ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

AS A DESIGNER OF SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, AHR CHAMPIONS ARCHITECTURAL INNOVATION TO RESPOND TO THE COMPLEX CHALLENGES OF CLIMATE CHANGE WE WORK WITH OUR CLIENTS AND THE WIDER COMMUNITY TO CARRY OUT COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH TO OVERCOME INDUSTRY-WIDE BARRIERS TO MEETING COP21 TARGETS.

Through detailed post-occupancy evaluation, AHR continually studies buildings in use to create architecture that is flexible and adaptable and meets the evolving. needs of occupants.

We build on this research to go beyond regulatory requirements to deliver award-winning designs that use significantly less energy and resources to build and operate while being resilient to the impacts of climate change.

AHR advocates the recognition of architectural influence on building performance. We actively campaign for a much greater legislative focus on validated performance to achieve better value for investment for our clients.

We recognise the impact of climate change on our environment and in designing buildings we seek to not to mortgage our children’s futures. Our aim is to design buildings that have the minimum impact on the environment and are sufficiently adaptable to be resilient to future changes.

We are specifically interested in ‘minding the gap’: identifying and reducing the gap between how a building is designed to work and how it actually performs. So we learn from what we do, returning to projects to see how they are performing.

We use this feedback to inform the design process, enabling a continuous measurable improvement in building performance. In turn leading to increased energy performance, improved carbon reduction and a reduction in waste.

Environmental Design services provided:
- Portfolio level energy analysis and benchmarking
- Embodied carbon analysis
- Building performance evaluation for existing stock and new build
- Retrofit for climate change resilience - low-carbon retrofit strategy including optimisation of portfolio-wide retrofit strategies based on batch-simulation and gathered data
- Energy and comfort simulation with batch calculations to optimise building and portfolio level investment in low-carbon measures
- Risk analysis for achieving low operational energy use and optimal indoor environmental quality in operation
- Building Performance contract management/advisory service
- Use of Building Information Modelling for whole-life building management