Biophilic architecture crafted with conviction.
ABOUT US
we are Team Terraverta
Most spaces are not designed for the people who live, work, or learn in them. They are designed around what is fastest and cheapest to deliver, and the difference accumulates quietly over years. Higher running costs. Rooms that feel slightly wrong without you being able to say exactly why. A slow disconnection from the natural light, air quality, and biological rhythms that human excellence has always depended on.
TERRAVERTA Habitats was founded as a direct and deliberate response to that gap.
Belinda Duncan Boyd
M.A Strategic Design
Founder Lead Innovation & Design
The Founder
She holds a Master’s in Strategic Design from IE University, Madrid, and brings over 25 years of experience across technology, media, strategy, and systems thinking to the practice. That cross-sector background produces something specific at TERRAVERTA Habitats: the ability to look at a space and understand not just what it is, but what it is doing to the people inside it, and what it could be doing instead.
She leads innovation, advisory, and the TERRAVERTA Habitats consultancy arm. She built the Human Performance Effect framework and the Performance Intent Template, the practice’s named first-step methodology, both of which ensure that every engagement, whether a new build, a renovation, or a consultancy, begins with the right questions rather than the default assumptions.
The Design Partnership
Architect Shawn Scriven joined the practice as Lead Design Partner because the work needed both strategic thinking and deep technical knowledge operating in the same direction from the very first conversation. He brings over 25 years of built environment expertise with a specific focus on energy-conscious design and mass timber methodology.
At TERRAVERTA Habitats, Shawn’s role is as much about design integrity as it is about technical delivery. His job is to ensure that the strategic intent set at the brief stage survives intact through documentation, procurement, and construction. That is rarer than it sounds.
Together, they bring the full picture to every project. The why and the how. The strategic and the structural. And a shared understanding that the spaces we build or transform should enhance the lives being lived inside them.
Shawn Scriven
BArch Degree
Lead Architect & Designer
Shawn Scriven
BArch Degree
Lead Architect & Designer
As the lead architect at TERRAVERTA, Shawn Scriven is dedicated to sculpting spaces, designing, and transforming environments in a sustainable and energy-conscious way. With over 25 years of expertise in the architectural and construction industry, Shawn focuses on reducing costs, carbon footprints, and environmental impact through innovative design solutions.
His extensive experience encompasses master planning, strategic planning, and architecture. His professional journey has been marked by a commitment to creating spaces that are both functional and harmonious with nature. At TERRAVERTA, Shawn leads a talented team with his vision extending beyond traditional architectural boundaries, embracing conceptual design and development in related fields and business development, ensuring that each project meets the highest standards of design quality.
With a BArch degree from the University of Pretoria and a considerable list of further diplomas and achievements, along with a passion for sustainable architecture, Shawn continues to lead TERRAVERTA towards a future where all structures contribute to a healthier, more sustainable world.
TERRAVERTA: EVERYTHING. CONNECTED
It is an integration of biophilic principles, bio-based material thinking, mass timber methodology, and strategic intent, applied across every decision from pre-purchase assessment through to final handover. Where most practices begin with what to build, we begin with why the space is being built, who it is being built for, and what it needs to do for the next many years.
That shifts the whole project. From the material schedule to the floor plan to the orientation of a roofline. It applies equally to a new build, a renovation, or an advisory engagement with an organisation that wants to understand why its team is underperforming in a space that costs a considerable amount of money to create.
Sustainable building practice at TERRAVERTA Habitats is not a single material or a single method. It is a design discipline, drawing on mass timber, CLT, biophilic and geophilic principles, and regenerative thinking wherever they serve the brief best.
In every case, it sits alongside the question that we consider equally urgent: is this space performing for the people inside it?
Everything. Connected.