Ecogradia Season 2

June 6, 2023 

Can sustainable buildings be both high-performing and beautiful? In the age of social media, image is king. Is our appetite for novel forms at odds with our goals for better performance?

Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell, co-founding directors of WOHA, return to Ecogradia for the final episode of Season 2, hosted by Nirmal Kishnani. This Singapore-based practice and Holcim Awards Bronze winners for Floating University in Bangladesh is known for unique solutions to big problems, such as the climate crisis and urban density.

WOHA’s work aspires to create symbiotic relationships between nature, people, and architecture. The firm has changed the narrative on high-rise living in dense cities in Asia where, often, denizens are disconnected from nature and community.

May 23, 2023

Extreme weather is often a matter of life and death. How do we design for the growing frequency and ferocity of storms? Do we resist at all costs or should we build structures that give in a little to save the whole?

Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, a talented young architect from Barbados is introduced in this episode of Ecogradia hosted by Nirmal Kishnani. Growing up with the crippling effects of the hurricane season, Alyssa-Amor was propelled to pursue a career in design. She now runs her own boutique practice, Studio Amor, which is renowned for its micro-solutions for storm-resilient buildings.

Her work, tailored for survival, draws inspiration from vernacular architecture, new modelling tools, and real-world observations. She selects materials and details with performance in mind and blends them with a sense of local identity.

May 9, 2023

Water is a pressing design challenge of the climate crisis. Too much or too little and we struggle to survive. What is the sweet spot where we, our cities, and the ecosystems we rely upon, can thrive?

In this episode of Ecogradia hosted by Nirmal Kishnani, explores the work of water artist and landscape architect Herbert Dreiseitl who brings together the functional and the sensorial. His work is ground-breaking because it bridges multiple scales – from building to city – and breaks down the silos of disciplinary knowledge.

Herbert Dreiseitl started his career in the 1980s with Atelier Dreiseitl, where he honed his craft and built a reputation. After a detour with a large multinational consultancy, he is now back to his roots, focusing on a deeply personal vision with a new venture, DREISEITLconsulting, based in Germany.

April 25, 2023

More than a billion people are without adequate shelter today and there could be 3 billion by 2050. Is the growing demand a giant opportunity? What if houses for those in need could produce both renewable energy and long-term profits?

This episode of Ecogradia hosted by Nirmal Kishnani focuses on homelessness and the work of Prasoon Kumar, co-founder and director of BillionBricks, a for-profit social enterprise set up in Singapore to tackle the many challenges of this growing global crisis.

Prasoon Kumar is an architect by training and an entrepreneur by choice, driven by his desire to make a difference with the BillionBricks Home: a sustainable house tailored to turn the fortunes of impoverished communities around the world. But to reach this goal, its model must be scalable and highly replicable. It must allow mass production and, most importantly, be easily financed. The project received a Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize in 2022 under the title Empowering the Homeless.

April 11, 2023

Tropical architecture: is it a perspective on place or a question of performance? How can architects from nations along the equator, like Indonesia, draw on local know-how rather than imported technology?

Daliana Suryawinata and Florian Heinzelmann are directors of the boutique practice SHAU, based in Bandung, Indonesia, with offices in Europe. They are known for small, exploratory projects such as micro-libraries and markets.

At SHAU, place-making and performance start with the climate. Sunlight, shade, wind, and rain assessments guide upstream design thinking on form and envelope. These results also inform new takes on materiality, showcasing the use of local materials in ingenious ways which they share in this Ecogradia podcast hosted by Nirmal Kishnani.

Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, is sinking fast, like many other cities around the world. How can urbanists turn this congested megacity, threatened by flood and saltwater intrusion, into a resilient amphibious metropolis?

March 28, 2023

Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, is sinking fast, like many other cities around the world. How can urbanists turn this congested megacity, threatened by flood and saltwater intrusion, into a resilient amphibious metropolis?

Kotchakorn Voraakhom, guest in this Ecogradia podcast hosted by Nirmal Kishnani, is a landscape architect who has built a remarkable career out of modelling answers that combat Bangkok’s sinking. Her firm, LANDPROCESS, seeks to return her hometown of over 10 million people to a more traditional water-centric lifestyle.

Kotch — as she likes to be called — sculpts land to channel water. This contouring approach is borrowed from regional agricultural practices, and tailored to city buildings that mimic topographical forms such as mountains and terraces.

March 14, 2023

As a species, we seek closeness to nature. Designing for well-being, therefore, aims to bring nature to the heart of the built environment. But what do these “biophilic” spaces feel like? And how do we set the stage to reap their benefits?

This episode of Ecogradia hosted by Nirmal Kishnani features a guest is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. Bill Browning is the Managing Partner in Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental strategies research and consulting firm, based in the USA. He is an internationally renowned expert in green design and sustainable solutions, who is also a researcher and practitioner in the science and craft of human well-being.

Bill’s work is a blend of scientific and design-based thinking. He translates cutting-edge research from the domains of environmental psychology and neuroscience into guidelines for better buildings.

February 28, 2023

Should our buildings and cities minimize harm or do “good” by design? In a world already at risk, less harm is no longer enough. We must repair, regenerate, and create new life. So where do we start?

In this episode, Nirmal Kishnani is joined by two global thought leaders of regenerative design and development. Chrisna du Plessis is the Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa. Bill Reed is principal of Regenesis, a research consulting firm with offices in the USA.

Chrisna’s 2015 book, Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability, is a must-read on the subject of regeneration, a term that defines “good” in the built environment. Bill is a practitioner of the regenerative approach; his projects illustrate its application to real-world, complex situations.

February 14, 2023

What is a high-performing building? Do the two yardsticks of performance — efficiency and well-being — complement each other? If there are trade-offs, how do we prioritise?

In this episode, we meet Gregers Reimann, managing director of IEN Consultants, an award-winning environmentally sustainable design consultancy based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. IEN is credited with several super low-energy buildings. But Gregers’ focus has widened from energy to well-being over the years. Performance, he says, is the calibration of the two.

January 31, 2023

Can design bridge the social and the environmental? How would a building do both, effectively? Is it possible to marry beauty and wellness with intelligence and efficiency? In this episode, we meet Ashok Lall, principal of Ashok B. Lall Architects, an award-winning practice in India. His career spans the peak of regionalism in the 80s to the rise of the Green movement in the 2000s. Ashok is foremost a humanist. He asks what people and communities need. And how these needs are met. He is also a proponent of craft, bringing to life textures and micro details in architecture.