Solutions in Sustainable Construction

This project reimagines the greenhouse as a locally-sourced, low-energy building linking Wellesley College to the local community, Wellesley, MA, USA.

A reinterpretation of traditional local construction is central to the design for a new mosque with a capacity for 1,000 people, and creation of a literacy center and library in the renovated derelict mosque in Dandaji, Niger. The project completed in 2018 creates a space in the village open to all. The design explores new techniques pertaining to the use of renewable resources. Involving local artisans, masons, and the community led to a knowledge transfer beneficial to all.

The secondary school project uses traditional building materials and technologies and places great emphasis on actively involving the local population in the construction process. Locally-sourced clay is mixed with aggregates and cement to cast walls on-site based on a two-piece formwork. The school is exemplary in terms of its successful approach to the adaptive use of building materials, community development, climatic mitigation and aesthetics.

Adaptive reuse for refugee education: Located in an informal settlement for Syrian refugees, the project creates a dignified school environment using a repurposed pavilion from the Expo 2015 in Milan (Italy).

Shea butter storage for Nyingali community: The striking towers of the storage units are designed for passive cooling and allude to traditional local architecture.

The UVA de La Imaginación project centers on creating high quality public spaces inserted into low-income, dense neighborhoods at a reservoir where two giant water tanks have been replaced by new infrastructure. The obsolete tanks are repurposed to create public space, taking inspiration from the site’s history, surrounding topography, and structure of existing tanks and pools. The resulting intervention has minimal environmental impact and opened in 2015, forming part of a network of 20 parks.

This project achieves midrise, mixed-use housing through a modular panel system that can adapt to create a variety of unit layouts and architectural forms, Vancouver, Canada.

Poetic interpretation of a water purification infrastructure as public space along the edge of the Ganga River in Varanasi, India.

Poor water quality closed the last swimming facility on Berlin’s River Spree in 1925. By improving water quality via a 780m-long reed bed filtration system, the Flussbad aims to transform an arm of the river into a natural 745m swimming precinct equivalent to seventeen Olympic swimming pools. Adjacent to the UNESCO World Heritage Museuminsel, the urban renewal project will have a direct impact on the quality of city life and a positive ecological contribution by remediating the waterway.

Following over 25 years of civil war, the reintegration of young soldiers is one of the great challenges facing Sri Lanka. This Community Library retrained a labor force geared for combat with building skills to equip them for post-military life. The slender building sits lightly in the landscape and wraps around an inner courtyard, taking full advantage of cross ventilation and daylighting. Rammed-earth walls and recycled materials reduce costs and the ecological footprint.