Team

We are an independent environmental design consultancy formed after the post-graduate master of Sustainable Environmental Design at the Architectural Association in London. Our team members are architects or engineers, that followed specialised studies in environmental design and building physics.

Rafael Alonso Candau
Director
DipArch MArch [ARB RIBA]

Rafael graduated in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and completed his M.Arch in Sustainable Environmental Design at the Architectural Association in London. He often shares his technical expertise on buildings’ carbon footprint and urban environmental conditions at universities (RCA, KDAK, London Met), as a peer reviewer and in conferences and publications.

Florencia Collo
Director
DipArch MSc

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Florencia graduated in architecture at the University of Buenos Aires (FADU, UBA), and did post-graduate studies in the MSc Sustainable Environmental Design at the AA. She has taught History of Architecture, Urban Planning (FADU, UBA), and today she leads a course about Environmental Design in Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. She is also a member of the PLEA organisation (Passive Low Energy Architecture).

Olivier Dambron
Director
DipEng MSc

Olivier is a French-Indonesian Civil Engineer trained at the school of Hautes Etudes d’Ingénieur in France and at the Architectural Association’s MSc of Sustainable Environmental Design in London. His research focuses on the potential of environmental design for bamboo tropical architecture. He has been invited to teach at ETH Zurich, London MET, RCA London, KADK Copenhagen, IT Bandung.

Ethos

Throughout the 20th century, architecture has increasingly shifted the responsibility of energy efficiency to machines, turning comfort into a product granted by cheap energy. Today, buildings are responsible for 40% of the total global carbon emissions ( Global Status Report 2020 by UN Environment Programme) as they rely on expensive fossil fuels: the challenge of designing comfortable buildings requires a new focus.

Take Action: In a context where human impact is leaving a costly imprint on its homeland, we believe architecture can be the starting point of a wiser and healthier answer to the environmental challenges we are facing. While the current image of smart architecture involves additional layers of high technology and mechanical devices, atmos lab favours structural solutions based on observation, quantification, and common sense.

Atmos lab brings environmental science to architectural discussions seamlessly, aiming to shape more conscious buildings. Our specialists find the best passive strategies for climate responsive design. We provide architectural solutions that cause a major impact:
On the occupant’s comfort and well being
On the equipment size and energy consumption
On the monthly electricity bills
And on preserving the environment.*
Our work addresses the environmental challenges of our time by making human life more sustainable.

Spreading awareness

Our team is firmly active in the expansion and development of environmental design and its assessment tools. We are engaged with many universities across the globe providing courses, lectures and workshops and regularly publish research papers on various topics. We are constantly involved in research projects and consider transfer of knowledge as ways of enriching and updating our practice.

Know more: Climate change is the challenge of our time and the means to address it are rapidly multiplying. We are compiling a database of information we trust, stay in touch.

Our approach

With new tools for calculation and new angles for interpretation, we reinvent the dialogue between engineering and architecture. Atmos Lab always seeks the fairest solution, the clearest course of action, and the most direct way to report its work. We care for simple answers, we stand up to simplistic views.

By combining knowledge from various disciplines, we create bespoke methodologies and technologies for each project and make complex data easy to understand and implement. Our climate responsive solutions ensure the comfort of occupants, minimise energy consumption and running costs. We work in very different kind of climates capitalising on the lessons from all of them.

Environmental architecture works with the climate rather than against it. We see buildings as living organisms, subject to environmental conditions such as temperature, sunlight or wind, but also capable of reacting to those conditions, if designed properly.

Services

We provide scientific evidence on Daylight L, Radiation R, Air A, Sun S, Temperature T, Comfort C, Energy E, Carbon M, and Views V to diagnose, improve, and offer guidance on the use of passive strategies. Any type of intervention can be made more sustainable, ranging from refurbishments, new constructions or even the city.

Our aim is to improve the natural conditions of a space, working with building physics and facilitating the interaction of the occupants with the building envelope. This allows to reduce and maybe eliminate the need for mechanical systems to control the energy consumption.

Closing the loop: Once the operational energy of a building is minimised, the embodied energy starts to play its part, as the energy required to produce its materials can become more impactful than the energy required to run the building during its lifetime. We use this analysis to arbitrate design decisions and provide full life cycle assessments.

Open source community

We sincerely thank Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari and Chris Mackey for the creation of Ladybug Tools, and its open source community, as most of our work is possible due to their contribution to the field.

Work opportunities

We are always looking for new talents. If you are interested please send a CV and portfolio to hello@atmoslab.io

Credits

Design ZAINA
Development Gianluca Monaco
Images and plans of each project are a courtesy of the architects

Imprint

Copyright © atmos lab ltd. All rights reserved
atmos lab (stylised) is a registered trade mark of Atmos Lab Ltd.

Contact

For all work enquires or press features, please contact us at hello@atmoslab.io