architecture with Sofie Pelsmakers and Urban Planning and Design Theory II with Panu Lehtovuori at Tampere University. I have also supervised two master’s thesis, both of which deal with neoliberal planning, tactical and insurgent practices, and new roles for architects in the climate emergency. I believe that the purpose of teaching and learning today should be to make determined efforts to reveal and address the major societal challenges of our historical moment: the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, social and environmental inequities and injustices, and brittle democracies. However, these immense and overwhelming challenges cannot be dealt with individually nor in the abstract, within disciplinary silos, inside the comfort of the classroom, ignoring other people’s experiences, and without engaging with communities beyond our academic boundaries. Therefore, I strongly advocate engaged, situated, and activist scholarship.

Research unit

Architecture

About me

Hi! My name is Mario, I'm an architect (M.Sc.) and Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of built environment, school of Architecture. I gravitate towards everything second-hand, not only in my personal life but also in my work where I study the secondary resource potential of building stocks. Naturally, the principles of a circular economy are at the very heart of my research, and for me, applying these means to put the maintenance of existing building values at the very top of the agenda.

Research unit

Renovation and Circular Economy Transition (ReCET)

About me

I am a Spanish interdisciplinary architect engineer with over 6 years of experience in the non-academic and academic sector where I have played a key role in teaching, researching, mentoring and exchanging knowledge on sustainability, buildings, innovative solutions and people’s quality of life.

My research interests include understanding how to design a more sustainable, affordable and resilient built environment.

My publications at researchportal.tuni.fi 

My research group ASUTUT 

Research Field Coordinator of the Resilient Communities of practices at the ECIU University 

About me

The driving force which has pushed me all the way to the last years of my Masters studies in architecture must be curiosity. I have a passion for asking questions and finding alternative approaches to thigs we consider self-evident.

I wrote my Bachelor’s thesis on the social sustainability of two-room apartments built in 2020 in Tampere, and had the honour of receiving the award for the Best Bachelor’s Thesis in the Department of Architecture (TAU) for it. Besides sustainable housing I am extremely passionate about envisioning holistically sustainable architecture education.

At the moment I’m most interested in tackling the question of implementing the knowledge around sustainability to architecture education through design processes & tools. Before starting my studies in TAU I had worked with the concept of Design Thinking in Aalto University. For me connecting vast and complex entities to each other is a matter of tools. An iterative and empathic design process like Design Thinking can be used as a bridge between the present situation and the architecture education of the future. We need tools for reflection, exploring, empathising, innovating and testing our ideas. In my Masters’ thesis I will be looking into the possibilities of Design Thinking as a tool for holistically sustainable architecture education.

B. thesis: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202004284231

https://essinisonen.com/