# Erik L'Heureux

Erik G. L'Heureux is an American architect, educator, and academic specializing in equatorial architecture, urbanism, and sustainable design.
He is the recipient of the Wheelwright Prize, the Holcim Foundation Bronze Award for Sustainable Construction, and design awards from the American Institute of Architects and the Society of American Registered Architects.
He is currently the Dean's Chair Professor at the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he has held various roles, including Vice Dean and Program Director for both the Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture programs.
He is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and a member of the Singapore Institute of Architects and the Society of American Registered Architects.

## Education

He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated summa cum laude.
He later received a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a PhD from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
His doctoral research focused on equatorial building envelopes and urbanization, earning him the RMIT Prize for Research Excellence.

## Career

He is a registered architect in New York, Rhode Island, and Singapore and holds certifications from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) and the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). He taught at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union in New York.

### Academic career

L'Heureux has been a faculty member at NUS since 2003, teaching courses on equatorial architecture, envelope design, and urbanism. He has held several positions, including Vice Dean for Special Projects and Director of the Master of Architecture program. He has also been a Ruth and Norman Moore visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis and has lectured internationally on sustainable design and equatorial architecture topics.
He is also actively involved in professional organizations and has served as a juror for international design competitions including the Korea Meteorological Administration NetZero Center.
L'Heureux has authored several publications, including Renovating Carbon (2023), Drawing Climate (2021), and the monograph Deep Veils (2014), published by Birkhäuser and ORO Editions.
In addition to his design work, L'Heureux is a prolific writer, having authored and co-authored numerous articles and papers. His co-authored publication Climatic Design and Its Others (2020), published in the Journal of Architectural Education, received the Best Article Award in 2021 for the Scholarship of Design.

### Architectural work

As the founder of Equator, L'Heureux has designed projects emphasizing sustainability and climate-responsive architecture.
Erik G. L'Heureux was the lead designer in retrofitting the Equatorial School of Architecture (SDE 1 & 3) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), a net-zero energy adaptive reuse project.
The design won the AIA New York City Design Merit Award in 2025 and INDE Award for Best of 2021, Learning Space in Australia. L'Heureux's work also included the retrofit of Yusof Ishak House, a 1979 building transformed into a net-zero energy structure. Another of L'Heureux's acclaimed projects is A Simple Factory Building, a 10,625-square-foot structure in a light industrial area of Singapore. The building is distinguished by its geometrically sun-shielding veil.The project earned him awards at the 2013 World Architecture Festival, winning the Category Design Award in the Production, Energy, and Recycling category. It was also recognized with the FuturArc Green Leadership Architecture Merit Award in 2013 and the AIA New York City Design Merit Award 2012.

## Research

His research focuses on the intersection of climate, architecture, and urbanism, particularly in equatorial regions. He has led design studios and research initiatives, including the "1000 Singapore's" project, which explores the compact city model as a sustainable urban form.
His research focuses on the impact of hot and wet climates, particularly in equatorial cities, and how architectural forms and building envelopes can respond to these extreme conditions. Recognizing Singapore as one of the world's equatorial cities, L'Heureux has made it an area of his practice to explore how architecture can adapt to the unique challenges of such regions.
He emphasizes that his focus is not merely on thermal performance but on how architecture can create perceptible atmospheres within spaces for a warming world.

## Selected bibliography
### Books

* L'Heureux, Erik (2025). Hot Air. Applied Research & Design. p. 230. ISBN 9781961856035.
* L'Heureux, Erik G. (2014). Deep veils (1st ed.). San Raphael: ORO editions. ISBN 978-1-941806-34-0.
* L'Heureux, Erik; Cossu, Giovanni (2022). Cossu, Giovanni; Menon, Lakshmi; Höweler, Eric; Heng, Chye Kiang; Ho Puay-Peng; Kessling, Wolfgang; Kishnani, Nirmal; Knapp, Chris (eds.). Renovating Carbon: Re-imagining the Carbon Form (1st ed.). Novato: Oro Editions. ISBN 978-1-954081-44-4. OCLC 1374561227. {{cite book}}: Missing |editor1= (help)
* Ryan, Daniel J.; Ferng, Jennifer; L'Heureux, Erik G.; Chee, Lilian, eds. (2022). Drawing climate: visualising invisible elements of architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-3-0356-2460-1. OCLC 1285317274.
* L'Heureux, E. G; Khoo, P. B (2015). 1000 Singapores: Eight Points of the Compact City (1st ed.). Design Singapore Council. ISBN 9789810985769.

### Journal articles

* L'Heureux, Erik. "Inheriting Climate: Review of Climate Inheritance, by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy (DESIGN EARTH), New York, Actar Publishers, 2023, 152 pp., ISBN 978-1-6384-0099-8". Architectural Theory Review. 0: 1–4. doi:10.1080/13264826.2024.2403178. ISSN 1326-4826.
* Ferng, Jennifer; L'Heureux, Erik (2022). "Background Building: A Net Zero Energy and Super-Low Carbon Adaptive Reuse at the National University of Singapore". Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism. 19 (1): 68–90. doi:10.1353/fta.2022.a924440. ISSN 1934-6026.
* L'Heureux, Erik. "Inheriting Climate: Review of Climate Inheritance, by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy (DESIGN EARTH), New York, Actar Publishers, 2023, 152 pp., ISBN 978-1-6384-0099-8". Architectural Theory Review. 0: 1–4. doi:10.1080/13264826.2024.2403178. ISSN 1326-4826.
* Ferng, Jennifer; Chang, Jiat-Hwee; L'Heureux, Erik; Ryan, Daniel J. (2020-07-02). "Climatic Design and Its Others: "Southern" Perspectives in the Age of the Anthropocene". Journal of Architectural Education. 74 (2): 250–262. doi:10.1080/10464883.2020.1790935. ISSN 1046-4883.
* L'Heureux, Erik (2019-10-02). "Hot and Wet: Architectures of the Equator". Drawing on: Journal of Architectural Research by Design. 3: 77–90. doi:10.2218/csdcq829. ISSN 2059-9978.
* Erik, L'Heureux (1 January 2012). "Between the Open and Closed: A Simple Factory Building for the Tropics". Proceedings of 4th International Network for Tropical Architecture Conference: Tropics 2050.