Submission by Níall McLaughlin Architects.
Being a good ancestor
Practice
1. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
Our practice is acutely aware of the role architecture plays in relation to the climate and biodiversity emergency the planet currently faces. We promote practices that avoid breaching planetary boundaries and encourage awareness and discussion with our clients and collaborators towards achieving this critical aim.
We are a signatory of Architects Declare, and the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge including the embedded targets set by the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI). We are ISO 9001 certified and supported by an in-house Passivhaus certified designer.
We also have a carbon reduction plan in place, including a 5-year roadmap for reducing the office’s carbon footprint. We also share resources internally and externally, and keep abreast of sustainable developments.
2. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
In recent years, the practice moved from a sole trader status to a limited company (under a single principal), and more recently appointed four additional directors, each with over ten years’ experience at the practice, to help orient and lead the practice moving forward into the future. These promotions are also reflective of high staff retention across the office.
Promoting and working towards the RIBA 2030 target is also a firm part of our office policy and future direction. Changing the practice into an EOT is an opportunity that is currently being actively considered.
3. Do you share research and knowledge for the benefit of society and the wider world?
We regularly lectures across the UK and internationally, sharing projects, insights into regenerative working, sustainable milestones, and lessons from working with local materials and craftspeople in project development.
Examples include the use of locally sourced Cop Crag sandstone from neighbouring Northumberland for the Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland, laid by local stonemasons. The leadership team also contributes to sustainability-focused conferences and publications, sharing findings across the practice.
We carry out post-occupancy evaluations on completed projects, revisiting buildings with clients and sharing data with the RIBA as part of the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge. At Somerville College, we supported ongoing maintenance cycles, learning from how the building performed and weathered while helping the college implement enhancements to future-proof it.
We are also refurbishing two projects originally built by our practice more than 30 years ago, upgrading them to meet today’s performance standards.
Project
1. Do you advocate for long-term thinking at the outset of work? Do you initiate work with long-term thinking and challenge clients? Also, can the organisation demonstrate that this approach has worked?
We often work in conservation areas and with listed buildings that have stood for centuries, and are similarly committed to our buildings achieving a long design life through well detailed and well specified material forms.
During the initial design stages, we work with our consultant teams to identify and advise clients on design life and running costs of projects by providing options and recommendations, allowing clients to make informed long-term decisions.
For example, the New Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge has an anticipated 400-year lifespan, designed to meet the client’s brief of longevity from the outset. Building materials have been considered to age with quality, such as the oak window frames, currently bright and golden, should weather to a silvery grey to match the old buildings’ stone tracery.
2. Does your work take account of the future climate and the need for resilience?
Flexibility and adaptability are central to our design process, enabling future changes in layout and use where possible. We prioritise durable core forms alongside adaptable fit-outs and finishes, while specifying low-carbon, natural and renewable materials such as timber, brick and stone.
We promote re-use over demolition, challenging clients through embodied carbon calculations using up-to-date assessment tools in-house. We also consider future climate performance, including solar shading, natural cooling and additional capacity for increased rainfall.
Where practical, we design for demountable architecture. Our education centre for the built environment in Hull was designed to move between sites, with the building itself acting as an educational tool that expresses its structural and environmental systems.
The project reflects local stories and industries through materials and products made in Hull. Formed from a reusable kit of parts, the upturned caravans reference both the building’s mobile nature and Hull’s caravan manufacturing industry.
3. Does the majority of your work go beyond mitigating negatives and towards optimising positives?
Together with our clients we search for the optimisation of positives wherever possible. The majority of our current and future projects strive to meet and exceed the Leti and RIBA 2030 targets, including the Maggie’s Centre which is currently on-site.
Co-evolving with nature
Practice
1. Do you use biophilia within your premises and/or do you regularly gather in natural settings?
We have always been particular on our office space provision. We used natural materials where possible, and use natural ventilation and daylight in all rooms with plants on window sills. We all share one generous open office with separate quiet and meeting spaces, and a communal kitchen with seating around a large central table. We have models and presentation drawings on all walls and many spaces are lined with books from our extensive architectural library. We encourage our staff to access the outside spaces and nearby parks on their breaks, including the summer softball we partake in. We value communal spaces in our workplace, allowing the team to gather together, and our new office has a shared garden, allowing our colleagues to socialise outdoors during their breaks too.
2. Can you share examples of where you have considered nature in decision making?
As a practice we celebrate the beauty of nature and its seasons in our working live and projects.
Many of our projects are driven by the natural context and landscape they occupy, and many of our masterplans are designed with a focus on landscape and garden spaces that are framed by buildings. Open spaces are derived through careful study of trees, roots, the path of the sun, prevailing wind directions and other aspects that regulate nature and positively impact our daily lives. We also collaborate with specialised landscape designers and architects to maximise biodiversity net gain.
Where possible, projects directly derive their design principles from the path of the sun, with solstices and equinoxes being celebrated within particular spaces.
3. Are you supporting nature locally and nationally?
As members of Architect Declare and RIBA 2030 we are explicit in our recognition of the need to live within planetary boundaries. We work, consult and collaborate intensely to share, spread and build on these values. We continue to support efforts to improve legislation, such as lobbying the government to make embodied carbon targets part of the Building Regulations.
Additionally, team members are encouraged to participate in voluntary work, which has included pro-bono commitments to design a Forest Garden at a local primary school, and supporting gardening activities for young children at a nursery.
Project
1. Can you demonstrate work that strives to match the performance of a mature ecosystem?
We routinely aim to achieve biodiversity net gain whenever the option is presented.
At University College Oxford, the overall design has been led by the existing trees, making spaces as a response to the landscape, and introducing water onto the site; creating a socially sustainable environment for residents. Additionally, there is extensive tree-planting (broad-leaved and native species) proposed at the Ismaili Funeral Pavilion and woodland burial ground in Farnham, designed in collaboration with Landscape Architects Kim Wilkie and Camlins, to create a tranquil, woodland environment.
We are also proposing an internal greenhouse on our new Maggie’s centre, both for the reparative and relaxing benefits it brings to visitors, but also the lessons on growing and tending to plants it can provide.
2. Are you working on material stewardship?
We carry out embodied carbon calculations throughout the design stages of our projects to support informed decisions that reduce whole-life carbon, using established databases such as ICE to inform our assessments.
We prioritise low-impact and local materials, working closely with consultants and clients to expand knowledge and learn from previous projects. Where possible, we incorporate structural stone and timber/CLT, and are exploring the use of thatched roofing and rammed earth in current schemes.
We regularly undertake CPDs, many focused on sustainability, to stay informed about low-carbon materials and continuously upskill our staff.
Where more carbon-intensive materials are required, we ensure components are durable, recyclable or demountable to support long life and future reuse. At Salt Marsh House, the building was assembled on-site using a steel kit of parts with bolted connections, allowing the structure to be demounted in the future and maximising opportunities for replacement, reuse and recyclability.
3. Does the majority of your work demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches such as Bioregionalism, Biophilia or Biomimicry?
No.
Creating a just space for people
Practice
1. Do you have a progressive EDI policy and can you evidence many forms of diversity, which are welcomed and acknowledged, within your company/organisation?
We employ a diverse and gender-balanced work force, blind-scoring interview candidates as part of our recruitment process. We also offer work experience for our local community, and support outreach taster days through our connections to the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
Born out an EDI working group, we have set our aspirations in a clear policy and acknowledged we can always continue to do more to make our office as diverse and welcoming for all types of people.
2. Do you operate a no overtime culture, meet the living wage consistently, and stipulate a fair salary ratio between staff of all levels?
Salaries follow our own internal guidelines and are equitable between all staff at each level. They are regularly bench-marked to comparative practices in London/UK through HR networks and other recruitment sources. We discourage overtime and award time off in lieu on rare occasions when it occurs.
3. Do you support charities, community groups, social enterprises, action groups and others through pro-bono work, charitable giving or in-kind donations?
Every year we welcome students from local schools and underprivileged communities to partake in work experience and share what it means to be an architect with them. We also volunteer at workshops, give talks that are often run through these schools.
Team members are also actively involved in volunteer initiatives such as gardening at local schools, and we are currently exploring the introduction of set volunteering days for our employees.
4. Do you use an ethical framework to assess opportunities and/or supply chain partners and is them team consulted on these decisions?
All potential work is evaluated against the practice’s ethos and values.
Project
1. Does your work demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users?
Designing for any client, but particularly as we often design for religious communities, elderly communities, underprivileged communities, we endeavour to include them in design discussions through the life of the design.
For example, at a care home in Camden, we engaged with locals to share their wishes for the care home through postcards, as a safe and confidential way to share what individuals felt they would value for their new home. While at Bishop Auckland, we hosted Archaeology days for local communities to attend, explore and learn more about the site.
Across our projects, many of our clients would be prepared to speak about how committed we are to constructive consultation and intense client and stakeholder engagement at all stages of the design.
2. Does your work create connected and resilient communities which positively contribute to neighbourhoods and allow equality of access?
Most of our projects take on a very public role, and we strive to make them accessible to the widest audience, while also improving the micro and macro contexts with which they are located.
For example at Bishop Auckland, the Welcome Building and the Faith Building were part of a regeneration of the local economy through cultural activation, bringing tourism and creating a sense of destination for the town.
Similarly Deal Pier is still a popular destination for visitors, and has increased employment for the local community.
3. Does the majority of your work promote equity in society, and consider all people, not only building inhabitants
As a practice, we have designed for religious communities from across different faiths, elderly communities and underprivileged communities. Through all our work we endeavour to create spaces that people feel welcome and can foster a community.
When projects are ongoing, we work with contractors, subcontractors and craftspeople with established reputations, and many of the contractors and sub-contractors are those that we have worked with over the years across a number of projects, and have built strong relationships with on-site.