Max Fordham Consulting

Increasingly, it's an industry referred to as environmental engineering, and we're very comfortable with that. Where once the engineer's lot was 'pipes and wires', now it encompasses everything from daylighting and acoustics to building physics and sustainability. In essence, everything that impacts on the internal environment of a building and its performance. Our approach differs from that of conventional environmental building services engineers. Each member of our team is trained in electrical and mechanical engineering, environmental design and building physics.

Our low energy lighting strategies seamlessly integrate natural light and artificial lighting to deliver beautifully lit, visually pleasing environments. We understand that designing great lighting means addressing both the technical and the human needs of the project. Our designs aim to be energy efficient, accurate and easy to live with as well as interesting, beautiful and inspiring. Fittings at Nevill Holt Opera were selected to meet the architect's vision of a 'raw' aesthetic, in keeping with the original agricultural use of the building.

We solve problems through engineering to create elegant, practical solutions. We always aim to reduce waste, particularly of energy. We prefer natural systems and we strive to seamlessly integrate engineering efficiency into every detail of a building. Our core service combines the traditional mechanical, electrical, public health and lift engineering design services with low energy design and integration of renewable energy technologies. That is the fundamental approach we uniquely take to our engineering.

Passivhaus is a challenging international energy and comfort standard, with a uniquely hands-on process of delivery. In many ways it is a formalisation of Max Fordham's approach to building design that has been applied over the past 50 years. Passivhaus has been shown to deliver buildings with a smaller performance gap between design and reality. It requires a strong buy-in from the whole design team, and environmental engineering is no exception. Having worked on some of the largest and tallest Passivhaus projects in the UK, Max Fordham are comfortable delivering Passivhaus at any scale.