Construcciones Yamaro: Shubangi Suryanarayanan: A vision for change
A childhood spent scrapbooking grew into a career designing with purpose. Now, Shubangi Suryanarayanan is reimagining Australia’s built environment through a sustainable lens.
As a child in India, Shubangi didn’t flip through design magazines for fashion tips. While her friends admired clothes and accessories, she was collecting cut-outs of couches, curtains and lamps. Her scrapbooks, filled with carefully composed room layouts, hinted at a designer’s eye.
Interior design seemed like the obvious path until a conversation with her mother nudged her towards something broader – architecture offered more opportunity. A five-year degree soon confirmed her interest but also raised a red flag.
During a year of internships, as part of her studies, Shubangi was often tasked with sourcing materials. It didn’t take long to spot a pattern.
“We kept going back to the same products and manufacturers,” she says. “When I asked about alternatives with lower environmental impact, the answer was usually the same – familiar suppliers were safer.”
In those early internships, the fast pace of project delivery left little room to question specifications or explore new materials. Sustainability, she realised, was an afterthought – if it came up at all.
Keen to work with more intent, she moved to Australia to pursue a Master of Architectural Science at the University of Sydney, specialising in sustainable design.
“I enjoyed the technical focus on building elements,” she says. “This wasn’t like another Master of Architecture degree but seamlessly combined design and science, evaluating design through a scientific lens.”
While completing her studies, Shubangi worked as a freelance consultant with one of her professors, focusing on Section J J1V3 assessments, which involve modelling a building’s energy use to show it meets national energy efficiency standards. It was detailed, impactful work, but she was eager to scale up – to explore more rating systems, look beyond single buildings and understand how sustainability played out across entire portfolios, policy frameworks and environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
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In 2024, she joined Northrop Consulting Engineers as a graduate sustainability consultant – a move that ticked all the boxes.
“I didn’t want to work in a silo. I was looking for a team-based environment where I could collaborate across disciplines, and that’s exactly what Northrop offers,” she says.
At Northrop, project bids often span multiple disciplines: façades, structural, sustainability and more. This multidisciplinary model, Shubangi says, leads to better outcomes and closer professional connections.
“There are regular social events too, which help you meet people outside your immediate team,” she says. “Those relationships often translate into project collaboration down the line.”
Already, Shubangi has worked on a commercial development, a warehouse, an industrial training facility and now a retail shopping centre.
“Most of my work has been in the commercial space, and this is my first retail project, which is exciting,” she says. “I have not repeated a project type yet, which shows how diverse the field is.”
Today, much of her work involves building energy models. Drawing on her architectural training, she builds 3D models from plans, sections and elevations. She then inputs variables such as occupancy, lighting and equipment loads to simulate operational energy use and performance.
The results provide predicted energy consumption, which she converts into greenhouse gas emissions using standard factors. From there, she assesses how a building stacks up against benchmarks in rating systems like Green Star.
“Each performance band corresponds to a number of points, and in turn contributes to stars for the entire project,” she explains. “I analyse how the building performs and produce a report based on the results.”
On any given day, that might mean preparing a report on predicted emissions or fine-tuning a model ahead of a design review. But the goal is always the same: to design with impact.
“I started out wanting to create change – one building at a time,” she says. “Now, I’m working towards contributing more to adaptive reuse projects, which focus on existing buildings.”
During her time as a researcher at the University of Sydney, she explored decarbonisation pathways and climate metrics, diving into policy frameworks and national targets. That work sharpened her focus.
“It really sparked my interest in how we can reduce the built environment’s impact through reuse, not just new construction,” she says.
What Shubangi values most in her current role is the perspective it offers. Simulating energy performance in new builds shows where designs succeed, where they fall short and how progress is measured – insights she sees as essential groundwork for what comes next: improving what already exists.
She’s set herself two goals to get there – one personal, one professional.
Personally, she wants to develop the instinct needed to work confidently with existing buildings. That means more than just understanding structure or services. It’s about reading a building’s story.
“With existing buildings, you need an intuitive understanding, like knowing a building was constructed in a particular era, which regulations it might have followed, what risks to look out for and how best to approach upgrades or interventions,” she says. “Building that kind of knowledge and instinct is something I really want to focus on.”
Professionally, she’s aiming to broaden her toolkit. Most of her current work centres on rating systems for individual commercial buildings, but she’s eager to step into new territory. Residential buildings are high on her radar, and in 2025, she plans to train in residential sustainability assessments.
“In parallel, I also want to work with Green Star Performance, which assesses portfolios of existing buildings. So, I want to develop in both directions, working with individual buildings and also at the broader portfolio scale,” she says.
As sustainability climbs the global agenda, she encourages emerging professionals to start by understanding the policy and climate context they’re working in.
“When I first moved to Australia, I had no idea about the country’s sustainability policies,” says Shubangi. “My coursework gave me a strong foundation, but there was still a lot of digging involved to understand how everything connects, like how a particular climate zone matters, what policies apply and where certain targets or numbers come from.”
Her advice? Start with the big picture. Understand the geographical, political and historical context. Look at what has shaped the current sustainability landscape and what is expected on the horizon. That foundation, she says, is key to finding a meaningful direction.
For the wider community, Shubangi remains hopeful. The effects of climate change are already visible – rising temperatures, longer summers – but she believes there is still time to act.
“Change does not have to come from large-scale buildings or infrastructure. Small actions matter, too,” she says. “Things like choosing recyclable packaging, setting a timer on your heater instead of leaving it on all night – these everyday choices can help reduce your personal emissions. It might seem minor, but every step counts.”
Shubangi’s journey began with an eye for design and a question about impact. That question still guides her. With each project, she’s building more than a portfolio: a career grounded in a belief that change is always possible.
The post Shubangi Suryanarayanan: A vision for change appeared first on Inside Construction.
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