Sharing our expertise
We have developed a breadth and depth of experience that we love to share.
Our consultancy offers strategic support and collaboration that assists other building professionals to elevate environmental performance and reduce energy and carbon consumption in their own projects without having compromise on creativity.
This means we often find ourselves supporting our peers and other professionals who are involved in bringing buildings to life, including other architects and their clients, construction companies developing new products through to large organisations such as governments and the United Nations Development Programme.
We offer targeted, project specific support, or get involved in the training and development of everyone involved in the design and delivery of a building as it is designed and built.
Consultancy, training and research
Consulting: Passivhaus, Energy and Carbon
Our consultancy enables architects and institutions to push their creative visions in ways that enhance environmental goals.
We work together with you to find ways to reduce environmental impact and improve a building performance. This includes:
- Operational performance and demand reduction including PHPP design and modelling for passivhaus buildings of all types
- Energy and carbon calculations for buildings in use
- Embodied carbon carbon calculations
- Airtightness design review
- Natural building products and material specification
- Resilience, adaptation, and planning for future climate change including approaches to flood risk management, warming climate and extreme weather events.
Training: Passivhaus, EnerPhit and Eco Design
We provide training and development support worldwide to all sorts of organisations and institutions focusing on energy efficicncy and carbon reduction. This includes:
- Training and development courses: for the design team, clients, contractors, local authorities and government policy makers
- Toolbox talks: on site practical training
- Bespoke training solutions: we deliver this independently, tailored to your requirements
- Off-the-shelf learning packages: we are part of the Coaction Passivhaus training team.
Research: Innovation, Monitoring and Feedback
Research is especially important to us because the world of sustainability and eco design is evolving at such a rapid pace, and it’s vital that we are able to prove that what we do actually works, and explore new ideas where it seems appropriate.
The research we do is something that we share, not something to be hoarded. We disseminate what we learn through talks and publications once results are available.
We also see it as our responsibility to keep on top of what’s happening and how the latest research might affect or challenge our approach to building design and we have been taking this approach since we set up in 2011.
For example, in terms of performance research, currently we’re holding our work to account by monitoring the KMA offices in a collaborative study with Strathclyde University. Our research results feed back into our own work too so that we are continuously learning and improving.
We support our clients with modelling and monitoring of performance wherever they want it, just as we did with our own offices and the embodied carbon study that went into The Seed. Other examples include using the monitoring to identify areas the building systems can be further improved in use.
In many ways, everything we do is research.
Projects
We work on projects across Scotland and as far away as sub-Antarctica. Our projects include homes, schools, offices, exhibition and arts buildings, sports facilities, visitor centres and emergency shelters. All are underpinned by commitment to comfort and low environmental impact.