Sustainability: A Responsible and Integrated Approach
Since the early 1990s, we have recognised that sustainability is not an adjunct to design but fundamental to its integrity. It has become embedded in the way we conceive, develop and deliver architecture. Our approach reflects a belief that good design is inherently sustainable, an approach now shaped further by the principles of ISO 14001.
Between 2019 and 2021, the practice’s founding director served as Chair of the Construction Industry Council, leading its work on the CIC Climate Change Committee. In alignment with this commitment, Hodder + Partners were among the original signatories to Architects Declare in 2019. And we continue to uphold the principles outlined in the AD Practice Guide, actively promoting awareness, encouraging knowledge-sharing, prioritising re-use, and championing low-carbon construction as a core responsibility of contemporary architectural practice.
Thought this work it has become clear that environmental responsibility is not a matter of stylistic intent, nor of retrofitted solutions. It begins at first principles, with form, orientation, materiality and the discipline of design itself. A project must satisfy the brief while avoiding the needless consumption of resources, both in its construction and in its operation. We see this not as compromise but as opportunity: the opportunity to craft buildings that are refined in purpose and enduring in value.
Our method is quietly rigorous. We adopt passive strategies wherever the context allows, considering first how the built form can work with its environment rather than against it. The fabric of the building is tasked with doing the heavy lifting, modulating internal conditions, softening the extremes and reducing the demand for mechanical intervention. In this, we find not only environmental benefit but also spatial and experiential quality.
A sustainable building must succeed on multiple levels. It must be economically viable, socially purposeful and environmentally responsible. Only then can it be said to have lasting value. Through careful specification and thoughtful detailing, we seek a balance, one that reflects the wider ambition of architecture to serve people, place and time.
Among the earlier projects that shaped this thinking was our Centenary Building for the University of Salford, an inaugural recipient of the Stirling Prize. Its sectional organisation enabled natural ventilation throughout, while its thermal mass tempered the internal climate. It was an early example of how environmental strategy could be seamlessly integrated into architectural language.
At St Catherine’s College, the Arumugam Building continues this principle. Passive cooling strategies are embedded in the design: air is introduced at floor level and naturally exhausted through vertical stacks. The building’s mass helps to stabilise temperature swings, and its environmental performance is not independent of its architectural expression but one and the same.
Sustainability is embedded in every aspect of the RHS Bridgewater Welcome Building, a statement backed up by winning the RIBA Northwest Sustainability Award 2022. It exemplifies a fabric-first, environmentally responsive design. Natural ventilation, high-performance glazing, and external shading reduce energy demand, while a timber structure reinforces its connection to place and the environment. A ground source heat pump provides 78% of heating and efficient cooling without visible plant. Rainwater from the wildflower roof feeds WCs and irrigation via a 45,000-litre tank whilst also sequestering 350 tonnes of carbon. Sustainable drainage, including swales and a stormwater pond, manages runoff on-site, designed for future climate resilience. Architecture and sustainability are seamlessly integrated to reflect both landscape and low-carbon ambition.
No.1 St Michael’s stands as a benchmark for contemporary, sustainable office design at the very heart of Manchester. As a Grade A workspace, it has rightly achieved BREEAM Outstanding – an acknowledgement of its environmental ambition and performance. Complemented by a 5-star NABERS rating, WELL certification, WiredScore Platinum, and SmartScore Gold, the building embodies a holistic approach to sustainability: one that extends well beyond construction to embrace operational longevity, user wellbeing, and technological resilience. It is a development rooted in purpose, context, and responsibility.
In each case, we work in close collaboration with environmental engineers to identify appropriate responses. These are never off-the-shelf, but always rooted in the specifics of place, brief and aspiration. We test the viability of renewable systems not in abstraction but through dialogue, research and environmental modelling. It is a methodical process, shaped by the ISO 14001 framework, that informs our wider environmental management approach.
Ultimately, our ambition is to design architecture that endures, not just in how it is built, but in how it performs. Spaces that are functional, uplifting and efficient. Buildings that do more with less. Projects that respond to their context; social, cultural and environmental, and that give back more than they take.