Approach

"Not all forms of impact are obvious at the outset of a project, and a checklist will not reveal the opportunities. While certifications can be useful to validate impact, real gains come from working creatively with the project context"

- Enlai Hooi, Head of Innovation at SHL

Living Design Phases

Framing: We establish a context-specific foundation for decision-making, identifying key risks and opportunities.

New Insights: Facilitates curated discussions among stakeholders to define success metrics.

Strategic Direction: Aligns stakeholders and assembles a core team committed to realizing the project's ambitions.

Synthesis: A strategic roadmap that aligns collaborative efforts and workflow, demonstrating how stakeholders’ inputs are incorporated into the project design.

Connecting Context to Expertise

Operating internationally across diverse scales and contexts, we craft a comprehensive sustainability framework to each project's specific conditions and regulatory requirements

Schmidt Hammer Lassen has developed a proprietary system of practice cards—both digital and physical tools that systematize our research insights and technical expertise. These curated resources provide teams with immediate access to technical specifications, precedent analysis, and implementation strategies drawn from our global portfolio.

By tailoring proven methodologies and analytics to project-specific challenges, the cards help frame areas of impact, accelerate decision-making and help define a tailored delivery roadmap in each project.

Navigating Complexity & Responsibility: ESGs and Certifications

Operating across European and international contexts, we navigate diverse sustainability requirements—including EU Taxonomy, LEED, BREEAM, GRESB, and regional ESG mandates. Our proprietary tracking platform ensures real-time alignment with certification criteria and regulatory thresholds from project inception through delivery.

We deploy comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments at critical design stages, conduct future scenario modelling for climate resilience, and utilize advanced simulations for environmental optimisation. Going beyond technical criteria, our design process maps a sustainability vision from design drivers to realisation. This holistic approach addresses energy performance, circular economy principles, and biodiversity—ensuring relevance for institutional investors and future generations.

Focus: Life Cycle Analysis & Embodied Carbon

Recognising the building industry’s impact on climate, Schmidt Hammer Lassen conducts life cycle analysis (LCA) studies on all projects throughout the development process.

We have developed advanced tools that give unique insight into carbon performance during early-stage design. This ensures optimal decision-making from the earliest design phases and allows us to and generate comparative studies of building design and construction to evaluate both financial and environmental performance.

We are a key member of the global alliance and research organisation Carbon Leadership forum and have contributed to the development of the EC3 (Embodied Carbon Calculator) tool, an open resource for the industry, as well as our own Carbon Sync tool that connects real-time feedback to early design options, assisting designers and decision makers to make informed choices about design choices & investment.

Focus: Healthy Materials

The Switch List offers solutions for developers, contractors and designers who desire alternative pathways to using toxic, damaging or carbon intensive materials in their projects. It is backed by comprehensive scientific research from our network and organised to deliver practical information for delivering cleaner and healthier buildings. It is based on our earlier research and advocacy behind the open resource: the precautionary list.

Focus: Circular Economy

A circular approach to production and consumption aims to eliminate waste and transform what exists before recycling at a material level. It involves strategies for sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing resources, materials and products for as long as possible.

There are three principal concepts that underpin circularity:

1. Utilising the existing: Reuse as much as possible in its current form. This minimises the resource expenditure in creating new value. For buildings we explore the principal of Adaptive Transformation: change in use while preserving as much of the original structure and materials as possible. For objects, this means repurposing them without dismantling. For materials trying to recycle or upcycle as much as possible while using the minimum energy to do it.

2. Design for change: Making sure that a project will have the longest possible lifespan as demands change in future. In design we apply principles of design for adaptability, design for disassembly and material passports.

3. Responsible materials: Biogenic materials that can be returned to the earth and remain pure without causing harm are prioritised, while healthy recyclable materials that can be reprocessed ad-infinitum are designed to be harvested easily and returned for re-manufacture.

Our analytical process provides the due-diligence and creative opportunities that might otherwise be lost in a standard architectural process.

Focus: Adaptive Transformation

Adaptive transformation of buildings involves repurposing existing structures for new uses while preserving their historical and cultural value, reducing material waste, and extending their lifespan.

Transformation of existing buildings rather than demolition has become a political priority in many parts of the world as it has been shown to have a lower carbon material waste impact, while stimulating local economies, and communities. It represents a priority in circular strategy and as materials become scarce, will grow as a focus in the building industry. Creating unique knowledge and methodologies in this field is therefore essential to resilience for our clients and ourselves.

We are pioneering research in transformation, using AI to synthesise the complexities of spatial analysis, working with economists, contractors and the real-estate sector to find business advantages for transformation over demolition.

We are also a principal Danish signatory to the House Europe movement, which aims to harmonise European law and create an even playing field for transformation projects.

See our pioneering projects here: Adaptive Transformation

Focus: Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services

Regenerative design fundamentally involves using nature-based solutions to rehabilitate ecology and augment human wellbeing. While the concept of multi-species design is rarely discussed among architects, emphasizing biodiversity is crucial for maintaining the ecosystems that enhance our climate resilience, health, and wellbeing. In urban environments, the functional diversity of nature is underexplored but critical to our future.

Our practice is focused on harnessing this diversity to benefit urban settings. Consider the multifunctional roles of trees as groundwater pumps, air filters, habitats, food sources, urban coolers, recreational areas, and supporters of wellbeing and pollinators. Similarly, the roles of marshes, meadows, and seaweed in urban ecosystems are invaluable.

One of the most overlooked ways of bringing nature into our lives is to re-establish our connection with food. Creating a new food infrastructure has the capacity to bind communities together while reducing stress on our land, improving health outcomes and supporting biodiversity.

Focus: Urban Food Systems

Our research on food systems in the urban environment explore the interconnected systems and processes that influence well-being (nutrition), community development, waste and agriculture. Urban food systems play a crucial role in enhancing the resilience of cities by providing access to healthy and locally sourced food, promoting sustainable practices, and strengthening community engagement and social cohesion.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen have authored a 6-book compendium on the positive utilisation of food systems entitled The Hacktivist Guide to Food Security. Original research produced here informs how practical measures in urban design and architecture can have multiple societal, ecological and intergenerational benefits.

For the UIA World Congress of Architects, we created a pavilion to stimulate round-table discussions about food systems. The pavilion contained an edible garden and 3D examples of global case study projects alongside communication channels that fed a symposium at the Roskilde and GRASP knowledge festivals.

Requirements and recognition for urban food systems exist in the Living Building Challenge and WELL certifications and in some municipality's guidance for building development.

Focus: Biogenic Material Research

Beyond Mass-timber, biogenic materials for the building industry are often implemented at a limited scale. This limitation arises from the materials being viewed as substitutions for other materials, instead of being designed as integrated building systems. As a result, the application of biogenic materials in architecture remains at the experimental level, confined to small-scale projects such as houses and pavilions.

Our aim is to develop a scalable facade system that integrates biogenic materials into pre-manufactured elements. It enables the industrial utilization of willow in ready-to-implement façade systems that pave the way for their broader application in architecture.

Integrated Digital Delivery

We use Building Information Modelling (BIM) and advanced information and communication technology (IKT) to create an integrated digital experience for our clients. All project data, drawings, and decisions are connected in data rich models, making the process transparent and collaborative. With high standards guiding every step, we ensure efficiency, clarity, and results you can trust.

The renovation of the Danmarks Nationalbank is the largest restoration project ever undertaken by a listed building in Danish history, and an example where information technology can be used to preserve heritage while preparing the building to a vibrant future.

Data that Supports decision Making

Our team of data analysts provides Digital Advisory Services that turn complex data into clear insights, helping our clients manage their portfolio with confidence. On a single-facility level, our technology platform supports space and asset planning with targeted goals. At the building portfolio and campus level our databases combine benchmark performance, forecasting and scenario planning.

At the Dordrecht Huis, being a public cultural anchor to its city our digital tools embedded the spirit and ambitions of SHL toward community and participation. We use business intelligence dashboards to share with all public stakeholders how their spaces would look like in real time during design and development. This allows for our studio teams a platform for feedback and engagement, as we delivered a building winner of Public Building (Concept) at Rethinking the Future Global Architecture & Design Awards 2024.

A Platform for Shared Spaces

AreaSync is the platform we use to share spaces. It allows our clients and design teams real-time access to spatial information. It has been used on a variety of projects, including complex medical facilities, large commercial facilities and urban developments. In these cases, the tool can help designers track every square foot to ensure the correct specifications and that the design stays within budget. This is useful for projects where costs and design impact are critical factors. This data is visualized and shared in a common dashboard, on your laptop or mobile phone, allowing our clients to quickly have a glimpse of how design has progressed. This enables designers to focus on delivering exceptional spaces to our clients, knowing that the tool is providing them with the information they need to make the best possible decisions.

In 2024, AreaSync received an honourable mention in the Fast Company Design Awards 2024 Data Design category.

The Future of Cities Powered by Artificial Intelligence

AI is at the forefront of nearly every industry and is set to transform virtually all aspects of our lives. For building developers, urban planners, and architects, this means a profound shift in how projects are conceived and executed. 
According to McKinsey (2023), generative AI is expected to generate approximately $3 trillion in global economic value. We are committed to helping our clients capitalize on these opportunities, regardless of the project's scale. Whether it's designing a single bedroom or workstation, developing facilities such as schools, hospitals, and office headquarters, or planning expansive projects like entire campuses and neighborhoods, our expertise ensures that our clients can leverage AI to achieve innovative and efficient outcomes. Talk with Victor about how AI will change the future of your next building development.

Intelligent Spaces Beyond BIM

Our digital innovations surpass traditional Building Information Modeling (BIM), transforming architectural design with sophisticated parametric modeling and comprehensive environmental analysis. Our custom-developed applications—such as Scorridors, Campus Planner, Airformer, and Area Sync—utilize Artificial Intelligence, geospatial data, and advanced analytics to tackle our clients' emerging challenges and provide exceptional value. Consult with Zuzanna Czapla, our expert in Spatial Business Intelligence, to learn how spatial data metrics can enhance the profitability and efficiency of complex projects.

Computational Design

While the traditional design process relies entirely on a designer's experience and intuition, computational design techniques allow us to incorporate project-specific data, analytic tools, and computing power to inform the design and decision-making process.

ln any building, we can understand how multiple systems correlate with each other and the environment, creating more options and better efficiencies for our clients. Our ability to process large amounts of information helps us work with clients to make smarter decisions faster.

User Experience (UX/UI)

SHL is a proud architectural design pioneer in implementing user experience and interface (UX/UI) principles into its design processes and digitalization strategy. By involving users and iterating based on their feedback, we ensure our products are intuitive, efficient, and enhance the experience of working.

This process involves working with agile methodologies, where we deliver quickly and regularly to our users, while investing the time to listen and use feedback to drive innovation.

Our team of UX designers work with digital and physical prototypes as well as design thinking workshops to capture the most crucial pain points in our design operations. The Digital Practice team transforms those into opportunities for SHL to reinvent itself and excel in the business.

The City can be Hacked

Our team works closely with clients and designers to hack their problems. We take part on international hackathon’s being awarded on many occasions for the solution produced.Landscape Information Modelling (LIM), ReAdapt, AI.Stethic, Boring, Boom, Scorridors, Campus Planner, Portfolio Explorer

LIM

Best overall hack, Copenhagen AEC Hackathon 2024. Collaboration with Sweco, Nordify and Cobod.

Integrating Biodiversity in Urban Landscapes Through ‘Landscape Information Modelling ‘ (LIM)

There’s an Importance of incorporating biodiversity, wildlife, and plant life into urban landscapes. But our design methodologies remain largely intuitive rather than data-driven. LIM Monitors oxygen production, CO2 absorption, and biodiversity in real-time to optimize environmental benefits as you design.

Re Adapt

Winner of the Best Overall Project at the 2022 AECHackathon at Bloxhub. This innovative solution explores carbon and cost savings by reusing components from a circular bank instead of using new ones, potentially saving significant resources and reducing carbon emissions.

Boom

At the AECHackathon in Zurich, our team unveiled the Autodesk Cloud Speckle Connector, a tool that allows BIM data integration at terabyte scale. This solution can simplify everyday workflows, ensuring seamless updates and zero hassle for design teams. BOOM extends this innovation, providing precise data management straight from your browser.

AI.stethic

We've created a pipeline that offers performance feedback on facade images, whether they are generated by AI or captured using a phone. This system integrates machine learning models for image recognition and can also generatively produce facade designs.

Boring

Honorable mention, New York AEC Hackathon 2023. Collaboration with Ladybug tools and Big.

The use of non-standard room names leads to inaccurate analyses, with subjective designer interpretations replacing objective, benchmarked data.

Let the BORING app automatically normalize room names for your downstream applications to save you time and make your data more consistent. Enhance clarity by facilitating rapid and accurate space type names to support essential analyses, ensuring that decisions are informed by accurate, data-driven insights

Scorridors

A vibrant public realm has a connected structure that encourages walkability, an active street wall edge that provides architectural interest and destinations, and a comfortable pedestrian experience that is enjoyable, exciting and safe. Scorridors provides reporting and scenario building tools based on spatial analytics, for a collection of measured data points. Each blockface is measured across dozens of indicators to create three metrics, structure, streetwall and experience. Each metric combines for a corridor rating system based on peer reviewed processes, engineered by our Urban Designers and Data Scientists.

Campus Planner

A tool that allows our design team to synthesize large amounts of data (i.e. space utilization, course schedules, enrollments, GIS filters), and visualize it on a map. This mapping platform makes it easier to visualize the “full picture” of building assets – their use and occupancy – so it’s possible to quickly understand opportunities for consolidation, for repurposing or disposing of buildings, or ways to accommodate new academic programs as they emerge.

Portfolio Explorer

Portfolio Explorer is the foundation for web based, 3d map experiences driven by data. Create a portfolio of assets from your project data, style it, and share it with your stakeholders.

Creating data driven maps used to require experts your team might not have, now you can see your data visualized in the map with only a few clicks. Thematically render your data with numeric and categorical styles for quick control of synchronized map and chart based visualization.

In the digital age, where renderings can replicate reality with remarkable precision, the significance of physical models remains steadfast. They offer a tactile experience that fosters a deeper connection with architectural concepts. Crafting a model sharpens our sense of spatial dynamics, proportions, and materiality, resulting in more refined designs.

By transforming abstract ideas into three-dimensional form, model-making brings designs to life. It allows us to test iterations, visualise potential, identify flaws, and make confident, informed decisions—steering projects towards realisation with clarity and conviction.

Our Workshop is a Creative Playground

Our studio is driven by a constant desire to approach modelmaking with creativity, playfulness, and a spirit of experimentation. By exploring a wide range of techniques and materials, we create captivating models that offer viewers an immersive experience of the project.

Mold making, resin pouring, concrete casting, and the use of textures, metals, colours, and raw materials are just a few of the many techniques we explore with enthusiasm. Resin lets us introduce translucency or vibrant colour, while concrete casting adds solidity and material depth. We take pride in layering textures and raw materials to give our models a tactile quality and authentic feel — a rich sensory experience for anyone who engages with our work.

Tradition Meets Modern Craft 

Alongside experimentation, we value the role of traditional hand and power tools in modelmaking. Cutting knives, saws, sanding blocks, milling machines, and chisels are indispensable for shaping, refining, and detailing materials. These tools provide flexibility and precision, particularly in the fine-tuning of smaller components. 

By blending traditional craftsmanship with modern techniques, our models become dynamic representations that communicate design concepts while also inspiring emotion and leaving a lasting impression. 

We Learn: Exploring Processes and New Technologies 

3D printing has become an integral part of contemporary modelmaking, offering a versatile and efficient way to create detailed architectural forms. At SHL, our Bambu printers allow us to produce intricate facades, complex geometries, and delicate features with remarkable accuracy. 

This technology enables rapid iteration, freeing our modelmakers and designers to focus on other aspects of the project, while expanding the possibilities for exploration and visualisation. 

We Communicate: Capturing the Essence Behind a Design 

One of the greatest strengths of architectural modelmaking is its ability to captivate clients and stakeholders while serving as a powerful communication tool. Models invite exploration from different angles, helping clients understand spatial arrangements and the overall design vision. 

This tangible experience builds trust, fosters collaboration, and encourages real-time feedback. By enabling clear and concise communication, modelmaking ensures that all parties remain aligned, leading to successful project outcomes. 

We Problem Solve: Sharing Knowledge and Driving Innovation 

Our colleagues at SHL and Perkins Will are a constant source of experience, knowledge, and inspiration. We believe in the power of learning from each other through sharing processes, techniques, software, and machinery insights. This ongoing exchange drives innovation in the workshop.