Thomas Lützkendorf (Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil.), born in 1957, studied at Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar (1977-1981) and graduated as a civil engineer (Diplom-Bauingenieur). Subsequently, he was a Research Fellow at the Department of Economics in the Construction Sector at Bauhaus-Universität. He completed his Ph.D. in 1985 on the Description, Assessment, and Optimization of Buildings’ Energy Demand.

Following a period of practical work in construction project management and as a visiting researcher at ETH Lausanne, Thomas was postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Building Ecology and Building Climate at the Department of Architecture, Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar. He received his postdoctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) 2000 with a Habilitation treatise on implementing Sustainable Development Principles within the Construction Sector.

In 2000, Thomas became a professor at Universität Karlsruhe – today’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Since then, he has been the Director of the Institute of Sustainable Management of Housing and Real Estate. The Institute belongs to the KIT Department of Economics and Management but is also associated with the Department of Architecture.

In his research and educational work, Thomas is concerned with questions relating to implementing sustainable development principles within the construction and property (real estate) industries. An emphasis of his work is on the further development and application of life cycle analyses (LCA / LCC), the design/conceptualization of information flow along the construction value chain, and the integration of sustainability aspects into the methods and tools of the property industry (notably portfolio management and analyses, risk analyses and valuation). Thomas was and currently is involved in developing and testing sustainability assessment systems for buildings (BNB, DGNB, NaWoh).

Thomas Lützkendorf is a founding member of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE) and a member of the Editorial Board of Building & Cities.