Rochdale Town Hall: Restoring an historic Grade I-listed building
Building fabric performance
We've been trusted with reducing the energy use of some the UK's most loved historic buildings, upgrading their performance so they can remain in use long into the future - the very essence of sustainability. Retrofitting existing buildings offers exciting potential for improved performance, but needs to be approached with care to avoid unintentional damage. We carry out specialist hygrothermal assessments to assess the unique conditions within buildings, to deliver excellent results that are low risk.
Building fabric performance leaders
Total of 4 people
About building fabric performance
Improving the thermal performance of historic buildings requires sensitivity, care, and a thorough understanding of the opportunities, risks, and technical challenges. Our work with Historic Royal Palaces, Historic England, and many other clients with Grade I, II, A, B, or C-listed estates has helped them to safely and sensitively improve energy efficiency, reduce heating costs, improve occupant comfort, and cut carbon emissions. We've delivered Grade 1-listed projects such as Trinity College New Court for the University of Cambridge, and large and complex EnerPHit projects (the Passivhaus standard for refurbishment), such as the Entopia Building.
A common retrofit approach to meet climate targets and achieve lower operational costs is to apply internal wall insulation. Insulating previously uninsulated external walls can alter the way they perform, so it's recommended to seek early stage advice and a full hygrothermal risk assessment before proceeding. Types of risks to be avoided include freeze-thaw damage to masonry, metal corrosion, and timber decay.
It's essential the design is robust before changes are made to your building. Seeking advice early in the project will help you make informed decisions before committing, reducing the chance of costly issues later on.
How can we help?
We offer a building fabric moisture (hygrothermal) risk assessment service that includes:
Early stage advice
WUFI (industry-leading moisture simulation software) moisture simulation to carry out hygrothermal risk assessments
2D and 3D modelling to analyse thermal bridging
We use WUFI, combined with our expertise and experience, to help identify and evaluate design options that balance moisture risk with thermal performance. Our input feeds in to early design decisions, including energy use, plant sizing, and utility supply capacity.
Getting us involved at an early stage in the project will help to avoid costly redesigns, and set realistic retrofit costs before any detailed design begins. Additionally, we use 2D and 3D modelling to analyse areas where insulation is interrupted. This identifies potential surface moisture or mould risks and calculates heat loss through thermal bridges, supporting assessments like SAP and Passivhaus, so we can support the design team to remove those risks.
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Thermal bridging analysis targets the transfer of heat between a building and the external environment, identifying structural elements that may have penetrated insulation, causing heat loss and cold areas inside a building.
Case studies
Total of 2 projects
All services
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All buildings should be comfortable and a pleasure to be in: warm, well-lit, well-ventilated, well-used, and well-loved. Our mechanical and electrical engineering, vertical transportation, acoustics, daylight, and lighting design services can help ensure just that. We maximise passive measures such as natural ventilation and daylighting, seamlessly dovetailing our designs with the building’s own form and architecture to result in simple, low-energy, and low-cost building services.
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In the face of an increasingly urgent climate emergency, it’s crucial that buildings consume as little energy as possible in their operation. Low energy, low carbon, and low operational costs are our watchwords when it comes to designing new buildings or retrofitting existing ones. We help our clients build sustainability goals into masterplans or early-stage feasibility studies, decarbonise existing estates, and optimise how a building performs against its targets for sustainability and user comfort.
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Meeting net zero carbon targets and minimising a building’s impact on the environment means reducing embodied carbon – the carbon tied up in the materials like steel, concrete, and plastic that go into a building’s construction and services design – as much as operational carbon (the carbon a building produces in its heating, cooling, and lighting). We facilitate material reuse with circular economy strategies, steer low embodied carbon design from the earliest project stages with whole life carbon assessments, and offer advice on planning and compliance, all helping to reduce the carbon footprint of construction.