Sustainable design is now firmly embedded in building legislation with recent developments in both planning laws and building regulations.  Environmental assessments such as BREEAM (or the American LEED equivalent) are now common practice for both new and refurbished buildings.  Underlying these developments are international concerns about climate change but equally important the finite energy resources of the Earth.  Our approach to building design has therefore always focussed on a desire to optimise energy consumption to protect these resources while also controlling building operating costs.

The application of sustainable energy technology has to date been hampered by high capital costs and doubts over performance data.  The government’s introduction of feed-in tariffs is set to radically change this situation and we will now see a far broader implementation of alternative energy sources.  Our experience in applying these technologies over a number of years allows us to quickly assess appropriate technology and provide integrated design solutions.

Energy consumption falls in two main categories:

• Equipment used within the building as part of its operational requirements
• Heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation etc required to maintain comfort conditions.

It is the second category in which we as services designers have greatest influence.  We believe any form of energy generation (including sustainable technologies) has some negative impact on the environment, so our primary aim is to minimise the energy demand of a building.  Once this has been achieved we can then look at alternative means of supplying that energy, for example we have experience of geothermal and solar thermal applications, photovoltaic arrays, heat pumps, CHP systems etc.

All designs work within constraints imposed by budgets, client brief and legislation. Our approach is to consider low technology, low cost, robust strategies as far as practical.  To this end we have invested in powerful software to analyse buildings' thermal response, natural lighting, natural ventilation and energy consumption, at the early planning stages, so that the inherent building design can developed to respond appropriately to its environment.  This then allows us to provide the most efficient and cost effect designs for environmental control.