What Will We Ask the Outside of a Building to Do in 2027 That We Didn’t in 2026?

The Build Ahead 2027 · Question 06 / 10

As cities contend with extreme heat, flooding, biodiversity loss, and changing expectations for public life, architects and landscape designers are rethinking the building envelope, streetscape, and open space as interconnected systems. Many are working to create places that perform environmentally while giving people more reasons to connect with their surroundings and each other.

Public spaces that celebrate community and connectivity and exteriors that help combat climate change continue to be key in 2027, but more than anything, the success of a building will increasingly be measured by what happens outside of it.

Elizabeth Brink, co-CEO of Gensler, argues that buildings must contribute to their communities. “That buildings be good neighbors. It won’t be enough for a building to look good or perform well for the people inside it,” she says. “We’ll expect it to add something to the street, the neighborhood, and the community around it. That could mean more welcoming public space, nature brought into the public realm, a more active ground floor, or spaces that invite different types of engagement throughout the day. Owners and developers make the investment, but the value is shared—a building that strengthens its neighborhood creates value for the people who use it, the community around it, and the asset itself. The best buildings don’t just occupy a place. They make the place around them better.”

The opportunity goes beyond individual facade details, says John Donnelly, technical principal and partner at SCAPE. “Designed spaces have the capacity and potential to restore natural processes in urban and other settings. We should be asking our landscape to function more as infrastructure and less as purely picturesque settings or commodities. Infrastructure in this context could mean anything from enhanced or restored ecology and hydrology to flood protection to social infrastructure and beyond.”

This reframes landscape as essential urban infrastructure rather than an amenity added after the building has been designed. Rain gardens, planted areas, permeable surfaces, and urban tree canopies can help manage stormwater, reduce heat, and support habitat while creating places for people to gather. The EPA identifies green infrastructure as a tool for addressing both flooding and urban heat.

The best buildings don’t just occupy a place. They make the place around them better.

Elizabeth Brink, Gensler co-CEO

The building envelope itself is also becoming more active. Karen Cvornyek, global service executive for architecture and urbanism at Arcadis, sees opportunities to combine energy generation and heat management within facade design. “We will ask the building envelope to do more than protect; if we add more abilities to the facade it will also add value,” she says. “For example, we can, depending on the latitude, add solar energy to an equatorial facing facade as we move further up, away from the equator. New coatings have been developed that reflect incoming solar radiation so the surface absorbs very little heat and also emit long-wave infrared radiation, allowing heat to escape directly to outer space; the price for these coatings is lowering. These coatings can keep a facade cool even during very hot days. Thus the building envelope is evolving from a passive separator between the interior and the exterior into a smart environmental platform that provides multiple added benefits like energy generation and heat island reduction—an intelligent environmental platform.”

Such technologies will need to be evaluated for climate, orientation, maintenance, and pedestrian-comfort implications. Research on reflective and radiative-cooling materials suggests that they can reduce surface temperatures, but performance depends on the application and surrounding conditions.

Anica Landreneau, global sustainable design director at HOK, says, “We will need to engage our landscape and hardscape to address climate. We will expand our use of low-carbon materials to include site hardscape and horizontal infrastructure. And we will measure the carbon sequestration and ecosystem services potential of our greenscape design.” More than two-thirds of the Paris Agreement is based on natural climate solutions, Landreneau sats. “There is no way to meet our climate goals without leveraging our natural environment to work with us.”

Performance analytics will also play a greater role in shaping these spaces, says Robert Otani, chief technology officer at Thornton Tomasetti. “The outside of the building will demand rigorous performance analytics to serve multiple functions and enhance the experience of people outside of the building. With today’s automation, both AI and computational methods, we can provide those metrics to designers to make smarter and more comprehensive decisions,” Otani says.

All told, these perspectives point toward a broader definition of building performance—one that accounts for ecological health, climate resilience, and the everyday experience of people outside the walls. In 2027 the most successful projects may be those that stop treating public space as leftover space and instead design it as a shared resource—a place that cools, absorbs, shelters, connects, and gives back to its community.