Webinar | Radical Sustainability: Building for a Living Planet

How can architecture move beyond “doing less harm” and begin to actively restore the planet? This urgent question framed the latest Architecture Hunter webinar, Radical Sustainability: Building for a Living Planet, bringing together Prof. Claudia Pasquero and Dr. Marco Poletto, co-founders of EcoLogicStudio, and Michael Green, founder of Michael Green Architecture, for a compelling dialogue on climate-positive design.

The session opened by reaffirming Architecture Hunter’s commitment to education and to critically engaging with the evolving meaning of sustainability. No longer a differentiator, sustainability has become the baseline. The challenge today is not simply to reduce harm, but to design buildings that actively contribute, capturing carbon, purifying air, generating oxygen, and strengthening ecological relationships.

From London, Marco Poletto introduced EcoLogicStudio’s pioneering work at the intersection of biology, computation, and architecture. Through projects such as Tree One, The Forest installation at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and their ongoing development of photosynthetic systems, EcoLogicStudio proposes a radical reframing of the built environment. Architecture, in their vision, becomes a living interface, where algae bioreactors, mycelium growth, AI-generated morphologies, and 3D-printed biodegradable materials merge into climate-active infrastructures.

Their work dissolves traditional boundaries between natural and synthetic, positioning cities as hybrid cyber-organic networks. Rather than separating technology from ecology, EcoLogicStudio advocates for a “technology of nature,” where biological processes such as photosynthesis become architectural systems, integrated into offices, playgrounds, public installations, and even domestic spaces. Sustainability, here, is not restrictive. It is generative, aesthetic, and participatory, inviting users to engage in cultivation rather than passive consumption.

From Paris, Michael Green expanded the conversation to the global scale of urban construction. With the built environment responsible for approximately 42% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Michael argued that material choice is one of architecture’s most powerful climate levers. Through mass timber construction, his practice demonstrates how high-performance wood systems can drastically reduce embodied carbon, in some cases by up to 96% compared to conventional steel and concrete structures.

Presenting projects ranging from mid-rise housing to 55-story timber towers and Google’s mass timber headquarters in California, Michael challenged architects to confront the systemic realities of climate change. His message was clear: innovation is not optional. Architects must act as educators, advocates, and agents of transformation, pushing policy, industry standards, and client expectations toward lower-carbon futures.

Together, the speakers offered complementary yet interconnected visions. One rooted in biological integration and metabolic architecture; the other in material innovation and large-scale urban reform. Both converged on a shared principle: architecture must evolve from static object to active participant in planetary systems.

Radical Sustainability reminded us that designing for a living planet requires more than compliance. It demands imagination, courage, and a willingness to rethink the very foundations of practice.

_article written by Daniela Moreira da Silva
_speaker 01: Dr. Marco Poletto [Co-Founder of ecoLogicStudio]
_speaker 02: Michael Green [Founder of Michael Green Architecture]