POLO.platform

POLO is an interdisciplinary platform with eighty team members and over thirty-five years of experience in architecture, urbanism, interior design and research. Through an integrated approach, we bring together a wide range of expertise to address complex spatial challenges in a coherent way. Our work spans all scales and programmes; from masterplanning to schools, offices, industrial buildings and interiors. Always with the same ambition: to create designs that combine social relevance with spatial quality.

We believe in the power of design and imagination to positively shape society. We see every project as an opportunity to explore new ways of living, working and coming together, and to meaningfully transform our built environment. Within POLO Labs, (interior) architects and urban designers combine their research-driven expertise around themes such as shared use of space, adaptive reuse and urban density. This knowledge feeds directly into our day-to-day design practice and supports an innovative, context-sensitive approach.

POLO Urbanism focuses on strategic visioning, spatial planning and urban design, with particular attention to landscape, spatial experience, participation and process
management. Working closely with our architecture and interior design teams, POLO Urbanism develops integrated spatial strategies that are both ambitious and feasible.

Sustainability is a guiding principle throughout our design methodology. Through our internally developed SUS+ manifesto, and with the support of Team Technology, sustainable principles are embedded from the very start of the design process. This team safeguards the technical, energy-related and ecological quality of our projects and continuously updates our internal knowledge base on regulations, materials and certifications. Within Team Technology, the GRO methodology has been studied in depth and translated into practical guidelines that are shared and applied internally. In this way, up-to-date knowledge of GRO and other sustainability tools is actively disseminated across the different design teams.

POLO is experienced in working with assessment tools such as GRO, BREEAM and TOTEM, which we use both as sources of inspiration and as benchmarks to refine our designs while optimising their environmental impact. In doing so, we create future-oriented, resilient and meaningful projects in which sustainability, innovation and social relevance go hand in hand.

Our studios in Antwerp and Brussels are located in rapidly changing, vibrant parts of both cities, where ideas are generated and exchanged in an atmosphere of open dialogue and experimentation.