Sofie Pelsmakers: Changing living environments
Pelsmakers leads the ASUTUT – Sustainable Housing Design research group, which investigates the everyday architecture of the living environment and the home within it. Together with her research group, Pelsmakers reimagines and undertakes transformative thinking about the home and living environment in terms of social, spatial and environmental design.
” We are faced with challenges such as a changing climate, pandemics and more people ageing at home. The way we live and occupy our homes and living environments has changed and will continue to change. Our research has indicated that our current housing production in Finland is not able to meet current challenges, let alone future ones.”
Pelsmakers tells that as a professor she sees it as her responsibility to anticipate and find solutions to ensure the resilience of the changing living environment. She also tackles these topics in the education of future architects.
“Our research has shown that different infrastructures are at the heart of sustainable living environments: green, adaptable and social infrastructures that are also all inclusive and equitable. This supports individuals’ and community resilience in the event of adversity, for example the pandemic and a changing climate.”
According to Pelsmakers, housing needs to enable everyone to create a home and allow them to thrive. To support the creation of a home, housing needs to be versatile, diverse and adaptable.
“The design of our housing and living environments must change. But also, the way we conduct research has changed. People are not just the subject of our research but are also included in it: we work with and for them.”
