A summary of our most current research projects and research project involvement below. Where applicable, project leads are in brackets.
  • 2021-2024: GreenerAge: Climate-Change and Environmental Literacy for Urban Citizens 55+ project will promote environmental literacy and behaviour change, while also aiming at enhancing digital skills and competence development in the target group (55+ adults) through the development of a digital gamification platform as a playful literacy tool. GreenerAger Erasmus+ project is a consortium  comprised of the University of Tampere (PI), AFEdemy (the Netherlands), Fundacja Laboratorium Architektury 60+ (Poland), ISIS Sozialforschung (Germany) and SHINE 2Europe (Portugal).
  • 2021-end of 2023: Arch4Future: Towards Carbon Neutral Societies mobility project aims to tackle these skills gaps in architecture education through student and teacher virtual and physical mobility exchanges and co-development (and testing) of virtual curriculum content relevant to the China and Finland context. ARCH4FUTURE means the start of a long-term collaboration between Southeast University (SEU), led by Professor Shi-Jie Cao, director of 'Center for Intelligent Built Environment, CIBE' at School of Architecture, Southeast University, and Tampere University (TAU) on teaching and learning knowledge exchanges.
  • ​2022-end of 2024: SOLTECH: Human-centered solar smart technology design for healthy aging’ will develop smart solar technology for healthy aging and has received a major grant of €750,000 of funding from the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation.  PI Paola Vivo (Engineering and Natural Sciences), with Johanna Ruusuvuori and Marja Kaunonen (Social Sciences)and Sofie Pelsmakers from ASUTUT. More here about the project.​
  • HOMES4FUTURE: investigation of overheating in Finnish homes ( the extent of the problem, risks and solutions), with Jonathon Taylor, Raul Castano de la Rosa.
  • 2021-2022: The Finnish Home and Sustainable Welfare Interconnections, SWS seed-funding (TAU Profi 5), Katja Maununaho, Sofie Pelsmakers with Elli Aaltonen, Juho Saari (Social Sciences and Social and Health Policies), Jenni Kulmala, Mari Aaltonen, Outi Jolanki (Gerontology) and other scholars.
  • 2020-2023: the Academy of Finland funded RESCUE project is about 'Real Estate and Sustainable Crisis management in Urban Environments . It is led by Assistant Professor in Real Estate Economics Saija Toivonen at Aalto University , with colleagues at Turku University  and at Tampere University (PI Sofie Pelsmakers). Project summary here and project website here.
  • 2020-2023: ARCH4CHANGE: Digital climate change curriculum for architectural education: methods towards carbon neutrality. EU Erasmus+ funded, with four other partners in the EU: More info  here. Consortium and project led by Sofie Pelsmakers. 
  • 2020-2022: Housing in Change: 'Residential change - the potential of common and private spaces’ , a 2 year research project funded by YH Kodit housing foundation and YH Kodit housing company - Key researchers are Katja Maununaho, Tapio Kaasalainen, Sini Saarimaa and Elina Luotonen with Jyrki Tarpio and Sofie Pelsmakers. More project information here and here.
  • 2020-2021: Working from Home (WFH)- large collaborative study in Italy and Finland led by colleague Chiara Tagliaro at Politecnico di Milano offering expertise in office design and estate management, and Sofie Pelsmakers and Tapio Kaasalainen in Finland offering housing design expertise. Aim is to understand implications for home and office design due to increased home working due to COVID19.
  • 2020-2021: 'Low impact, low energy housing and neighbourhoods in the Häme region' with Panu Lehtovuori (PI) and Jyrki Tarpio and Sofie Pelsmakers, 12 month design, research and development project with  Kante-Häme, EU Regional Development Funding
  • 'Co-constructing a Finnish Energy Observatory (FeNO)',  with Harriet Thomson and Karla Ricalde at Birmingham University, together with Raul Castano-Rosa and Sofie Pelsmakers at ASUTUT received funding to to be held in May 2020, funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA).
  • 2020-2022: 'Carbon Neutral Development Through Net Zero and Net Impact Design’  with Prof Ming Hu at Maryland University, to  compare  US and Finnish, and other European nZEB standards; she will stay with us at Tampere University in 2021.
  • 2020: Tall Residential Timber Buildings in Finland (Emre Ilgin with Markku Karjalainen, Sofie Pelsmakers, Jyrki Tarpio)
  • 2019- present: What is holistic Nordic Sustainable housing? (Sofie Pelsmakers & Jyrki Tarpio, with transnational research group Nordic Sustainable Architecture)
  • 2018- present: Nordic Sustainable Architecture (Transnational research group, Finland member Sofie Pelsmakers)
  • 2019-2020: Miksi Turkuun? Kaupunkiasumisen houkuttelevuus asukkaan näkökulmasta. Multidimensional understanding of housing aspirations (Sini Saarimaa)
  • 2019-present: summer-time building overheating: vulnerability and building solutions, focus on Nordic region (Raul Castano Rosa, Sofie Pelsmakers)
  • 2018-present: Re-imagining ageing society, health and well-being and infrastructural renewal (Sofie Pelsmakers and Tapio Kaasalainen  in collaboration with international and other TAU colleagues in Natural Sciences and Social Sciences) Sustainable Welfare Systems seed funding awarded by Tampere University.
  • 2018- present: The role and value of architecture and architects in climate contingency, adaptation and our role in design, architectural design pedagogy and performance validation to support a more resilient world. (Sofie Pelsmakers)
  • 2017 – present: Suspended timber ground floor heat loss and unintended consequences of building upgrades. (Sofie Pelsmakers)
  • 2016-2019: Dwellers in Agile Cities & https://housingcookbook.com/ (Jyrki Tarpio and Katja Maununaho, Sini Saarimaa). The DAC project recognized future living needs and created measures and models for improving urban housing and development. Project defined the dweller as a key driver of urban development and change. Project was funded by the Academy of Finland, and won the first Tampere University Social Impact award.
  • 2016-present: Characteristics of adaptive apartments in order to support person-environment fit (Sini Saarimaa)
  • 2019-present: Cultural Encounters in Housing Environments – Cultural Diversity of Everyday Life in Urban Housing Design (Katja Maununaho)
  • 2016-present: Current and future housing related challenges posed by population ageing (Tapio Kaasalianen)
  • 2016-present: Architectural, spatial and passive design solutions for ecological sustainability in housing design (Taru Lehtinen)
  • 2015- present: Energy, People Buildings: Architecture for a Changing World (Judit Kimpian, Hattie Hartman, Sofie Pelsmakers)
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Previous projects: