A full-service nature-based design studio
SLA provides full-service public space and landscape design, master planning, city strategies, and climate adaptation.
We also do ecological studies, lighting design, anthropological analyses, biodiversity strategies, citizen engagement, research and development projects, maintenance plans, product design, exhibitions, and process facilitation.
Planning
We work with planning at all scales and typologies: From traditional master plans to strategic-physical development plans; from large-scale framework plans of entire new cities to transformative development plans for inner-city neighborhoods.
Whatever the scale or the context, our planning projects always aim to create livable, green, and complete cities where buildings, nature, public space, social life, climate adaptation, mobility, and green-blue infrastructure combine to create the best possible places to live.
Strategy
Together with our clients, we have a long history of developing strategies that positively impact people, cities, and nature: From citizens-driven development strategies and city-wide climate adaptation strategies to nature-positive development strategies and portfolio strategies.
Our clients range from local developers, landowners, and international investors to municipalities, cities, regions, and entire countries.
In all our strategy work, we draw on 30 years of hands-on experience in creating synergy between the built and the grown environment. Through science-based strategies and hands-on implementation plans, we help our clients combine their social, cultural, economic, and ecological potentials into tangible and positive results.
Climate adaptation
The climate crisis is one of the most fundamental emergencies of our time. As a global thought leader in nature-based climate adaptation and ecosystem services, we help cities, businesses, and communities mitigate and adapt to the disrupting effects of climate change: From cloudbursts, flash floodings, and rising sea levels, to drought, air and water pollution, and urban heat islands.
Our goal is to mitigate the dangerous effects of the changing climate and turn their challenges into new opportunities to create resilient, greener, and more livable places for all.
Biodiversity & ecology
Our ecological and biodiversity services stretch from integrated ecosystem service designs to in-depth analyses, strategies, and solutions for biodiversity and sustainability.
Our services include biodiversity strategies, ecological impact assessments, biological baseline studies, and Biodiversity Net Gain assessments. We specialize in interdisciplinary studies that combine ecological and biodiversity strategies with the social, environmental, and economic effects of a living and healthy biosphere.
Through our work, we help communities, cities, and businesses protect, preserve, and enhance biodiversity on all scales.
Community engagement
We perform all anthropological services regarding city development, nature-based design, and placemaking: From public life observations, social baseline studies, and stakeholder interviews to safe city strategies, data analytics, and citizen engagement processes.
Together, our in-house anthropologists and social scientists uncover how humans perceive and interact with their urban and natural surroundings. We listen, observe, and explore to understand the complicated social and human relationships to and within a space.
We turn this understanding into operational social strategies, public life action plans, and nature-based design solutions that support and empower social cohesion for all involved.
Research & Development
Sharing knowledge and innovation is central to us. Only in co-creation with clients, stakeholders, and citizens can we design the best possible places for all life.
Through our research and development network, sLAB, we initiate and engage in numerous internal and external research projects: From white paper creation and cross-office innovation projects to external research projects and collaborations with universities, NGOs, businesses, and intergovernmental agencies.
We apply the latest knowledge in our projects to help our clients discover their hidden opportunities and create state-of-the-art design solutions. And we share our learnings with our clients, collaborators, and society at large.
Nature-based management
Creating the best possible places for humans, nature, and planet, requires a new paradigm for the care and maintenance of our cities and places. We design innovative maintenance guidelines that support and create natural environments with high biodiversity, multiple functionalities, and low maintenance costs.
Our nature-based maintenance allows our clients to minimize their maintenance and irrigation costs while maximizing the aesthetic values and performance of their new city nature: A city nature with resilient and self-regulating ecosystems and local biotopes that grow, develop, and prosper with time.
Product design
We continuously design and develop new product designs as part of our projects. Our product designs include lighting, tree grates, multifunctional urban furniture, trench drains, drain grates, bollards, and bike parking.
All our product designs balance high functionality and long-lasting, sustainable materials with intuitive everyday usage and beautiful designs.
Thinking
We have a strong legacy of combining our design practice with academic writings, scientific research, and philosophical thinking. We regularly conduct independent thinking and research projects that explore, analyze, and challenge the political, philosophical, and social megatrends and developments of our time and constantly try to find new and challenging questions about accepted truths and answers.
We share our thinking through exhibitions, lectures, books, expos, studies, op-eds, and research projects.
