During her PhD studies, Anna Elisabeth Kristoffersen explored how buildings are used to, or promoted as, increasing or contributing to social sustainability. Her research shows that social sustainability is often unclear and reduced to a simple checklist, leading to the assessment and improvement of social values rather than social sustainability, both in practice and in the academic literature. 

To assess how social values, or the intent to create social values, impact real building projects, Anna has interviewed practising architects from Denmark, Ireland and Canada, through which she has gathered 178 concrete examples of social intentions (e.g. creating the feeling of belonging, or encouraging social interactions) and linked these to the design choices intended to promote them. These insights shaped the development of SEEDS, a new tool that helps assess and communicate the social and environmental impacts of social intents. As part of this work, Anna also developed a method to assess the environmental impact of social intent, showing that some choices increase emissions, while others can reduce or even offset them. 

Altogether, the project aims to make it easier for designers to take informed, human-centred, and environmentally responsible decisions early in the design process.

The PhD study was completed at Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Friday, April 24 2026 at 9:00
Place: 03.070, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Aarhus University, Inge Lehmanns Gade 10, 8000 Aarhus C
Title of PhD thesis: Exploring Social and Environmental Impacts of Social Intents and Design Choices in Building Design
Contact information: Anna Elisabeth Kristoffersen, e-mail: aek@cae.au.dk, 
Members of the assessment committee:
Associate Professor Freja Nygaard Rasmussen, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NTNU, Norway
Professor Lotte M. Bjerregaard Jensen, Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark
Associate Professor Massimo Fiorentini (chair), Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark
Main supervisor: Professor Aliakbar Kamari, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark
Co-supervisor: Associate Professor Carl Schultz, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Technical Sciences/GSTS, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C.