Sofie Pelsmakers is a chartered architect and environmental designer with more than a decade of hands-on experience designing, building and teaching sustainable architecture. She taught sustainability and environmental design and led a Masters programme in sustainable design at the University of East London. She is currently a doctoral researcher in building energy demand reduction at the UCL Energy Institute and co-founder of Architecture for Change, a not-for-profit environmental building organisation.

Sofies new publication The Environmental Design Pocketbook was commended by the RIBA for 'outstanding practice-located research' and is the culmination of more than a decade researching, teaching and practising sustainable architecture. The book is an attempt to cut through that confusion, synthesising the main issues into one single source of practical information.

In The Environmental Design Pocketbook, Sofie's practical and academic expertise is combined with a passion and commitment to improve the ways in which we currently design and build. Written specifically with the building industry's key players in mind - architects, designers, clients, contractors, developers and students - the book focuses on providing practical advice to deliver buildings that quietly mitigate and adapt to climate change using sustainable resources.

Sofie's special interests include the challenges of retro-fitting the existing housing stock, future proofing buildings to account for predicted climate changes and the expression of environmental ethics within architecture - often forgotten in the quest to reduce carbon emissions.

She regularly speaks at conferences and delivers workshops on sustainable design in the construction industry and at academic institutions, including at the RIBA, EcoBuild, SusCon and UCL, and was one of the judges for the UK 2012 Passivhaus Awards.