Janis L Birkeland
Dr. Janis Birkeland is a professor of sustainable architecture and urban design with an interdisciplinary background in sustainability. Throughout her career—spanning architecture, planning, law, and academia—she consistently challenged conventional approaches to sustainability. Her Positive Development theory critiques the structural drivers of socio-ecological decline and explains why prevailing sustainability frameworks fail to reverse systemic overshoot. To operationalize this new paradigm, she created STARfish, an open-source design and assessment tool that provides absolute baselines and whole-system metrics, addressing the limitations of conventional rating systems. STARfish offers a rigorous, design-based pathway for aligning built-environment projects with global sustainability outcomes and strengthening the intent of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Abstracts this author is presenting:
