The role of cultural institutions as ambassadors for sustainability

by Patrick Bellew, Founder of Atelier Ten

How can cultural institutions use their influence to accelerate sustainability in society as civic models of sustainable buildings of the future?

Cultural institutions have always shaped the way societies think. Today, they have an opportunity — even an obligation — to lead on sustainability.

When a museum adopts low-carbon operations, or when a gallery speaks openly about climate resilience, they are not simply managing their estate. They are teaching millions of visitors what matters. And we work to integrate sustainable design into the visitor story itself — so that every experience became a quiet lesson in stewardship.

This ambassadorial role is powerful. Cultural institutions reach across demographics, politics, and geographies. When they model sustainability, they make it part of the cultural mainstream.

We help our clients to raise their aspirations for sustainable design solutions and be innovators for their institutions. The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, completed in 2002, used groundbreaking systems included tri-generation, displacement ventilation, adiabatic cooling – and it became a beacon for the regeneration of Gateshead.

Federation Square, in Melbourne, completed in 2002, was one of the first projects in Australia to integrate labyrinths and displacement conditioning. In 2009 at the Ashmolean in Oxford, we implemented radical systems involving the development of what we dubbed ‘fat walls’, for the displacement conditioning of galleries, fed from adiabatic cooling units with integral heat pumps to eliminate central chilled water plant.

The recent award-winning refurbishment of The Burrell Collection, one of Glasgow’s cultural jewels, is testament to how public buildings can be sustainably retrofitted to be beacons of sustainable design and energy efficiency. This project, completed in 2022, was one of the first museums in the UK to receive a BREEAM excellent rating.

For me, this is where engineering and culture converge most directly. The choices we make in design ripple outward — into society, into behaviour, into values.

And when museums embody sustainability, they don’t just protect heritage; they create it.