Place

How the built environment responds to its context fundamentally determines its impact. At Hassell, we believe that the world’s best places work in harmony with their surroundings, enhancing and regenerating place, rather than depleting local environmental systems.

Our Sustainability Framework’s ​‘Place’ category comprises three interconnected principles: Site, Ecosystem and Transport. These guide our approach to leveraging existing assets, protecting and enhancing natural systems, and promoting sustainable modes of transport that reduce carbon emissions while improving accessibility.

This report assesses our place-based design outcomes, examining how our projects respond to their unique contexts and contribute to ecological regeneration. It evaluates our success in creating walkable, transit-oriented developments and quantifies biodiversity improvements. By measuring these outcomes, we demonstrate our commitment to creating places that don’t simply exist within landscapes but actively enhance them, fostering stronger connections between people and the natural systems that sustain us all.
 

“A truly sustainable building or place cannot be divorced from its surroundings. Contextual analysis must encompass the interplay between these systems, ensuring that the conceptual design aligns with the rhythms of nature and society.”

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Designing for flourishing places

Our designs prioritise biodiverse environments that connect people with nature, integrating strategies that enhance ecological value while supporting human wellbeing and climate resilience.

Biodiversity loss represents one of the most pressing environmental challenges, requiring thoughtful intervention in the built environment. This is most pressing in our cities, where urban green spaces must be created and cared for in ways that allow them to restore the surrounding ecosystems.

Native planting strategies, sustainable drainage systems, and habitat-rich building features like green roofs are just some of the tools we readily use to create biodiverse, resilient landscapes in urban places. Through biophilic design principles, we can create places that nurture both ecological diversity and human connection to nature, recognising that thriving ecosystems and thriving communities are inherently interconnected.

But it goes further than just ​‘greening’ cities, because not all green space is created equal. By implementing biodiversity interventions — such as increasing understorey planting and altering maintenance practices — we can create a real impact on places. One study in Australia has shown that increasing understory planting from just 10% to 30% can have a 30-120% increase in species such as native birds, bats and insects. 

During FY24, we worked with the Government Architect NSW to develop the Biodiversity in Place Framework, a practical guide to bring nature back into our cities, towns and suburbs. While this framework is of direct benefit to ecosystems and communities in NSW, it serves a broader purpose for other regions both in Australia and overseas. The framework outlines how communities, policymakers and industry can assist in reshaping nature-positive urban environments to reconnect people with larger natural systems. Through the introduction of six key principles, Biodiversity in Place advocates for nature-positive approaches to the urban environment through ecology-rich planting to verges, backyards, balconies, public spaces, rooftops and critical infrastructure such as roads, railways and creek corridors.

Explore the initiative 

Connecting communities

We are committed to designing for a zero-carbon future, prioritising regenerative practices that actively promote sustainable modes of transport. Our approach focuses not only on reducing reliance on fossil fuel-dependent vehicles, but also on bringing communities together via interconnected, mixed-use neighbourhoods and public spaces that prioritise walkability and cycling.

Currently, over four billion people reside in cities, accounting for more than half of the global population. This significant demographic shift is set to intensify, with the number of urban dwellers expected to more than double by 2050. At that point, nearly 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. 

Today, private vehicles are the predominant form of transport in urban locations. In Australia, 72% of travel is by car, eclipsing walking or cycling (15%), public transport (13%) or rideshare and taxi (1%).

Our experience in designing places that connect individuals and communities is critical to respond to the rising urban population and the need for transport infrastructure that prioritises social connection and a transition to zero-carbon commuting. 

Our work in the urban transport sector is core to delivering our purpose. While comprising only 8% of our projects globally in FY25, we spent over a quarter of our time on transport projects during this period, evidence of our commitment to this important sector.

“Good urban transport design is about city-shaping. By its very nature, it is inherently sustainable, enabling a carbon-free future where public transit options are unquestionably the first choice of transport for people who live and visit our growing cities.” – 

Peter Morley, Managing Principal/Co-leader, Urban Transport Sector

With urgent environmental concerns and changing community needs, it’s now more important than ever to design places that prioritise walking and easy access to convenient mass transit options. Our urban transport projects go much further than simply moving people around. They build connections, improve lives, and bring together communities in our increasingly divided cities. The real challenge for modern cities is to create places that are not just sustainable, but promote equality, prosperity and social mobility.

At Hassell, our work doesn’t just connect communities – it connects our people. On every urban transport project, we leverage our global design teams to share knowledge and strengthen our capability across all our studio locations. 

Our collaborative approach demonstrates our commitment to socially focused urban transport in several ways:
 

SUSTAINABILITY

We embed sustainable strategies from the outset, designing rail stations that use natural daylight and ventilation to minimise energy use. Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport, which is targeting a 5-Star Green Star rating , is just one example. Our designs also focus on reducing embodied carbon through material choices and creating green spaces to improve biodiversity and mitigate urban heat.

COMMUNITY AND PLACEMAKING

More than just transport hubs our designs intend to be vibrant community centres. By creating new plazas, parks and pedestrian-friendly zones around rail stations, we seek to improve how people interact with their city and to foster a stronger sense of place.
 

CULTURAL INTERGRATION

A significant element of our projects in Australia is deep engagement with First Nations culture. On the Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport project, designs were informed by and embedded with Dharug Country narratives, while in Brisbane, the Cross River Rail project on Yuggera and Turrbal Country included artworks from renowned Indigenous artists to celebrate Queensland’s cultural heritage.

In our practice

In our day-to-day operations, we’re continuously reducing our impact on the surrounding environment by lowering our energy usage, water and waste in all of our studios (for our FY25 data on usage see table, above). We’ve completed our baseline due diligence on the locations of our studios. Our Perth studio in Australia is located on the Northern Swan Coastal Plain in a key biodiversity area (KBA). No other Hassell studios are situated in KBAs however, they are close to them. For example, our London studio is located near the Thames Estuary and Marshes KBA, our Hong Kong studio is close to the Hong Kong Island and Associated Islands KBA, and our Singapore studio was in close proximity to the Central Forest KBA. Last year, we relocated our Singapore studio to be nearer to its previous location in the city’s central business district. 

All eight of our studios are located near public transport options, including bus, train, tram, metro, underground/​subway and ferry, significantly lessening the environmental impact of staff commuting by minimising reliance on private vehicles. This contributes to a decrease in fuel consumption and vehicle emissions and improved air quality in our cities, while also providing health benefits to our staff who walk some, or all, of their journey to work.

As part of our climate strategy, we have purchased a total of 11,675 Greenfleet offsets over the last three years, to support the protection of native Australian forests. Greenfleet’s carbon offset projects restore previously cleared land with locally native plant species to improve the quality of soils and water, and restore nature while removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Beyond our operations, we have developed a Sustainable Procurement Strategy to foster the protection of natural ecosystems affected by what we buy and who we buy from. This strategy is now being rolled out across our practice.