AJ Retrofit Live and Circular Build 2024
- 11 September 2024
- London
NABERS
High performance, low energy office buildings in the UK use NABERS to assess, benchmark, design, advertise, and market their operational energy efficiency. Involving a high level of detailed design input as well as in-depth dynamic modelling, and rigorously assessed by independent third-party certifiers, a NABERS UK Design for Performance, and subsequently an Energy for Offices (in-use), rating of 5* or higher is currently the most robust way of reliably showing that a workspace manages operational energy as efficiently and sustainably as possible.
About NABERS
Max Fordham’s specialist building performance modelling team works hand-in-glove with our mechanical, electrical, and public health (MEP) engineers to help our clients target and achieve NABERS UK 5.5* and above Design for Performance ratings (in fact, we led the NABERS assessment on the first UK building to achieve that rating – 11 Belgrave Road). Starting with advice rooted in experience at the earliest project stages, the modelling team works closely with our engineers to set the design strategies that will be the foundation for achieving low operational energy. As the project goes on, we use our in-depth understanding of later-stage building services designs and building controls to provide the extensive, detailed modelling that will reliably illustrate how the building performs when in use.
Once the building is occupied, our Post Occupancy Evaluation team works with our NABERS modellers to monitor and optimise the office’s energy use to achieve the best NABERS Energy for Offices rating possible, potentially exceeding the Design for Performance rating. If we haven’t been Design for Performance modellers, we can also assist our clients in achieving NABERS Energy for Office (in use) ratings. Sustainable, low energy office buildings that perform for their users are the result.
Case studies
Total of 2 projects
Related journal entries
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.