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Professor Ana Rute Costa
Professor of Sustainable ArchitectureProfile
Ana Rute Costa is an architect, Passivhaus designer, educator, and researcher with extensive experience in professional practice and architectural education. She studied Architecture in Porto and has worked both independently and within architectural practices, delivering projects for public and private clients across a range of scales, sectors, and environmental contexts.
Her professional work has received international recognition, including nominations and awards associated with the Mies van der Rohe Award and the ECOLA Award. Throughout her career, she has led, managed, and coordinated architectural projects from concept through to delivery, with a particular interest in the relationship between people, place, and the built environment. She believes architecture has the potential to enhance quality of life by creating meaningful connections between body, mind, and space.
Ana is passionate about fostering creativity, critical thinking, and environmental responsibility in future architects. Her teaching encourages students to become confident, resilient, and reflective professionals capable of addressing complex societal and environmental challenges through design.
Her current research focuses on circular construction, particularly material reuse, material passports, and end-of-life of construction materials and solar assets. She is also interested in the design of learning environments and explores how architecture can enhance teaching, learning, wellbeing, and engagement.
Ana is committed to advancing sustainable architectural practice and education, integrating research, teaching, and professional experience to support the transition towards a more regenerative and circular built environment.
Outside academia, she enjoys spending time with her family, cycling, running, rowing, sewing, baking, and illustration. As both an architect and educator, she views the world as a shared home and believes that collective action and thoughtful design can contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.
Research Overview
I am an educator, researcher, chartered architect and certified Passivhaus Designer, fostering the creation of dynamic links and knowledge exchange between academia and industry. My research focuses on accelerating material reuse in construction, reducing whole life carbon and enabling a circular economy. Complementary, I am an expert on teaching and learning spaces, with several projects, consultancy and publications developed in the area.
Research Interests
I am interested in understanding how architecture can respond to current societal and environmental challenges and take users perspectives into consideration. My research focus lies on enabling a circular economy in the construction sector through materials reuse, material passports and end-of-life mitigation strategies.
I am also an educational researcher with a strong specialism in Learning and Teaching spaces. My research focuses on analysing the impact of the built environment in teaching and learning through ethnographic and visual research methods. I am interested in research how architecture and design can foster better learning and teaching spaces and improve learning outcomes.
Current Teaching
As Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Architecture I oversee the course delivery and I ensure content consistency across different modules and years. I am the year three leader, I convene the year 3 Architectural Design modules and Architectural Humanities in the MArch. Complementary, I lead the Architecture Summer School, a full week of workshops, activities delivered by the end of the academic year. This is a great opportunity to bring everyone together, promote peer learning opportunities and have fun! I am also the coordinator of the TEA talks, a series of informal talks from our School of Architecture on the theme of Technology, the Environment, and the role of Architecture, now and in the future. You can watch the previous talks on our
Current Research
In 2024, I have co-authored the Materials Passports: Accelerating Material Reuse in Construction policy paper. The purpose of this paper is to enable the widespread adoption of materials passports to support a circular economy. We provide a suit of guidance and templates to facilitate the immediate and comprehensive adoption of materials passporting across Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. Following this work, I am currently involved on a series of research projects to implement material passports at different contexts and scales and analyse how to improve current practices.
As a specialist in Teaching and Learning Environments, I published an edited book with Professor Rachel Cooper about Design for Education for Routledge and several publications about home and school learning environments.
External Roles
Honorary PGR Supervisor - University of Liverpool
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01/09/2026 → 28/02/2027
Research
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11/10/2024 → 10/10/2025
Research
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10/09/2024 → 30/09/2025
Research
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10/05/2024 → 30/11/2024
Research
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01/02/2024 → 31/07/2024
Research
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02/10/2023 → 31/07/2024
Research
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01/08/2023 → 31/07/2024
Research
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01/04/2023 → 31/07/2023
Research
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30/01/2023 → 29/01/2024
Research
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01/09/2022 → 30/11/2022
Research
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01/04/2022 → 31/03/2027
Research
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01/08/2021 → 30/06/2022
Other
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01/09/2020 → 01/10/2021
Research
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01/09/2018 → 31/07/2019
Consultancy
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01/01/1900 → …
Research
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01/01/1900 → …
Research
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01/01/1900 → …
Research
Symposium
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Participation in conference - Public
School Engagement
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Types of Business and Community - Hosting of external, non-academic visitor
Examination
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Membership of network
Examination
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Participation in conference - Business/Professional
Business Course/Training
Participation in conference - Public
Invited talk
Participation in conference - Public
School Engagement
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Participation in conference - Business/Professional
Invited talk
Participation in conference - Public
Membership of committee
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Expert Opinion
Influence on Policy, Practice, Patients & the Public
Influence on Policy, Practice, Patients & the Public
Membership of committee
Examination
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Symposium
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Invited talk
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Symposium
Invited talk
Participation in conference - Business/Professional
Expert Opinion
Participation in conference - Academic
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Participation in conference - Business/Professional
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
School Engagement
School Engagement
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Invited talk
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Prize (including medals and awards)
Prize (including medals and awards)
Prize (including medals and awards)
Prize (including medals and awards)
Prize (including medals and awards)
- Energy Lancaster
- Evaluation
- Imagination Lancaster
- Morecambe Bay Curriculum
- School of Architecture
- Space & Place