Pete the Builder and Steve Randall along with this special’s guests are transporting you back to Footprint+! And if you weren’t there, this is a great way to be in the know!

Pete the Builder spoke to Wendy Bishop of Architype about retrofitting and the Entopia Building

Wendy Bishop is an associate of Architype and Passivhaus designer. She was a keynote speaker at the event. Her talk was entitled Retrofitting a historic building: CISL’s Entopia Building.

This work on the Entopia Building illustrates the process of extending the life and enhancing the value of an ordinary office building through a refurbishment promoting ambitious and measured energy, carbon, and wellbeing outcomes.

Retrofitting is a trending topic right now but there are a number of retrofitting challenges, how can we overcome them?

Wendy’s analytical approach alongside her passion for low carbon design and thoughtful, inspiring spaces has been invaluable for her work which includes leading the design on the Harris Academy Sutton, the UK’s first Passivhaus secondary school.

Wendy is a trained Passivhaus designer, having attended the inaugural AECB Carbonlite CEPH course in 2011. Leading on a range of projects, from constrained expansion schemes to new build and retrofit, Wendy enjoys collaboration, listening and responding to stakeholders.

Wendy studied at the University of Cambridge and Newcastle University. Her dissertation on space use in home-based enterprises in Surabaya, Indonesia was commended in the RIBA President’s Medals in 2000.

What might work for a 1930’s building like the Entopia Building in Cambridge won’t work for a 1980s built school up in Scotland.

Next up Steve Randall spoke to Catherine Dewar and David Tomback from Historic England about the importance of reusing old buildings

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England’s spectacular historic environment.

Catherine Dewar is the Climate Change Programme Director at Historic England. She has worked at Historic England for over 18 years.

.. the three days have really brought into focus the importance of reusing buildings and the carbon that’s embodied in those buildings. Of course, we represent Historic England, so we would say that’s important.

But it’s been a joy to hear everybody else saying it. We’ve been talking about this, haven’t we for years? And it’s just a joy to hear everybody else, recognising the importance of doing that, for really important reasons.

With nearly 50 years experience, David Tomback is a chartered surveyor. He is the Development Economics Director at Historic England.

His wide remit includes providing in-house commercial property advice; listed building consents, especially in connection with enabling development; re-use of redundant historic buildings; and the economics of conservation.

While with Historic England he has been involved in significant economic studies, including “The Investment Performance of Listed Buildings,” and “The Value of Conservation”. Recently David was responsible for “Heritage Works The use of historic buildings in regeneration”

So I echo what Catherine says, historic buildings have been reused for generations. But now more than ever, it’s so important that we recognise that buildings just don’t need to be demolished, they can be reused.

For so many good reasons. We produced together with the British Property Federation and the ICS, a publication called Heritage Works. And I can recommend your listeners to look that up, because it gives some really good advice.

Our next guests are two young people in the Construction industry, Shane Orme and Serena Gugliotta of WSP. Pete the Builder spoke to both about the goal of net zero and the importance of collaboration in order to achieve it.

Shane Orme is the net-zero lead for building services at WSP and Serena Gugliotta is a net-zero change maker and Façade Engineer at WSP.

Shane is very motivated and believes that in order to meet 2030 and 2050 carbon targets, all new buildings have to be designed to be net zero and he is making it his mission to achieve this.

Shane is an engineering specialist who worked predominately on techno-economic feasibility studies for low carbon district heat networks.

It’s been a collaborative process from the beginning really. I mean, that’s almost kind of the whole point.

Each of us was developing our own individual kind of carbon assessment tools to try and figure out this the carbon footprint of our designs and advice..it just made so much sense to bring all of that knowledge together.

Serena believes that even small changes can result in huge differences. Working closely with Shane and other net-zero leads, she propels net zero actions within her team and also to wider disciplines.

Working together they developed a parametric design tool called Daisy. This tool combines artificial intelligence, sustainability and digital.

Serena’s commitment starts with facades. She aims to address carbon emissions via sustainable design choices. Façades are responsible for controlling and mitigating the operational carbon during the building’s lifetime, hence she believes that a conscious design in the early stages of projects is key to tackling the challenges of today and meeting the needs for the future.

But I think that the biggest point here is that we as consultants, can do more than just advising. We can really push for a circular economy and all these concepts that we’re discussing today.

Because it’s a really collaborative approach, the one we have to push forward. And so we’re doing our best to work together.

Steve Randall spoke to Sophie Cole of Mikhail Riches next about retrofitting and achieving zero carbon housing at a scale

Sophie Cole is a senior architect at Mikhail Riches. She specialises in housing design and her priority lies in sustainability. She believes that now clients are demanding a green agenda, and everyone is on the same page to achieve it.

Sophie is currently leading two exciting residential projects for Hackney Council’s Housing Supply Programme. Both sites are located within existing estates, each presenting its own complex opportunities and constraints.

Sophie is enjoying managing an extended team of designers and sub-consultants through the challenging design process towards delivering high-quality housing.

Since joining Mikhail Riches in 2017, Sophie has had the opportunity to build upon her experience of smaller residential projects within her previous practices.

At both Studio Bark and AY Architects, she ran a number of private residential projects on-site, one of which was shortlisted for the Stephen Lawrence Prize and won a regional RIBA award. Sophie also has experience in Passivhaus and school design from her time at Architype.

Sophie studied at the Manchester School of Architecture and the University of Westminster, where she gained a first and a distinction respectively.

Interested in the relationship between architectural practice and academia, Sophie has enjoyed attending The Bartlett and The University of Westminster as a visiting critic and has taken on a practice mentoring role at both the RCA and LSA.

Now our clients are asking us to do it, whereas before I think we felt that sometimes you had to push a green agenda.

Next Pete the Builder talks to Steve Hearn, the Chief Executive Officer at Mid Group about using timber wood in construction

Mid Group is a dynamic Construction, Investment and Development company, focused on providing enhanced value to its clients and partners. Their specific approach to projects requires them to engage at the earliest point in the development cycle. They believe this allows them the greatest opportunity to add value.

Steven Hearn is the CEO and founding Director of Mid Group, which was formed in 2014. He has been pivotal in transforming the wider business into a leader in sustainable offsite construction.

He sees offsite construction as the natural evolution of the built environment which has historically lagged behind other industries in terms of R&D. 

A civil engineer by profession, Steven was previously a Project Director at Laing O’Rourke, responsible for the delivery of a wide range of project types, including residential, research laboratories, education, commercial and wastewater.

I think the answer is probably not doing enough. There’s more we can do but we are constrained by legislation and the market conditions.

The penultimate interview on this second special episode is Steve Randall speaking to Paul Lincoln, Editor from Landscape

The Landscape Institute is the body that represents landscape architects in the UK. With over 6000 members consisting of landscape designers, landscape managers and landscape planners or students.

The LI’s aim, through the work of its members, is to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the public benefit.

The LI provides a professional home for all landscape practitioners including landscape scientists, landscape planners, landscape architects, landscape managers and urban designers.

Paul believes that landscape architecture is at the heart of sustainable development. How we treat and manage the landscape, he believes is at the heart of the debate.

Landscape architecture is absolutely at the heart of sustainable development.

This special ends with Pete the Builder interviewing Sebastian Wood of Whitby Wood

Listen to Sebastian Wood who was a keynote speaker at the event. His talk was entitled Revitalising disused buildings to deliver on the triple bottom line. Investors can be forgiven for worrying that their return on investments may be diminished as a result of increased capital costs as we progress towards a lower carbon property industry.

This does not have to be the case though, as we can achieve value through retrofit and attention to the Whole-Life Cycle of Carbon.

Sebastian Wood is the managing director of the 110-strong engineering practice Whitby Wood, which he co-founded with Mark Whitby in February 2016. The practice is built around people, sustainability and technology.

The company is diverse, with a rich culture created by the backgrounds, experiences and aspirations of all the team members. Its ambitious goal is to be the leading international engineering consultancy in sustainable design, supporting clients in the decision to transition to a decarbonized and more-sustainable future and to helping them make it happen.

Sebastian personally believes that it is their responsibility as leaders in the industry to ensure that the future is environmentally, socially and financially equitable. He applies his forward-thinking approach to business and engineering.

But let’s not get too excited, because we are talking about things like net-zero, which is really a veil for people to hide behind when they’re still doing predominantly the same thing that they did yesterday.