The BREEAM 'Outstanding' Nightingale Primary School extends Max Fordham’s long-standing relationship with the London Borough of Hackney. The innovative mixed-use development replaces an existing building with a new campus that doubles the student capacity at the school and is organised around external play spaces and 89 new residential units.

Working alongside Hawkins\Brown, Babcock International, McLaren Construction and Kier Education Services, we provided M&E, Sustainability Consultancy, Soft Landings and BREEAM for this project.

Innovatively addressing an urgent need in Hackney for both new school places and homes, the project replaces an existing school with a double capacity new school, organised around external play spaces and new residential units. 

Hackney set a target of BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating for the project, including specific BREEAM-based targets that contribute to healthy and productive learning environments. At final completion, the project actually achieved the higher ‘Outstanding’ rating. This was accomplished by the client, contractor and design team focusing on creating an excellent school experience. Specific attention was given to analysis of the indoor environments, using the lifecyle carbon assessment as a design tool, and the biodiverse landscaping and green roofs being used for learning.

Nightingale Primary School and Nursery won the award for Public Project (Design Stage) at the BREEAM Awards 2018. In 2020 it was also shortlisted for BREEAM Public Project (Post Construction) and a RIBA London Regional Awards.

Rising to 13 storeys, the BREEAM 'Outstanding' Centre Building is the biggest and tallest building on the LSE campus. 

Sustainability is at the heart of the LSE’s 2020 Strategy and Ethics Code, and we were appointed as Soft Landing Champions, Sustainability Consultant and BREEAM Assessor/AP to help deliver a project that reflected this ethos.

Facing a newly-created square, the building hosts five academic departments over the top 10 floors, above a student area and a range of formal and informal teaching spaces. The teaching spaces include 12 seminar rooms and four lecture theatres – a 200-seat basement auditorium, a theatre seating 80 and two crescent-shaped lecture theatres.

Following an initial requirement to target BREEAM 'Excellent', we played an active role as the project’s Sustainability Consultant and BREEAM Assessor/AP in pushing the design team and the project to achieve BREEAM 'Outstanding'. We went beyond the traditional Assessor role and helped guide the project, not through ‘box-ticking’ but by focusing on areas that added true value to the project.

Working with LSE, we developed a set of tailored environmental performance standards that built upon the lessons of BREEAM, explored sustainable development elements not captured by BREEAM, and pushed the Design Team to deliver an exemplar sustainable building fit-for-purpose. This included a greater focus on reducing embodied carbon; material specification and procurement was reviewed throughout design and construction to achieve a significant reduction over standard specification.

A number of standalone studies were undertaken that focussed on the health and well-being of staff and students and informed key design concepts. An example of this is the design of the stairs and how their design could promote their use. The result was an internal spatial layout that centres on the feature staircase running through the core of the building, visible from the main entrance and provides a series of break spaces aimed at encouraging social interaction.

The Hive is an integrated library and history centre for Worcestershire County Council and the University of Worcester.

A combination of passive design and low carbon technologies meant the building achieved a 50% carbon emissions reduction below Building Regulations and a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating. The building was modelled using climate projections for 2020 and 2050 to ensure it is adaptable for the future.

We worked with facilities management for two years after handover to monitor and optimise the energy performance. Electricity consumption was reduced by 42%, which was below the design prediction.

Part of the CityLife development located in the centre of Milan, the Libeskind Tower is one of three high-rise office buildings that will become the new landmarks of the Italian city. We provided early stage environmental advice and LEED guidance to the design team, enabling the project to achieve LEED Gold Precertification with 68 points.

Max Fordham guided the team towards maintaining the target set at Precertification for all LEED categories: Sites, Water, Energy, Materials, and Indoor Environment. Energy efficiency measures include connection to the city’s district heating network providing hot water for heating and domestic hot water uses, photovoltaic panels installed on the South-facing sloped roof, and high performance glazed facades.

Rainwater is harvested from the facades and outdoor pedestrian areas. It is then used within the building together with reused borehole water from the CityLife’s residential buildings groundwater heating and cooling circuit. The tower achieves the maximum available score in the Water Efficiency category. There is a 54% reduction on indoor potable water uses compared to a typical case and 100% of the irrigation demand met by use of non-potable water.

The first state-funded Hindu school in the UK, Krishna-Avanti is designed for sustainability, with an integrated engineering approach that provides low-impact, energy-efficient solutions. The school has a green roof, is mainly timber-framed and almost entirely naturally ventilated, with windows automatically controlled. A GSHP system with boreholes will meet about 63% of the yearly heating demand, and the remainder will be met by high-efficiency condensing gas boilers.

Harvested rainwater is used for the kitchen vegetable garden. Surface run-off water is channelled to a large ornamental pond that acts as a buffer during period of high rainfall, whilst also creating a nice environment for the pupils. The school was awarded BREEAM Excellent, with its score of 75.64% meaning, that it is one of the top scoring schools in England.

Boho One is a speculative office development designed to accommodate and support small businesses working in creative digital media. This highly sustainable building has achieved an EPC rating of B - a 35% improvement on Part L Target Emission Rate. The major facades are orientated to face north and south to provide excellent daylight, while glare and unwanted solar gain are managed by a sliding external brise soleil. Well-distributed glazing achieves an average daylight factor of 5% in occupied spaces.

The building is naturally-ventilated with insulation values which represent a 20% improvement over Building Regulations requirements. The heating and cooling demand is met using an open loop ground source heat pump system, utilising ground water abstracted from a 100m deep borehole. Three 6KW roof mounted wind turbines generate approximately 5% of the base electrical load for the building. The building was awarded BREEAM Excellent, with a score of 72.64%, making it one of the most sustainable office buildings in the north of England.