Tertiary Level Treatment to the Sanitary Waste, River Mersey, Liverpool

If there’s one thing we’ve learned makes better buildings, it’s empathy. Architecture never happens in isolation—and simply by being interested and engaged, we’ve found it’s possible to open up the conversations that connect a scheme to its clients and community.

We believe that the more constraints there are, the better the architecture. If there aren’t any constraints, we create them. Challenging sites, existing buildings and complex briefs almost always present incredible opportunities for great design.

To limit our environmental impact, we start with what is already there. By manipulating the form and fabric of a building—whether new or existing—we can work with the existing conditions of topography, light and orientation, and harness the natural energy sources offered by air, ground and water.

If a site’s constraints guide the bigger design decisions, then it’s empathy that informs the smaller, social details. These details frame the human narratives that aren’t included in the brief, anticipating specific moments in the users’ lives.

Good architecture is as much about what happens on the building site as it is about what’s on the drawing board. By working alongside contractors as well as clients we can ring-fence the ideas and details that matter, championing quality and sustainability throughout construction.

Curl la Tourelle Head

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In the context of a changing climate, resource depletion and growing disparity between communities, the big idea is to find ways that will ensure present and future generations can adapt to a continually changing playbook.

Working with Prof. Trevor Butler, we got together and zoomed out on google earth to look at the interface between land and sea – the coastline of the UK – to seek how our oceanic environmental impact can be transformed through good practices that also solve some atmospheric issues at the same time. Now, that sounds like a big idea, that would be best examined in practical terms and on a local scale and expressed through a combined approach of small ideas working together.

Providing a tertiary level of treatment to the sanitary waste such that all effluent discharged is suitable for re-use and a non-potable water supply. As seen in examples around the world, cleaned effluent is a valuable water supply for irrigation and flushing.

Our next small idea is to provide heating needs by geoexchange through the ground and powered by PV panels – with potential for tidal flow energy to be provided.