“Through rigorous exploration and the power of imagination architectural design can play a crucial role to bring more sustainable futures into the present.”

Torsten Schröder is currently Assistant Professor of Sustainability in Architectural Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His key research interests are sustainability and circular economy within architecture and cities.

Torsten’s interdisciplinary ‘theory in practice’ approach helps identify new opportunities and analyses how architects, engineers, clients and others apply the concept of sustainability to their design projects, in their studios and on-site. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), he shifts attention to the ways design challenges are framed, knowledge is produced, design strategies assembled and how controversies and conflicting priorities are settled. In this way, Torsten aims to develop innovative, comprehensive and compelling design strategies for sustainability in specific architectural and urban design projects. Currently, he is investigating how STS and ‘Research by Design’ can make crucial contributions to the vital question: How or in what kind of a world do we want to live in the future?

Torsten Schröder graduated in the Architectural Department of the University of the Arts Berlin with excellent (‘sehr gut’). In 2014, he obtained his PhD in the Cities Programme, Department of Sociology, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, winning the prestigious RIBA PhD research award in 2015. In March 2015 he was appointed as Assistant Professor at TU/e in the Department of the Built Environment. In 2022 Torsten was appointed as Leader of the Research Program of the Unit Architectural Design and Engineering (AUDE).

Torsten offers a unique blend of practical and research expertise, partly based on his extensive experience working with private clients, corporations, city councils and cultural institutions. He is a Senior Architect with 10 years of experience in designing and realizing a wide range of outstanding architectural projects for leading design practices. From 2000 to 2006, he worked for Rem Koolhaas / Office for Metropolitan Architecture as an architect and project leader on projects in the USA, Germany, South Korea and China.

Torsten was the organiser of the 15^th annual Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) annual conference 2018: ‘Smartness? Between discourse and practice’ at TU/e, and of the Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability (RAPS) Conference 2021. He is a member of the Architectural Research European Network Association (ARENA) and member of several scientific committees of academic conferences.

• Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability (RAPS)
• Architectural Research European Network Association (ARENA)
• Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)