Main Stage

Keynote: Levelling Up, Net Zero and Essex: A National and Local Perspective. Tom Walker, Executive Director Economy, Investment and Public Health, Essex County Council

Tom is the Executive Director of Economy, Investment and Public Health and is leading on both Devolution and Levelling up for Essex County Council. Tom was the Director of the Levelling Up Taskforce in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities responsible for writing the Levelling Up White Paper. Tom was a civil servant for over 23 years working on economic growth, regeneration, housing, planning and environment policy. He was previously Director of Environment Strategy at Defra (2019-21), Deputy Chief Executive at Homes England (2017-2019) and Director of the Cities and Local Growth Unit in BEIS and MHCLG (2014-2017).

Low Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI). Dr Joe Jack Williams, LETI Member and Partner and Passivhaus Consultant at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Joe Jack is an Associate and researcher at FCBStudios and, alongside Ian Taylor, leads environmental research at the practice, identifying, developing and enabling research across sectors and projects. His specialism is the influence of the school building on the students studying within, measuring perceptions, environmental performance and building forms as well as predicting, measuring and mitigating carbon impacts of architecture. He has taught at a number of universities in the UK and is part of core research groups within Architects Declare, CIBSE and LETI.

The power of people in the reduction of energy consumption: A case study . Dr Samantha Mudie, Head of Energy, University of Reading

Though behaviour change is often largely overlooked as a tangible and sustainable way of reducing consumption, this couldn’t be further from the truth. This talk aims to take participants through engaging staff in the reduction of energy and emissions and presents one of the highest return on investment projects Dr Mudie has delivered to date. She will present the format and results of a year-long behaviour change campaign and the lessons learnt to roll it out at the University of Reading, discussing elements such as initial feasibility assessment, measurement and verification of findings, competitions, interventions, rewards/incentives.

Dr Sam Mudie is Head of Energy at the University of Reading as well as an energy reduction consultant specialising in the hospitality sector. Her doctoral thesis, “Energy Reduction in Commercial Catering”, has resulted in 8 award-winning peer-reviewed academic journal papers. This research measured the energy consumption attributed to appliances, menus and staff behaviours within the food service industry for the first time. Her subsequent projects have resulted in a range of successful energy reduction initiatives over the last decade, achieving millions of pounds worth of savings. She is currently working on multi-million pound heat pumps, a behaviour change campaign and several equipment replacement projects at the university and in the private sector.

Roundtable: How far can changing behaviour go to achieving net zero? Facilitated by Alex Gee, Vice President, SPACES

Alex is a strategic director with experience working across the public, private and international sectors.

He has spent the last 18 years in senior roles, leading and transforming multi-disciplinary teams into successful commercial operations.

For the last 10 years, Alex has been Operations Director at the Norse Group, with responsibility for the successful delivery of multi-disciplinary property services, leading two Joint Venture companies: NPS Peterborough Ltd with Peterborough City Council, Norse Evolve Ltd with the London Borough of Waltham Forest; and Norse Archaeology.

In addition to his responsibilities in Peterborough, Alex has spent the last 18months as Interim Head of Property at Cambridgeshire County Council, working closely with the Energy Investment Unit supporting the implementation of zero carbon projects.

Prior to the Norse Group, Alex was Head of Project Co-Ordination for UNEP-WCMC leading on the commercial viability of international environmental projects that ranged from preserving International Protected Areas to Climate Change, working across Institutions such as the UN, the EU and International NGOs.

Alex specialises in delivering strategic projects that require multi-partner collaborations to facilitate change and building high performing teams that focus on delivering commercial benefits.

Breakouts/Workshops

Decarbonising the Campus – retrofitting 1960s buildings to EnerPHit standard, John Thornberry, Sustainability Consultant. Pick Everard

John’s presentation will cover:

• the sitewide BGS campus Decarbonisation Strategy
• 3x existing multi-storey 1960s office/ research/ refectory buildings, retrofitted to Certified EnerPHit standard
• Contrast of the 3 other existing (more recent) office/ research buildings being upgraded in same project to (just) LETI Retrofit standard.
• Project organisational and commercial considerations experienced when designing and constructing to EnerPHit standard.

John is currently a Sustainability Consultant for Pick Everard and Founding Director of John Thornberry Architecture, a Chartered Architect and RIBA Client Adviser consultancy.

His experience covers 30 years promoting Sustainable Design, providing advice on strategic and applied sustainable building design and innovation. As an Education design specialist, he assists the SPACES working group and the Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) leadership team.

Following 2 years as Head of Development living ‘off-grid’ and designing sustainable schools in Zambia, Central Africa, John designed the first UK pathfinder sustainable school in 1997 at AHMM Architects and first Zero Carbon school in 2002, going on to assist the development of BREEAM Schools for the DfE.

Formerly as the Operations Director of NPS Property Consultants and Managing Director of Barron+Smith Architects, he devised and led transformational business change within Publicly owned design consultancies, evolving their sustainability and Passivhaus practice from 2010.

John established his own Consultancy in 2018 providing strategic and project leadership as Demco InteriorsManaging Director and WF Education- Group Head of Projects, developing education projects worldwide. He has carried out strategic monitoring assessment of the design and delivery of multi-billion Euro national education building programmes across Spain, Portugal, Greece and Romania, as the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) specialist technical consultant.
At Pick Everard he has a companywide Sustainability Consultant role, inputting into projects and implementing sustainability training, culture and processes across their 700 staff and 13 offices.

Having been involved in the design of 150 Passivhaus buildings utilising 6 forms of construction, including the RIBA Stirling Prize shortlisted Carrowbreck Meadows development, during ‘COVID lockdown’ John took on the challenge of designing and self-building his own contemporary passive house using MMC.

John is a RIBA Professional Practice External Examiner for the University of Westminster and UWE, Bristol.

Outside of work, he is an enthusiastic 1965 Jaguar E-type owner and leads voluntary teams building community projects across sub-Saharan Africa (both noted as relatively high carbon, but worthy activities).

DfE Standards and Guidance: Workshop supporting new and existing Education Estates. Julia Gollings, Standards & Guidance Architect and Lead, Daniel Bradder, Standards & Guidance Architect and Sally-Anne Balmer, Standards & Guidance Architect.

User feedback workshop for those involved in supporting new and existing education estates and developments

We want to hear from you….

From a ‘user’s’ experience of the Department for Education’s (DfE) published Output Specification, Building Bulletins and associated tools including the Schedule of Accommodation (SoA), we want to hear what works well and what needs improvement.
We are particularly interested to hear about:

• What DfE standards and guidance you use?
• How you access this information?
• What further information would support your role(s)?

We would love to hear from Responsible Bodies, Contractors, Designers, Suppliers etc., so please join us to share your views on how we should update and communicate DfE technical standards and design guidance.

Julia is an Architect with over 20 years’ experience designing and building school buildings and grounds for the public and private sector.

Julia joined the DfE from private practice in 2021 to support capital delivery as a Design Advisor and to act as Technical Lead for the implementation of the DfE’s ISO 19650 aligned Information Management Resources at framework level and the Design Team’s Digital Strategy. Julia now heads up the team tasked with developing a new digital information hub for DfE standards, guidance and tools based on user-focused evidence to support all schools and colleges across England.

Dan is an Architect with over 15 years’ experience spanning Local Authority, traditional practice, and multidisciplinary firms. Dan studied Architecture and Environmental Design and his interest has remained in civic architecture. His career has specialised in the design and delivery of projects varying in scale across both healthcare and education sectors, including complex refurbishment and new build.

Dan’s focus is finding the “common ground” across the Standards & Guidance relating to the educational estate, ensuring that good quality design, fair and sustainable provision is accessible for all.

Sally-Anne is an Architect with over 15 years of experience in the construction services industry. Initially working in private practice with experience of designing and delivering a combination of Conservation, Educational, Ecclesiastical, Leisure and Commercial projects, Sally-Anne then joined a company that specialises in the development of UK construction specification guidance and templates.

Sally-Anne joined the DfE in 2022 to support capital delivery as a Design Advisor and to focus on the rationalisation and re-presentation of DfE standards, guidance and tools to support usability and accessibility for all.

Net Zero Starts with Cutting Energy Waste Jonathon Hunter Hill, Sector Manager Education, SAV Systems

Jonathon Hunter Hill: Sector Manager – Education is a passionate advocate for MVHR, Jonathon is the Product Manager for AirMaster decentralized MVHR and Energi Raven, with a wider emphasis on improving energy efficiency in schools to meet our Net Zero goals. Jonathon has worked with many local authorities over the years. With an existing relationship to The City of Edinburgh Council, in April 2021, he secured Passivhaus Component Certification for one of AirMaster’s MVHR units. Following university, Jonathon joined SAV Systems and has worked there for the past 9 years.

Passivhaus, a constructor’s perspective Matthew Ramplin, Senior Contracts Manager, Barnes Construction.

Matthew is going to talk through the risks and pitfalls associated with achieving passivhaus on a scheme recently completed for Girton Town Charity in Cambridge. A contractor’s perspective of the project risks associated with this form of construction, our management of these and what we discovered. This will appeal to architects considering specifying passivhaus standards, designers considering offering passivhaus solutions and contractors who have not yet experienced the joys of passivhaus construction.

Matthew Ramplin, a Member of the Chartered Institute Of Building and Senior Contracts Manager for Barnes Construction with 25 years of construction experience, 19 of those years with current employer. Over the last 5 years my focus has been on building our reputation and growth in the Cambridge market with particular focus on university college projects and sustainable construction. Moving forward as my role develops, I will provide a global view across the business for all our construction projects.

Radically reducing operational energy: Harris Academy Sutton. Christian Dimbleby, Associate and Chartered Engineer, Archtype

Harris Academy Sutton is the first secondary school in the UK to meet the Passivhaus standard, in so delivering a beautiful learning environment and a focus on health and wellbeing. The SPACES Awards 2021 – Civic Building of the Year and Sustainability Category Winner, and RIBA London Sustainability Award 2022 among other accolates.

In his talk, associate and Passivhaus designer Christian Dimbleby will explore how Architype took lessons learnt from more than 10 years of Passivhaus projects to push the boundaries of scale and design in this award-winning sustainable school in Sutton.

His presentation will cover working with contractor and client to upskill and educate, simplifying complexity and detailing for contractors, as well as favouring low-carbon and biophilic materials to create a truly exemplar green space – a blueprint for a new generation of schools.

Christian is a dual-qualified Architect and CIBSE Chartered Engineer. Since joining Architype, he has developed a specialism of delivering radically low energy in-use and truly sustainable educational projects – from early years to university buildings.

He has delivered some of the studio’s most ambitious and complex designs, including The Enterprise Centre at the UEA – featured in COP26 Virtual Pavilion; Harris Academy Passivhaus Secondary School in Sutton, and the Passivhaus Plus Hackbridge Primary School, ‘The UK’s first net zero school’. He is currently advising a number of leading organisations to help them monitor and meet their sustainability goals in the face of the climate emergency.

Stourton Park & Ride – The first fully solar powered Park & Ride in the UK Nick Beckett, Associate Architect, NPS Leeds.

Nick’s presentation will cover:

• Introduction to me, Norse Consulting, the project and my role
• Stourton Park and Ride Context, ambitions of the City, project objectives, consultation
• Design concept, consistent branding
• Engineering principles, shift to modular, sustainable design
• Finished product, awards won.
• Project statistics: Cost, programme, sustainable credentials

Nick has worked in commercial industry for 17 years, where he qualified as an architect in 2008. His early career was primarily site based, producing technical information and specifications and worked in a variety of sectors including Student Accommodation, Education, Retail and Public Realm.

He joined NPS in 2012 working across a variety of projects. His specialism is in education, and delivers Education, Park & Ride and Community Hub programmes for Leeds City Council with his team.

Understanding the State of the Estate: Energy league tables and how to deliver low carbon retrofit. Colin Jackson, Senior Design Manager and Michael Chater, Senior Architect, Hampshire County Council.

Colin will begin the session by setting out the scale of the challenge to de-carbonise Hampshire’s estate. A working group has developed an innovative on line tool which maps energy use to define the ‘shape of the estate’ from a carbon perspective. This allows pin point understanding of energy use and underpins the decarbonisation strategy by highlighting areas of priority.

Mike will present a case study which focuses on one such priority; SCOLA schools. The ‘Towards Net Zero SCOLA’ pilot is a demonstration project to ascertain whether a low carbon refurbishment can deliver the same performance, comfort and climate reslience as new build ; but at lower cost and even lower carbon impact.

Colin jointly leads Hampshire County Council’s in-house Property Services team of some 400 staff, with its long-established reputation as the leading public property practice in the UK.

An architect by training, he oversees a multi-disciplinary team of 100 or so designers, including architects, engineers, landscape architects and interior designers and leads on climate change for the County Council’s built estate.

With over 30 years’ experience at HCC’s Property Services, Colin is an expert in stewardship of the public estate for future generations, deeply committed to the transformational role designing for both people and planet can play in building society.

Mike Chater is a principal architect with Hampshire County County Council Property Services. He has 25 years experience in public sector projects in both education and residential sectors.

For the last 14 years, Mike has played an active role in the development of Soft Landings and the push for the wider adoption of building performance evaluation within the construction industry. In 2021 he authored RIBA’s Plan for Use guidance and now manages its implementation on Hampshire projects.