Wander with purpose: Discovering sustainable design through global journeys
- Sibela Hyseni
- May 29
- 5 min read
In the quiet corners of a desert village, in the shadow of an alpine roof, or beneath the filtered sunlight of a bamboo canopy, a traveler may find not just shelter, but a revelation. To travel is to learn. In particular, for designers and architects seeking to create a more sustainable built world, traveling is far more than an escape; it is a form of research, empathy, and reawakening. It offers various valuable insights that inform and enrich their design approach:
Travel as design education: Seeing with new eyes
Formal education in architecture often takes place in studios, surrounded by textbooks, screens, and theory. But step outside of the classroom into the rice terraces of Vietnam, the thermal bathhouses of Hungary, or the earthbag domes of Morocco, and suddenly architecture becomes tactile, sensory, and alive.
Travel provides direct exposure to how real people build for real conditions. A designer walking through a Saharan town learns how thick clay walls insulate without electricity. A visit to Norway’s green-roofed cabins reveals how grass and timber can coexist with extreme weather. These lessons are not hypothetical, they’re time-tested, rooted in both environmental wisdom and cultural identity.
This kind of learning is essential for sustainable architecture. Because to build responsibly, one must first observe: What does the land offer? What do the people need? What has history already taught us?
What does the land offer? What do the people need? What has history already taught us?
Learning from vernacular architecture: Sustainability before it was a trend
Before “green” was a buzzword, people all over the world were building sustainably out of necessity. Traveling exposes designers to these vernacular solutions, architectural responses shaped by generations of trial, error, and ecological harmony.
In the Berber villages of Morocco, homes are built from rammed earth, keeping interiors cool in scorching heat.
In Papua New Guinea, stilt houses protect from floods and allow for ventilation in humid climates.
In the Greek Cyclades, whitewashed surfaces reflect the sun, while narrow winding streets funnel breezes.
Photo: Ben Haddou Village Morocco; Papua stilt house; Santorini houses | Credit: Pixabay
These are not relics; they are blueprints for a sustainable future. By observing how communities use local materials, adapt to climate, and build for human connection, architects can return to their practice with a toolkit that is both ancient and innovative. Travel makes these lessons visible.
Encountering diversity: The power of empathy in design
One of the most overlooked benefits of travel is its power to build empathy, a core skill for any designer. When architects spend time in unfamiliar places, they confront different ways of life: how people gather, rest, celebrate, and even mourn. These insights enrich a designer’s ability to create spaces that are not just efficient, but deeply human.
Sustainable design is not just about minimizing carbon; it’s about maximizing life. That means designing spaces that respond to how people live. Traveling reveals the diversity of lifestyles and needs, from shared kitchens in Brazilian favelas to rooftop gardens in Kathmandu. It challenges the idea that sustainability is one-size-fits-all. Instead, it becomes a conversation: between the land, the culture, and the architect.
Material wisdom: Understanding place through texture
When a designer travels, they learn to touch architecture, literally. They feel the grain of locally harvested wood in Finnish saunas, the weight of volcanic stone in Japanese onsen inns, the porosity of adobe walls in New Mexico. This tactile understanding of materials is irreplaceable.
It helps designers move beyond generic, industrial solutions. Instead of importing concrete or steel, they might consider local, regenerative materials; ones that are lighter on the planet and richer in meaning.
For example:
After visiting Bali, a designer might embrace bamboo as a primary building material; not just for its beauty, but its renewability and strength.
A trip to Portugal could inspire the use of cork, both insulating and sustainable, growing back without cutting down trees.
Walking through indigenous Canadian communities, one may witness how wood joinery replaces metal fasteners, allowing for recyclable and disassemblable structures.
These materials aren’t just eco-friendly; they carry stories, traditions, and an ethics of care.
Cross-Pollination: How travel inspires innovation
Some of the most inventive sustainable designs today are born at the crossroads, where ideas from different geographies and eras converge. Travel encourages this cross-pollination. A Scandinavian architect, after visiting Sri Lanka, might apply passive cooling strategies from tropical buildings to cold-climate housing. A South American student might adapt the flexible indoor-outdoor transitions of Japanese homes to reduce energy usage. This global exchange fosters creativity rooted in respect; not appropriation, but adaptation. It honors the genius of local techniques while adapting them to new contexts with humility and skill.
Urban lessons: Sustainable cities as living laboratories
Cities offer another layer of insight. While nature often guides rural sustainability, cities demonstrate how we can scale those values.
In Singapore, vertical gardens and green roofs combat urban heat while reclaiming space for biodiversity.
In Barcelona, superblocks reduce car traffic and reclaim streets for pedestrians, creating more livable neighborhoods.
In Freiburg, Germany, entire neighborhoods run on solar energy, with shared public transport and community-owned utilities.
Visiting these places gives designers a living sense of how systems, not just buildings, can be designed for sustainability. It reframes the city as an ecosystem, where architecture, infrastructure, and policy all play a part.
Traveling mindfully: Becoming a better steward
It’s important to note that not all travel is inherently sustainable. Flying long distances and mass tourism have their environmental costs. But when done thoughtfully, slowly, locally, and with intent, travel becomes a tool for transformation. For architects and designers, the key is to travel not as consumers, but as students. That means:
Choosing to stay in eco-lodges or community-run guesthouses, where profits go back to locals.
Attending workshops or residencies focused on natural building, permaculture, or vernacular methods.
Documenting with photos, sketches, or writing, what is learned, so it can inform future projects.
Sustainability is not just technical. It’s spiritual, cultural, and relational. Travel awakens this understanding.
For architects and designers, the key is to travel not as consumers, but as students.
A final reflection
The best sustainable architecture does not come from theory alone. It comes from experience, from walking barefoot on a mud floor, from feeling the breeze through a handmade window, from listening to elders explain why a building faces the morning sun.
When architects travel with open eyes and open hearts, they return not just with new ideas, but with a deeper reverence for place. They learn that to build sustainably is not to dominate nature but to collaborate with it.
In the end, the most powerful buildings may be those that remind us of our shared responsibility to the Earth; and, to one another. And travel, in all its wonder, remains one of the most profound ways to begin that remembering.
Sources:
Oliver, Paul. Dwellings: The Vernacular House Worldwide. Phaidon Press, 2003.
Rapoport, Amos. House Form and Culture. Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Fathy, Hassan. Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt. University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Rudofsky, Bernard. Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture. MoMA, 1964.
IDEO. The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. IDEO.org, 2015. Kennedy, Joseph F., et al. The Art of Natural Building. New Society Publishers, 2014.Newman, Peter, and Isabella Jennings. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems: Principles and Practices. Island Press, 2008.
Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Island Press, 2010.
Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. Rizzoli, 1980.
Website of Singapore’s National Parks Board – Skyrise Greenery
Website of Barcelona Superblocks
Website of Freiburg’s Vauban District
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