Tampere University
The Sustainable Housing Design research group ASUTUT focuses on current and anticipated societal and environmental challenges, and the resilience and capacity of people and the built environment to respond to – and adapt to – these changes. We question and re-define what sustainable living is, opening up new design solutions that enhance living environments, their spatial qualities and community and planetary well-being. We do this by investigating and re-imagining responses to challenges such as climate change, ageing populations, declining health and well-being, affordability, increasing people-diversity and declining biodiversity in an urbanising world. Our aim is to help create more sustainable living environments, today and tomorrow.
The Politics of Nature and the Environment research group PONTE aims to increase theoretical and empirical knowledge on the social essence of environmental issues and produce practical solutions to address specific environmental problems. It serves as a multidisciplinary platform to clarify the dynamics through which human relations with the environment and nonhuman nature emerge and interact on the political agenda.
Key individuals
Sofie Pelsmakers (she/her) is Professor of Sustainable Housing Design who has strived to make a difference through holistic real-world research, practice and teaching. Throughout her work and as co-chair of the ASUTUT Sustainable Housing Design research group she seeks out and thrives in collaborative environments that put diversity, equality, multi-disciplinarity and co-creation at the heart. She has (co-)authored over 130 publications, including creating dialogue and making her work accessible to a non-expert audience, influencing architecture policy, practice and education.
As part of bridging the information gap between research and architectural education and practice, she co-authored the peer-reviewed books ‘Designing for the Climate Emergency: a guide for architecture students’ (2022, RIBA) 'People, Energy, Buildings- Making Sustainable Architecture Work' (2021, RIBA), she also sole-authored The Environmental Design Pocketbook (2012/2015, RIBA) and most recently co-edited Architectural Thinking in a Climate Emergency (2025, Routledge).
Helena Leino is professor in Environmental Policy at the faculty of Management and Business in the Tampere University, Finland. She is also adjunct professor at Aalto University, department of Built Environment, in Helsinki. Her research has focused on diverse aspects of sustainable urbanisation, participatory knowledge production and biodiversity offsetting in urban planning processes. Over her career, she has acted as PI in several interdisciplinary research projects related to urban development and land use planning from the citizen participation viewpoint.
Katja Maununaho is project manager and co-chair of ASUTUT Sustainable Housing Design research group in Tampere University. Her expertise is on collaborative design practices, socio-spatial aspects and inclusive solutions in living environments. In addition to ASUTUT research projects, Katja also leads an architectural firm (Arkkitehtitoimisto Huvila) specializing in resident-oriented housing design.
Raúl Castaño is Senior Researcher and co-chair of Sustainable Housing Design research group (ASUTUT) in Tampere University, leading research on socially resilient housing design and transformation. Raúl is also Visiting Young Professor at the Jiangsu Province Engineering Research Center of Urban Heat and Pollution Control, Southeast University (China) and Coordinator of the Finnish EPAH Antenna and member of the Scientific Advisory Board in the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH).
Elina Alatalo is doctoral researcher in Environmental Policy. She received her master’s degree in architecture, with the focus on Planning Theory, in 2009. Her recent research has concentrated on new forms of urban activism and taking vacant spaces back into use. She is specialized in creating experiments with citizens. She also teaches landscape architecture in Aalto University, in Helsinki, and coordinates interaction in Co-Carbon research project that looks on urban nature. Elina is a co-founder of Insurgent Spatial Practices -collective that explores the valuable knowledge that alternative urban cultures develop.
Joona Lukka is a researcher in the sustainable housing design research group ASUTUT in Tampere University. He received his master’s degree in architecture in 2023. He has worked in research projects focusing on aging residents’ relation to their living environments and urban nature. Also practicing architect in renovation and infill housing projects of small to medium scale. His main professional interest is in the relationship between nature and urban living environments.
Soili Pakarinen works as a specialist in the Research and Innovation services in Tampere University.
In the INNATURE project She works as an administrative project manager
