NET ZERO CARBON | AHMM CASE STUDY NET ZERO CARBON: LESSONS FROM PRACTICE A deep-dive study on net zero carbon by architect AHMM is being put into practice at an ambitious mixed-use project featuring two towers in London. AHMMs Dr Craig Robertson and Dr Simon Hatherley share lessons learned A rchitects often feel like the captain of the ship in a design team coordinating the geometry, structure and services of a building is complex, and requires input from everyone in the project team. This can feel particularly challenging when approaches, remits, scope and ways of thinking are different in various disciplines across the design team. The reframing of building performance to focus on carbon over the past few years has, we think, given teams a renewed common purpose; a single factor by which to measure the effectiveness of collective decisions. Institutional and collaborative industry efforts to codify this focus have helped create impetus: the RIBA 2030 Challenge and LETIs Climate Emergency Design Guide in particular. Upcoming industry-wide collaborations such as the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will, hopefully, refine the upper limits of our building carbon budgets. While having international clients across a wide range of sectors, the majority of Allford Hall Monaghan Morriss (AHMMs) work is in London. It is often mixed use, on tight urban sites, large scale and commercially driven. The practice has a history of collaborative working at projects such as at the White Collar Factory, where the building works as a holistic system thanks to the close partnership with the structural and MEP engineers. In 2018 and 2019, when much of the above guidance was beginning to emerge, it became clear that it was not really reflective of the Key Services Stairs Internal construction External walls Roof Superstructure Substructure Operational energy 26 February 2023 www.cibsejournal.com kind and scale of project on which we work. It did reflect the constraints and opportunities in our projects. We decided to do something about that, and set up a collaboration with University College Londons (UCLs) Institute of Environmental Engineering. We have collaborated with UCL in the past on post-occupancy evaluation, which won the CIBSE Barker Silver Medal bit.ly/ CJFeb23AHMM1, but this was a bigger commitment two years to take a deep dive into the most pressing issue facing our industry and to propose new ways of working. The project, which included workshops featuring industry consultants and AHMM architects, took the form of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership, designed to benefit research institutions, businesses and researchers. The output of the research, funded by AHMM and Innovate UK, seeks to understand the opportunities and challenges Understanding net zero whole life carbon Net zero principles are being applied to this real world Canada Water project