www.buildingsandcities.org/about/sofie-pelsmakers.html
Dr Sofie Pelsmakers
Dr Sofie Pelsmakers is an environmental architect, educator, and researcher with expertise in energy demand reduction and holistic sustainable architecture and housing design. Based at Tampere University, Finland, she leads Sustainable Housing Design research - how buildings and spaces work in reality, how they influence users, and how they change over time.
She is particularly passionate about bridging the information gap between research and knowledge application in design and building practice. She is the author of the Environmental Design Pocketbook.
Latest Commentaries
Freedom from Stress is Symptomatic of Death
Marcel Schweiker (RWTH Aachen University) and Richard de Dear (University of Sydney) discuss the neutrality fallacy and resilience. They explain why indoor environments do not need to be stress free in order to support their occupants’ resilience.
Reducing CO2 Emissions: Building with Biogenic Materials
At the 2026 Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit Michael H. Ramage (Manchester School of Architecture, Centre for Natural Material Innovation, Manchester Metropolitan University) explained how new construction can substantially reduce its carbon footprint by using biogenic materials. These materials lock in carbon during their growth and store it in use as building materials. This provides a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. The premises surrounding an inadequate supply of timber are shown to be false.