SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Introduction
About Us
We are a creative design and planning consultancy for the built environment. Our team of nearly 30 people includes Architects, Heritage experts, Planners, Urban Designers, Building with Nature Approved Assessors, Retrofit Coordinators, and Regeneration Specialists.
Our Services
From our offices in Bath and Bristol, we work on projects in sectors including residential, heritage, and leisure to identify where new value can be created. Our portfolio of work on individual homes to large scale urban regeneration projects, heritage assets and listed buildings spans our 30 years of experience and covers sites across the UK.
For every commercial project, three elements underpin our approach:
creativity, process and design.
Add to this our awareness of cost, quality and technical regulations, and this combination helps to ensure a smooth project and a high standard of design.
We value the views of our colleagues and gather these through internal critique sessions, in which all levels of staff are involved – from design assistants to directors. By challenging each other, we constantly raise the
bar and continually improve, championing at each stage of the RIBA Plan of Work (planning, design, construction).
Our starting point for every project is always the context – how a place came to be, the way it is now and its inherent potential for the future.
Our Committment
For businesses across the globe, there is much work to be done to achieve a better and more sustainable future. Things cannot continue as they are and there is no room for ‘business as usual’.
As a built environment business that prides itself on understanding ‘context’, showing we understand this global context is important to us. In fact, it’s one of our business priorities.
We have committed to taking a more holistic approach to embedding sustainability into our business model for some time and we’ve applied a great deal of global thinking about the impact of our work - from the projects we
carry out to how we operate as an organisation.
To help bring some structure to our commitment and with much input from across the practice, we chose to align our business with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With our multidisciplinary nature and the breadth of work we undertake – both in the UK and overseas - the SDGs are a good fit for us. Our culture was also an
important factor in deciding the best approach to adopt.
By aligning ourselves with the SDGs, we can monitor and analyse our performance and ensure continuous improvement. To help, we have developed a toolkit to review certain projects we work on as well as our general business operations.
The Agenda for Change
Responding to the climate emergency can seem rather overwhelming. We have broken this down into manageable focused conversations that allow balanced decisions to be made on projects and their impacts. We have used the SDGs to frame the agenda for change working towards sustainable development.
With a target date of 2030, they are applicable equally to developed and developing countries, and public and private sectors. They comprise 17 goals against which progress is being measured internationally. They cover a wide range of issues, from gender equality, health and wellbeing, to poverty, climate action, marine conservation, partnerships and justice.
The goals are supported by a total of 169 targets, which include:
Providing affordable housing
Developing sustainable transport systems
Safeguarding cultural and natural heritage
Reducing impacts from natural disasters
Reducing the environmental impact of cities
Providing safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces
Strengthening national and regional development planning, and increasing the number of cities with integrated policies and plans.
Many others also relate directly, or indirectly, to how we manage the built and natural environment.
The Focus
To enable change
We have chosen to deliberately focus on the following six SDG goals:
SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing
SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG10: Reduced Inequalities
SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG15: Life on Land
We will always consider the effect our work can have and use our skills for positive change.
Essential to create healthy, sustainable communities and buildings and a happy, motivated workforce.
Energy efficiency is of relevance, as well as increasing the proportion of renewables in the energy mix.
Important on regeneration and largescale development projects, and likely to become increasingly important in procurement of public/third sector projects. Important to create a workforce representative of wider society and bring in new perspectives to our work.
All-encompassing goal on the creation of socially inclusive, economically successful and resilient cities.
Focused on prudent use or resources, including prioritising re-use/recycling of buildings.
Fundamental importance of natural environment in the context of the ecological emergency as we enter the Anthropocene.
Our Statements
“ ”
We believe in shaping environments that promote the health and wellbeing of end users and the wider community through their conception, location, design and use.
We believe in shaping settlements, developments and buildings that are at the cutting edge of energy efficiency and integrate the latest in renewable technologies from the earliest stages of design.
“ “ ” ”
We believe in development that promotes inclusion and supports the local economy.
We believe in creating distinctive, vibrant and safe places that foster a good quality of life for the whole community.
We believe in the retention and creative reinvention and recycling of materials, buildings and places.
We believe in the remediation, regeneration and rewilding of existing sites and settlements, to bring people closer to nature and arrest the ecological emergency. “
Designing for Postive Change
How does this translate to you?
We have created a checklist based on our chosen six SDG goals which we consider at the start of a project and as the project completes.
The checklist enables us to ask the right questions whether the project is an individual home or a mixed-use placemaking scheme. Some questions are very simple and some require a more considered thought process, but all are clearly defined to help shape a responsible, commercial, positive and balanced scheme.
We highlight a selection of these questions and our possible considerations below against the six goals.
SDG: 3. Health and Wellbeing
Q. Whether landscape is considered from outset, integrating trees, food growing, ecology and a sense of delight into public realm/landscape design?
A. This might mean that we focus on enhancing biodiversity, integrating sustainable drainage strategies and look at opportunities for food growing.
SDG: 7. Affordable/Clean Energy
Q. Is the use of renewables maximised on-site or within area/ neighbourhood appropriate to context?
A. We would consider optimum locations and orientation for photovoltaics, air or ground source heat pumps, or opportunities for local energy networks.
SDG: 10. Reduced Inequalities
Q. Are local jobs created for disadvantaged groups?
A. We would ask contractors about their apprenticeship schemes to see if there are opportunities for long-term unemployed, homeless, armed forces veterans, returning mothers, disabled people or women to be on their workforce.
SDG: 12. Responsible Consumption and Production
Q. Has ethical and responsible sourcing of all materials been considered?
A. We would prioritise selection of low embodied carbon and healthy materials, minimise materials with high embodied energy impacts and promote use of local natural materials.
SDG: 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
Q. Does the placemaking reflect identity and local character?
A. This is naturally in the Nash DNA but we would look to re-use existing buildings where possible, respect the character of the local area, incorporate key local features, retain key cultural facilities and or provide new ones.
SDG: 15. Life on Land
Q. Is the site left in a better ‘regenerative’ ecological condition than before development?
A. Mindful of the need for Biodiversity Net Gain we would seek to significantly enhance local flora and fauna, and ensure the development is ‘nutrient neutral’ if required.
©
Pete Helme
Progress
We’re now ‘walking the talk’, recording details for all relevant projects enabling us to measure our progress on delivery. We are averaging an overall score of 70% on our priority goals and are reviewing how the SDGs have influenced our work and which goals require more focus in the future so we can improve performance.
70% SDG project performance score
So, what difference have we made?
Here’s a few examples of what we have done to date and what impact has been made to projects:
On a new-build apartment building in Keynsham, the brief was to be carbon neutral operationally. Working with the energy consultant and through use of PHPP modelling we changed the space and hot water heating system to ASHP with MVHR and reconsidered U-values (walls, roofs and floors all at 0.13W/sqmK), and air permeability (3).
ar chitecture
heritage planning
We recently gained listed building consent to replace the glass panes in a Grade II listed Georgian Townhouse’s sash windows with new vacuum insulating glazingthis is one of the first homes in Bath. This will greatly improve the energy efficiency whilst retaining the historical integrity and we are already applying this approach to other similar projects.
We advised a council on sustainable buildings policies, including guidance on adopted policy precedents and appropriate metrics to assess building performance. We provided tiered guidance across different levels of policy ambition, translated technical information into accessible metrics which can be used to assess the highlevel carbon implications of development proposals. Our work supported the client team as they move through the policy development process to make sustainable building principles more accessible and applicable across the development cycle.
We are in the early stages of developing a masterplan for a brownfield factory site to create a mixed-use development with commercial space, homes for older people and new affordable homes. Insight from our in-house Building with Nature Assessor helps us to embed wellbeing, wildlife, and water into the regeneration proposals for the site. The concept embraces the four pillars of sustainability drainage (quantity, quality, amenity, and biodiversity) suggesting swales, ponds, soakaways, and rain gardens across the site. Form factor is minimised by using terraces, roof forms are oriented to accommodate solar panels, and pedestrian-only routes minimise the impact of the car.
On a major individual home project, the initial brief was to demolish a c.8,000sqft existing house and replace it with a substantial new build. Through brief development, embodied carbon considerations and end-value analysis, the existing building was eventually retained, proposing alterations for it to realise the opportunities it presented. As part of a holistic masterplan process, we also reconsidered a collection of disparate ancillary buildings to create opportunity for an additional dwelling, adding further value.
On a number of projects in and around Bath we successfully applied for Listed Building Consent to replace glazing in existing windows with new vacuum glass. Notably, these projects include the first consent achieved on a Grade I listed hotel and also a Grade II listed Georgian Townhouse.
ARCHITECTURE
HERITAGE PROJECTS
Portfolio Snapshot
We have a selection of brochures specific to our services and are happy to share these as required.
Of the many projects Nash has designed or completed, this portfolio illustrates eight in which we are incredibly proud of. These are:
We look forward to hearing from you.
1. Southmead, Bristol
2. Grove House, Bath
3. Bore Hill, Warminster
4. Flourish Farm Shop, Glenavon
5. Hitachi, Trowbridge
6. Bedminster Green, Bristol
7. Water Lane, Exeter
8. American Museum and Garden, Bath
© Pete Helme
Nash Partnership is a leading and award-winning consultancy in Planning, Architecture, Heritage and Placemaking. We blend our skills to create positive change for people, places and buildings.
With over 30 years in business, we operate from offices in Bath and Bristol and extend our services nationally. Our team-focused, creative culture is geared to working with both small and large projects alike – from individual homes to large-scale urban regeneration projects. Working together, our teams share a comprehensive understanding of the built environment, with each project bringing knowledge to the next.
As consultants who help shape the world around us, we take the issues of climate change, biodiversity, equality, social value and wellbeing seriously. This is why we have placed the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the heart of our approach. We always consider the effect our work can have and use our skills for positive change.
Bath Office
23a Sydney Buildings, Bath, BA2 6BZ 01225 442424
Bristol Office
The Generator, Counterslip, Bristol, BS1 6BX 0117 332 7560
London Office
Two Kingdom Street, Paddington, London W2 6BD 0203 7648777
www.nashpartnership.com mail@nashpartnership.com
