The construction industry faces a growing demand for buildings that are energy efficient, environmentally responsible, and cost effective over their entire lifecycle. Meeting these targets requires more than selecting the right materials or installing efficient systems. It demands a fundamental shift in how design and construction teams work together from the very first sketch. Generalplaner ATP Architekten, listed as a partner on the Passive House Accelerator platform, has built a firm around solving exactly this challenge through a methodology they call integrated design.
Founded in 1951, ATP architects engineers has grown into one of Europe’s largest planning firms with 14 offices across the continent and over 1,500 employees. The firm has delivered more than 4,000 projects and ranks among the top 15 architecture engineering firms worldwide by contract volume. But what sets ATP apart from traditional architecture or engineering practices is not its size, it is the integrated planning approach the company has refined since 1976. Rather than treating architecture, structural engineering, and building services as separate workstreams handed off between siloed teams, ATP brings all disciplines together under one roof from day one.
What Is Integrated Design and Why It Matters
Integrated design, which ATP refers to as integrale Planung, is a collaborative process where architects and engineers work inside the same firm and on the same project team from the earliest stages of concept development. In a conventional delivery model, an architect completes a schematic design and then passes the drawings to a structural engineer and a mechanical engineer for separate detailing. Changes later in the process become expensive, and the design often lacks the cross disciplinary optimization that leads to high performance buildings.
ATP reverses this sequence. From the initial brief, architects, structural engineers, building services engineers, cost consultants, and sustainability experts all contribute to the design dialogue. This approach reduces rework, shortens project timelines, and produces buildings that are better integrated functionally. The firm describes its model as your house from a single source.
- All core design disciplines coexist in the same firm, eliminating handoff friction
- Structural and MEP engineers contribute to early massing and orientation decisions
- Cost feedback loops run continuously rather than at milestone gates
- Sustainability targets are embedded in the brief rather than added as a later overlay
- Construction documentation remains coordinated across trades throughout the project
Passive house projects benefit especially from this model because the stringent energy performance targets require tight coordination of the building envelope, thermal bridge free detailing, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, and window placement. When all disciplines collaborate from the start, achieving Passive House certification becomes a design parameter rather than a retrofit challenge.
BIM as the Technological Backbone of Integrated Planning
ATP adopted Building Information Modelling (BIM) across all its projects starting in 2012, making it one of the early adopters of fully digitalised design workflows in Europe. BIM is not treated as a separate output or a documentation tool at ATP. It serves as the central data platform that enables integrated design to function at scale. Every design decision, whether architectural, structural, or mechanical, is recorded in a shared digital model that all team members access and update in real time.
The firm is ISO 9001 certified for quality management, and its BIM workflows are built on this foundation of traceable, transparent processes. The shared model eliminates the traditional problem of version conflicts between discipline specific drawings. When an architect adjusts a wall section, the structural engineer sees the impact on load paths immediately, and the MEP engineer can adjust duct routes without waiting for an updated drawing set. Projects such as the Inzell Speed Skating Stadium Behnisch Architekten Inzell Germany show how digital coordination between design disciplines can produce complex, high performance building envelopes that meet both aesthetic and energy goals.
The benefits ATP reports from its BIM driven integrated model include:
- Reduction in design phase change orders through real time clash detection
- More accurate cost estimation because quantities are extracted from the live model
- Shorter construction periods due to improved prefabrication coordination
- Better facility management handover because the as built model includes all systems data
- Higher energy performance confidence through integrated thermal simulation
For building owners, these benefits translate into lower capital costs during construction and reduced operational costs over the building lifecycle. The BIM model remains useful after occupancy for maintenance scheduling, space management, and future renovation planning.
Services Delivered Under One Roof
ATP offers a comprehensive range of services that cover every stage of a building’s development, from initial feasibility studies through to construction supervision and post occupancy evaluation. This breadth of in house capability is what makes the integrated model viable. Clients do not need to coordinate separate consultants for architecture, structures, services, and project management because ATP provides all of them as a single contractual package.
| Service Area | Description | Project Phase |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Concept design, schematic design, design development, construction documentation | All phases |
| Structural engineering | Load analysis, foundation design, steel and timber structures, seismic engineering | Design to construction |
| Building services (MEP) | HVAC, plumbing, electrical, lighting, fire safety, building automation | Design to commissioning |
| Building physics and ESG | Thermal envelope, daylight analysis, life cycle assessment, sustainability certification | Concept to handover |
| Project management | Cost control, schedule management, procurement, site supervision | All phases |
| Master planning | Urban design, zoning analysis, infrastructure coordination, landscape integration | Feasibility to concept |
| Operational planning | Process flow design, logistics planning, workflow optimisation for industrial buildings | Concept to detailed design |
| Interior design | Space planning, finishes, furniture systems, wayfinding | Design development |
This service structure means that a client commissioning a new office building, laboratory, or industrial facility can hold a single point of responsibility. If a coordination issue arises between the structural frame and the ventilation system, it is resolved internally rather than through a contractual dispute between separate consultants. The firm estimates that this integration reduces overall project delivery time by 15 to 25 percent compared to traditional fragmented delivery models.
Project Sectors and Real World Applications
ATP applies its integrated approach across a broad spectrum of building types. The firm has completed notable projects in office and administration, healthcare, research and teaching, production and logistics, hospitality, residential, cultural facilities, and infrastructure. Each sector presents distinct coordination challenges that the integrated model addresses differently.
In the healthcare sector, projects such as the Zentralklinikum Hochrhein in Germany demonstrate how integrated planning creates healing environments where clinical workflow, infection control, patient comfort, and energy performance are balanced from the outset. The design team included medical planners, kitchen and laboratory specialists, and building physics consultants alongside architects and engineers from the very first workshop. The result is a hospital that meets stringent German energy standards while supporting complex clinical operations.
For industrial and logistics buildings, ATP has completed facilities for clients including BORA, Swarovski, and Tyrolit. These projects require close coordination between production process planning, structural design for heavy loads and crane systems, and building services for ventilation and temperature control. The operational planning team works directly with the client’s production engineers to map process flows into the building layout before any architectural massing begins.
Office and administration projects form a major portion of ATP’s portfolio. The Austro Tower in Vienna, a high rise office building, required coordination of a complex structural system with advanced facade engineering and building services for a certified sustainable workplace. The Vienna Green Hub for the European Patent Office involved refurbishment of an existing structure to meet modern environmental standards while preserving the architectural character of the surrounding urban context.
The ATP Green Deal: Embedding Sustainability into Every Project
Sustainability at ATP is not a checkbox exercise or a separate certification handled by a specialist consultant. The firm has developed an internal framework called the ATP Green Deal, which applies across all project types and scales. The framework defines measurable sustainability criteria that every project must address, covering energy efficiency, carbon emissions, material circularity, user well being, and resilience to climate change.
The firm’s vision is to shape the built environment to be low in emissions, fit for the future, and livable. This vision translates into specific design strategies that are embedded into each project through the integrated planning process.
- Early stage energy modelling to optimise building orientation, glazing ratios, and facade construction before the design is fixed
- Life cycle carbon assessment comparing structural options such as timber, steel, and concrete to select the lowest impact solution
- Passive design measures prioritised before active systems, reducing mechanical equipment sizes and operational energy demand
- Digital twin integration that allows building operators to monitor and optimise energy performance throughout the building lifecycle
- Circular material selection favouring products with recycled content, take back schemes, and low embodied carbon
The ATP Green Deal is particularly relevant for clients targeting Passive House certification, net zero carbon status, or green building ratings such as DGNB, BREEAM, or LEED. Because the integrated team includes building physics and ESG consultants from the start, the certification pathway is built into the design programme rather than added on during later stages. This approach typically reduces the cost premium associated with high performance certification and eliminates the risk of last minute design changes to meet compliance thresholds.
Why Integrated Design Is the Future of Building Delivery
The construction industry has long operated in silos, with architects, engineers, and contractors each protecting their scope and managing their own risk. This fragmented model is poorly suited to the demands of modern sustainable building, where energy performance, carbon accounting, occupant health, and operational efficiency must be considered holistically. ATP’s integrated design model, refined over nearly five decades since 1976, offers a proven alternative.
Several trends point toward wider adoption of integrated approaches across the industry. The growing use of BIM mandates in European public procurement makes collaborative digital workflows a legal requirement rather than a voluntary best practice. The increasing stringency of building energy codes pushes teams to optimise across disciplines rather than optimise within each discipline separately. Client demand for verified sustainability outcomes, from embodied carbon declarations to operational energy metering, favours delivery teams that can guarantee performance through integrated design and construction processes.
Building owners and developers evaluating delivery models for their next project should consider the integrated design approach when their goals include high energy performance, tight schedules, and single point responsibility. The model works especially well for complex buildings where mechanical systems, structural spans, and architectural quality all interact, such as laboratories, hospitals, production facilities, and large scale office developments. For smaller projects, the same principles of early collaboration between disciplines apply even if the full in house team structure is not economically justified. The key takeaway is that sustainable, high performance buildings are not achieved by adding more technology or more insulation. They are achieved by designing better, and integrated design is the framework that makes better design possible from the very first sketch.