{"id":8050,"date":"2025-10-08T02:57:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/?p=8050"},"modified":"2025-10-09T01:01:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T01:01:21","slug":"tamar-warburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/articles\/tamar-warburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamar Warburg: Young Designers are Leading the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tamar Warburg is director of sustainability and associate principle at Sasaki, a 300-strong architecture, landscape, planning and urban design practice in Boston. She joined Sasaki in 2019 after a 25-year career in sustainable design. In addition to project work, she directs Sasaki\u2019s sustainable leaders programme, training staff responsible for sustainability targets and metrics on projects.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The State of Sustainability in Architecture and Design - Hattie Hartman\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aak2-X45hTE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5><a style=\"display: inline-block; padding: 18px 44px; border-radius: 15px; background: #97d422; color: #111; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1; box-shadow: 0 10px 24px rgba(0,0,0,0.18);\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/sustainability-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" aria-label=\"Download the report\">Download the report<\/a><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><b>Where did you train as an architect, and to what extent did sustainable design figure into your education?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I trained as an architect at Harvard Graduate School of Design. During my 3 \u00bd\u00a0 year programme, I had just one course on mechanical systems, nothing on sustainability.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What does sustainable design mean to you?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Taking responsibility for the incredible impact that design for the built environment has on the health and well being of people, of our communities and the planet. We should have our own Hippocratic Oath: above all, do no harm. What we do matters, and we can design in such a way as to do no harm.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Was there a light bulb moment when you became engaged with the impact of architecture on climate change?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> There were two. The first was seeing the world through my husband\u2019s eyes and observing how he used law as a tool tackle the climate crisis. I had to find a way to have an impact as an architect. It was actually an article by Ed Masria in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Metropolis <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">magazine about how urban life is the most sustainable\u00a0 because of the carbon impact of suburbia and rural living that prompted me to double down on architecture as a tool for environmental change. That was a long time ago!<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><strong>W<\/strong><b>ere there any pivotal sustainability learning moments in your career?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 Once you seek to identify impacts on projects, the sky&#8217;s the limit.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>From our survey, 87<\/b><b>%<\/b><b> of architects and designers feel they have to compromise their sustainability values at work. Does this surprise you? Have you ever had to do this? And if yes, how did manage it?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8005\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1900\" height=\"1069\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100.jpg 1900w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/14.-THE-AWAKENING-5-100-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I addressed this by starting my own firm when I was fairly young, a studio called the Green Architecture Studio in Israel. And I did it because I was hired to do a project that was supposedly going to be extremely environmentally responsible and feeling that there were limits as to how much I could do working for someone else who wouldn&#8217;t go to bat. That&#8217;s how I got around that problem, honestly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>According to our survey, only <\/b><b>11%<\/b><b> of architects and designers feel that their firm&#8217;s public sustainability messaging completely aligns with their values or completely aligns with its actual practices. What&#8217;s your experience of this?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7973\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1900\" height=\"1069\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100.jpg 1900w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/12.-THE-AWAKENING-3-100-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 There&#8217;s often a difference between the values that leadership express and would like to uphold and the practices that are implemented throughout the hierarchy of the organisation. Leadership may have wonderful ideals that their organizations have difficulty implementing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, some colleges and universities in the US signed the President&#8217;s commitment to reach carbon neutrality by a certain date, but often made those declarations without budgets or the engagement of facilities and operations management people that bear the burden of executing a change. If you don&#8217;t have budget and the people who are actually doing the work aligned, you can get that distinction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Design firms that don\u2019t just talk the talk, but also walk the walk, can do incredible work because there&#8217;s so much room within any project to improve the resilience of our communities and the planet. It&#8217;s just a question of what we can do to innovate on any particular project.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Describe a standout sustainable project that you have worked on recently or are working on currently<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:\u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0One of the advantages to a place like Sasaki is that it is much more impactful to tackle climate action when you\u2019re able to do the planning, architecture and landscape on a project.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellinikon is an enormous public park in Athens, Greece on the site of a former airport. What does it take to make a zero energy, zero carbon park?\u00a0 Reuse of not only the buildings like the terminal, but also harvesting the concrete from the runways for benches, retaining walls, and other landscape features, as well as investing in native plantings and enriching soils to store and sequester carbon in landscape materials. We planted a field of ground-mounted solar PV to generate all the electricity for the park.\u00a0 That was a dream project because it involved integrated design thinking.<\/span><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8061\" style=\"width: 1810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8061\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8061\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1013\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1.jpg 1800w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/08177_00U_N131_website-1800x1013-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8061\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Ellinikon Park, Athens, Greece<\/p><\/div>\n<h5><b>In our survey so far, <\/b><b>95%<\/b><b> of respondents have stated that sustainable design is a factor when they look at job opportunities,\u00a0 and <\/b><b>73%<\/b><b> say it&#8217;s very important or a deal breaker. To what extent would you say that Sasaki\u2019s reputation attracts sustainable design talent?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7972\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1900\" height=\"1068\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100.jpg 1900w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/bespoke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8.-THE-CALLING-2-100-1536x863.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>TW:\u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To some degree it does, because we&#8217;re known for doing net zero, carbon buildings. I am not involved in hiring except for my own sustainability staff, but I do meet one on one with whoever&#8217;s new in the practice to do a new hire orientation for sustainability. That&#8217;s an opportunity to hear each person&#8217;s sustainability story and get a sense of their skill sets. It&#8217;s a very valuable investment that the firm is making to have my staff and myself spend that time and identify how new staff can support the practice in sustainability, and how we can support them in their growth in this respect.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What observations have come out of that?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 I am continually impressed with the entry level hires. The youngest people in the door are the most passionate about sustainability. Their elders have other worldviews. Also, because they swim in the sea of technology, they are fluent in many of the apps that help measure energy, embodied carbon, and other resilience features. They are also very open to learning new ones and that is a huge boon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 20-somethings and 30-somethings in our office are leading the way. It&#8217;s an opportunity for them to develop professionally and play a leadership role at a relatively young age compared to other aspects of this profession. Architects mature very slowly, but sustainable design is where young people can make an impact quickly and earn the respect of their elders in the firm.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What do you anticipate is the most important sustainable design skills by 2030?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Brief advocacy, client advocacy and championing, but also retrofit and reuse, which has to do with regenerative design. We have to reuse and restore existing assets before we build new. In our Higher Ed campus decarbonization plans, right sizing the campus is our most important sustainability tool. We have to make sure every space is fully utilized and if not, renovate it for that purpose before we even think about building new.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sasaki\u2019s usual recommendation is build the new building as the most complex one, like labs. Take the old lab building, convert it to a classroom. Take the old classroom building, convert it to offices. Take the old office building and convert it into meeting spaces. You upcycle every building you can to its best and highest use, and then you only build what you absolutely have to.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>To what extent do sustainability skills or experience play into hiring?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s one of many factors. We look for many things: design excellence, technical skill, communication, management, drawing ability, and sustainability can often overlap with those. My goal is to integrate [sustainability] into everything. It is certainly asked about, but I can&#8217;t tell you that it\u2019s the top priority.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Can you can you describe what a perfect candidate looks like from a sustainability kind of lens?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s someone who has developed expertise to inject sustainability considerations into everything they&#8217;ve done, either in practice or at university, and seeks out those opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Most firms now say they care about sustainability. Is there one actionable step that could be implemented tomorrow to embed more sustainable design into the hiring process?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> First of all, just ask the questions. What is your approach to sustainability? How does it reflect in projects? Do you have any certifications?\u00a0 What tools do you use in your work, in terms of apps and other programs?\u00a0 We should make it part of the hiring process to demonstrate our seriousness. Our hiring is much more open-ended &#8211; to formalise that would be great.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We seek out people who have those stories, and then we train up some fraction of our staff. Once someone demonstrates an interest and a capacity, we&#8217;ll teach them what they need to know. We look to younger staff for this role because of what we&#8217;ve just talked about in terms of skills and passion. It&#8217;s a leadership training opportunity, not just a technical skills opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>How optimistic are you given what you see of the next generation coming through?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b>TW: \u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world is changing so rapidly and we&#8217;re in for some very uncertain times. We have to do the best we can: under promise to over deliver in this era right now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tamar Warburg discusses responsibility in design, hiring, and young talent driving measurable sustainability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,68,69,67,119],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-8050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-employers","category-jobseekers","category-students-and-graduates","category-sustainability-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8050"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8063,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8050\/revisions\/8063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/8056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8050"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/location?post=8050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}