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Sustainability champions
We are committed to making a bigger contribution towards climate-conscious architecture.
For over 25 years, dRMM has been an ambassador for sustainable design and construction.
Sustainability means directly addressing the triple crisis of climate emergency, biodiversity erosion, and social divide. Designing with these issues in mind has always been at the heart of our studio. We generate architecture that uses low-carbon construction, reduced waste, modular components, and recycled materials—systems that we have spent years developing and testing. With a commitment to designing regeneratively, we create buildings that restore, renew or revitalise their own sources of energy and materials.
As founding signatories of Architects Declare, we are part of a collective fighting the global climate crisis.
In May 2019, dRMM joined 16 other Stirling Prize winners to sign an open declaration responding to the climate and biodiversity emergency. This network has since spread to more than 20 different countries with over 5,000 signatories. Besides Architects Declare, our studio allocates time and resources to the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), a network of over 250 built environment professionals working together to put London on the path to a zero-carbon future.
Our studio doubles as a platform for debate.
The construction industry’s fight against the climate crisis relies on radical change and the questioning of old habits, design favourites and default processes. Within our studio, we provide space for a new generation of climate-aware architects and designers to collaborate with more established professionals. Their perspective impacts design, challenges preconceptions and encourages debate as fertile ground for innovation.
The way we use buildings is changing. Flexibility is key to designing buildings that last.
Architecture that lasts is the greatest environmental contribution our industry can make. The key to reimagining existing and future spaces lies in actively building-in adaptability, designing robust structures and prioritising durability. To make this possible, we embrace new technologies and tools that help improve performance and increase the lifespan of buildings. Architecture must grow with the needs and desires of generations of users—flexibility guarantees that.
We need to understand how architecture can become increasingly enabling of future adaptation. dRMM is committed to an approach of non-determinative architecture that champions inherent flexibility.
Director
Insight: Saskia Lencer
We hold ourselves accountable to sustainable and regenerative practice across our projects and our operations.
We continually review our design methodologies and working practices to ensure we remain at the cutting edge of sustainability and regenerative design across our studio’s working practices. Two of our team members are certified Passivhaus Designers and use their knowledge to embed Passivhaus design principles in our projects from the earliest stages. We are ISO 14001 accredited, meaning we have management processes in place for continual improvement in our environmental impact in every aspect of our studio. We continually monitor our impact as a studio and are committed to the UN’s Race to Net Zero initiative; achieving net zero by 2050 and halving our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. We are committed to sharing our journey publicly and honestly. We are also steadfast supporters of Architects Declare and committed to the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge.
We are pioneers in engineered timber—the carbon-capturing material of the 21st century.
Timber’s versatility, renewability, tactile beauty and strength makes it the obvious choice for sustainable construction. dRMM has championed its use since the mid-90s, pioneering its application across diverse scales and typologies in UK architecture. Our built portfolio demonstrates its numerous advantages, and is proof of our continuing advocacy for timber as a sustainable material for 21st century architecture.
Timber is the new concrete.
Director
Insight: Alex de Rijke
Related project
Hastings Pier
Flexibility was at the heart of dRMM’s RIBA Stirling Prize-winning project, Hastings Pier. Our team avoided the knee-jerk response of creating a landmark architectural structure and instead designed the pier as a sustainable, flexible platform able to accommodate a broad range of community and commercial uses for years to come.