Sustainable Architects
About us
Scenario Architecture launched in 2007 with the ambition to revolutionise urban living for a savvy, style-conscious population. Our residential designs sit comfortably and beautifully within their environment, using advanced technology and sustainability measures.
Living sustainably is as important to our clients as space and light, so we arm ourselves with the latest eco-friendly and cost-effective building solutions. We’ve partnered with environmental-design specialists and developed concrete opportunities for future-proofing every home we design.
Our compliant Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond packages offer tangible reductions to your environmental footprint.With each increased investment, our clients save on running costs, construction fees and planning delays. For new-build houses, especially, these rigorous sustainability standards deliver a quick return on investment.
Projects
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Sustainable Architects
Sustainable Architects
Sustainable Architects
Your Sustainable project
Embracing sustainability in architecture is no passing fad. Sustainability is embedded in our design approach, and our solutions improve year on year. With each project, we seek to reduce consumption and improve energy efficiency both during the construction phase and thereafter.
When you work with Scenario, you direct not only the look and feel of your home but also the environmental standards. We’ll make sure the choices you make will be achievable, cost-effective and sustainable in the long term.
Tip
Discover if your architect has had success steering planning applications through your local council. Visit the “planning applications” page of your council’s website and enter the architect’s name in the search criteria.
Scenario is an established architecture practice focusing on contemporary residential design. We take on projects of every scale and scope, from home refurbishment, renovation and expansions to new-builds.
Working with Scenario Architecture
Scenario is a RIBA Chartered Practice complying with the strict criteria of the Royal Institute of Chartered Architects. We use innovative 3D design, visualisation tools and 3D building information modelling (BIM) technology as standard on all projects. Using this cutting-edge technology collaboratively with consultants and contractors is proven to save our clients time and money.
A Chartered Institute of Building case study featuring a Scenario project demonstrates the great benefits of this advanced technology for domestic architecture.
Sustainable Architects
In our client's words
Sustainable Architects
Great ideas and vision to help with our substantial improvement of a Victorian terrace. In our experience Scenario's method prioritises the final result. That may mean more professional fees or higher quotes from contractors, as they understand the exact requirements.
Sustainable Architects
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
Sustainable Architects
Scenario Architecture have created an outstanding design and space that was beyond my expectations. The design was through their unique process of understanding the client’s daily scenarios and collaborating with the client to come up with a unique design. The design process is one of the most memorable parts of the process and they also stretched my existing ideas to help create this unique space. A stress free journey throughout the whole process which Scenario were indispensable by giving advice on many difficult design and build decisions.
Sustainable Architects
We wanted to renovate our house in a conservation area in central London. Given this involved a complete demolition and new build with an extra floor on top, getting planning approval was always going to be tricky. Scenario did an amazing job on the new house 'envelope' and throughout the planning phase. We couldn't have wished for better from them and having succeeded in gaining planning approval owe them a very big 'thank you'.
Sustainable Architects
Scenario were great at thinking imaginatively and coming up with a design for a ground floor extension that was more ambitous than other architects we spoke to. They also helped us find a contractor who was able to complete the project working within timescale and our tight budget. I would recommend for mid to large sized projects with sufficient budget to allow for full utilisation of their creativity.
Further Reading
We all want to live a more sustainable life. In our daily lives we’re consuming less, recycling more, and when it comes to where we live, many of us are staying put: improving instead of moving. Yet even renovating can be a huge polluter. Refurbishing an existing space consumes energy from the production of new materials, resource-consumption, energy-usage and waste-disposal. The UK will fail to meet its sustainability objectives unless we drastically reduce our construction emissions and emissions from our day-to-day living. That’s where a good architect can come in.
Like many architects, we believe that design a house more efficiently – and designing a house to be more energy-efficient – is a step toward meeting our climate goals. Yet the restrictions involved in retrofitting heritage architecture can make the process very complicated. We have made strides recently to control our construction material, recycle existing materials, use prefabricated elements and reduce waste. We incorporate eco-friendly, cost-effective elements into the homes we design, thanks to our partnerships with environmental-design specialists. With every new sustainability measure we introduce, our clients save on running costs, construction fees and planning delays.
If you want to improve your heritage house with sustainability measures, we recommend starting with a few essentials. First, make sure every room is insulated and air-tight, equipped with triple-glazed windows and fitted with a mechanical ventilation system, an energy-efficient vented air-quality system that is extremely cheap to run. If rebuilding the roof, a timber-frame version is more energy efficient than steel.
Install low-energy lighting, low-flow shower heads and insulation for the hot-water tank. A smart-energy meter will help you manage water and energy use and identify any leaks. And a thermostat with a timer will keep heat-consumption at a minimum in the cold months.
Use non-toxic paints, stains and sealants. And salvage materials where you can – a few remnants of tile could cover a bathroom or an oven splashback. Ditto marble, which can be sliced off an existing cut. Salvage timber and brick from your local area – using a local architect and builder can be helpful for knowing what’s out there. Antique gates, grates and mantels can be expensive, but they provide priceless peace of mind. Avoid concrete, a major pollutant, where possible.
And finally: if you’re redesigning your garden, investigate native plants that require little water, and avoid high-maintenance lawns. Plant trees near south- and east-facing windows to control heat in the summer.
Sustainable architecture is a priority in London, as increasing numbers of residents look for ways to reduce their environmental impacts from home. Sustainable building and design strategies can result in drastic reductions of energy usage, saving money and resources for homeowners as well as keeping the environment healthy.
Architects experienced in sustainable building must be engaged to develop tailored solutions and consider local climate trends, landscape features, and building regulations. Sustainable construction projects should focus on renewable energy sources, passive cooling solutions, natural ventilation systems, biodegradable or recycled materials wherever possible, and energy efficiency – all necessary components for a successful green project in London.
Frequently Asked Questions
- As a dynamic practice operating in London’s premium residential market, managing projects remotely and conducting virtual meetings was a very familiar territory for us, long before the pandemic began and ‘working remotely’ became the norm.
- Our clients have very busy lifestyles and may move between several different locations, both within the UK and beyond, during the lifecycle of a typical project.
- To accommodate such client needs and enable us to run their projects smoothly we had all the technology and know-how associated with remote working in place for several years.
- Read our full (Virtual) Process
- Scenario based design – We start each and every project with a meticulous analysis of our client’s vision, requirements and aspirations. We do this by asking our clients to imagine their everyday scenarios living in the completed house and describe their desired interaction with it.
- Uniquely interactive - Our client’s deep involvement in the process does not stop with completion of the brief. Our design meetings are highly interactive, informal and fun.
- Designed to reflect you – Based purely on your lifestyle, aspirations and requirements and free from externally imposed concepts, metaphors and pre-conceptions, a completely fresh and unique design will gradually emerge and it will tell your story not ours.
- Collaborative – We start the conversation with planners early and advise most of our clients to seek pre-planning advice prior to submission of a full planning application. Our experience shows that when properly consulted and liaised with, most planning case officers will be receptive to conduct a professional dialogue, increasing chances of successes.
- Strategic – We tailor a custom planning strategy for each project based on its circumstances such as planning history, local context and specific challenging elements. We sometimes split applications or introduce minor tweaks to the scheme during the consideration period in conversation with the officers to prevent one contentious element from jeopardising approval of the main scheme.
- Professional – Our experience shows that the quality and clarity of the submission in terms of background research, planning history of the property and context, precedent and of course the arguments presented to support the case has a tremendous effect on success rate.
- The decision period clock only starts ticking once the application is validated by the Council, This requires then to check that the forms are completed correctly and that the submission contains all the necessary drawings, statements and reports.
- Although required by law to provide a decision within the statutory eight weeks period, it is not uncommon for councils to miss the deadline of the consideration period, normally only by a few days, sometimes longer.
- In some cases the council may ask us as your agent for an extension of time, this may be requested due to internal reasons or as an acceptable result of a professional discussion that we are conducting with them about certain aspects of the application that they are not sure about.
- Our experience shows that planning officers respond better to projects when they feel consulted and collaborated with. We find that when we truly listen to their often helpful and valid feedback and treat them as consultants for the projects and not representative of an evil enforcing authority, they tend to collaborate well with us and demonstrate increased flexibility.
- Although the council in theory have eight weeks to consider your application, in practice they are constantly overloaded. They will only look at your application in the last few days of the consideration period. If this is the first time that they come across a scheme that they were never consulted about, our chance to secure permission for you in a single attempt is significantly compromised.
- The standard practice is for the council to consider the full planning application as submitted and then issue a yes or no decision. Case officers are not required or even encouraged to enter a discussion with us or accept resubmission of minor changes to the proposed scheme during the consideration period.