“Just because you push risk onto somebody else doesn't make risk go away.

This is partly due to the anodized finish of the aluminium frame curtain walling (this couldn’t be altered due to the extant planning permission) and partly because the façade was manufactured in Poland – a country with both many transport miles and an electricity grid predominantly fuelled by coal..The internal finishes and walls performed well due to the limited quantity of materials used.

The false ceilings were omitted to reduce materials needed, the curtain walling is self finishing to the inside of the external walls, the building is largely open plan reducing the number of internal walls required and finally the raised flooring is reused from an existing building.The materials specified for the internal wall include recycled materials, reducing their embodied carbon..Finally, the DfMA approach has optimised the MEP systems, using modular prefabricated units, which reduce the amount of material used.

When comparing our results with LETI benchmarks (see below), this is not apparent.It is becoming clear across the industry that LETI benchmarks for MEP are likely underestimated..

Embodied carbon analysis.

When reviewing the building against benchmarks for WLC, including the LETI extrapolated targets, the buildings perform well against 2020 targets.Iterative because the problem is unwrapped and understood gradually, by identifying potential solutions, analysing them and feeding the outcome back into the continuously evolving problem statement.

The team evaluates the outcome, revises their understanding of the problem (if required), and goes around the loop again, with new, adjusted or more developed solutions..The key principles of our master planning approach are: to adopt a common language that can be understood by all involved; to use clear visualisations rather than words as much as possible, as this aids general understanding; to be clear and explicit about any and all assumptions, and; to capture as much data and information as possible from as many sources as possible, so that no knowledge goes to waste..

The first step is to gather that information.We use a number of strategies – including questionnaires and in-depth workshops with client teams – to gather as much qualitative and quantitative data as we can.