Problem

Traditional top-down approaches to public infrastructure design and development frequently fail to consult the very people who use the services, especially the needs of the most marginalised citizens, such as people with disabilities, refugees, and the elderly. This can lead to inefficient, inaccessible, and even intimidating spaces that perpetuate exclusion rather than remedy it.  Simultaneously, conventional public buildings are often significant sources of carbon emissions, both in their construction (embodied carbon) and daily operation (operational carbon), making them unsustainable in both an environmental and social sense.

Response 

The Bergen Inclusion Centre is a pioneering municipal building in Bergen, Norway, that holistically addresses social and environmental sustainability. Its core mission is to be a low-threshold, welcoming, and physically accessible hub that co-locates 14 different social services under one roof (including health, employment, and immigration services) to improve user experience and outcomes.

Crucially, a "Reference Group" of over 40 individuals with lived experience of exclusion was embedded into the project from the very beginning, ensuring the building would truly meet their needs and feel safe and dignified. The project happened through a partnership between the City of Bergen, the non-profit Rafto Foundation for Human Rights and the think tank Institute for Human Rights and Business. And it was developed under the “Dignity by Design Framework”, a methodology created by IHRB that operationalises international human rights principles (like participation, equality, and accountability) into practical design and construction criteria. p This social mission is executed in tandem with an ambitious decarbonization strategy. The project specifically prioritised low-carbon materials like timber to reduce embodied carbon and installed a highly efficient seawater-based heat pump system to eliminate fossil fuels for heating and cooling. This integrated approach ensures the building's operational energy use is minimal.

By making ethical and sustainable practices mandatory in the design and construction process,  the Centre seeks to prove that deep green building standards are perfectly compatible with a core mission of social inclusion, offering a replicable blueprint for ethical and sustainable public infrastructure worldwide

Find out more: IHRB, World Green Building Council