The Portman Estate Pattern Book
Location
London
Area
Status
In Progress
Year
2025
Client
The Portman Estate
The Pattern Book guidance document for The Portman Estate, was intended to explain a scaleable retrofit strategy focused on repeatable and reliable building fabric and mechanical and electrical interventions. These interventions would improve the existing building stock and reduce carbon emissions whilst responding to the challenges of the historic nature of the buildings, the leasing arrangements and conservation area status.
Creating impact through estate-wide planning and insight
Net Zero Carbon
How do you plan the best approach to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 for buildings of different typologies, ages, uses, and conditions?
Net Zero Carbon Estates Strategies
A Passivhaus informed approach to retrofit planning
Passivhaus
How do we support major estate owners to logically plan their journeys towards meeting their net zero targets?
EnerPHit informed Retrofit Planning
Vision
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add a Title
Add a Title
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add a Title
Add a Title
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Design
As freeholder and landlord to residents, commercial offices, and leisure and retail businesses The Portman Estate has recognised it has a significant responsibility to the community and the environment. Since setting sustainability targets in 2007, The Estate has focused on improving the energy performance of properties during the process of refurbishment and occasionally far exceeding national minimum standards with exemplar projects.
This process has now matured into a commitment by The Portman Estate to support Westminster City Council's target to achieve Net Zero by 2040. The Portman Estate also has its own targets which have been validated by the Science BasedTarget initiative.
The Portman Estate Retrofit Pattern Book seeks to achieve a realistic and deliverable decarbonisation plan, through improving building fabric performance and airtightness, making Mechanical Ventilation with Heat
Recovery (MVHR) and ASHP technology efficient and effective.
The Pattern Book demonstrates compliance with The Estate’s decarbonisation and corporate SBTi goals to provide a realistic performance improvement over the next period to 2050. It provides a clear path for decarbonisation, incorporating M&E to improve efficiency and integrating future environmental changes, including improved global temperatures.
Expertise
Related projects
The Entopia Building
Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
No ordinary building
Working
Higher Education
Science and Innovation
The Enterprise Centre
University of East Anglia and The Adapt Low Carbon Group
The UK’s greenest building
Working
Higher Education
Science and Innovation
RAU Innovation Village
Royal Agricultural University (RAU)
Forward-thinking sustainability
Higher Education
Strategic Advice
Science and Innovation
British Antarctic Survey
National Environment Research Council (NERC)
Data driven design
Science and Innovation
Strategic Advice
Working
Churchill College Archives Centre
Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College
Supporting preservation on an iconic campus
Cultural
Higher Education
West Park and Birks Grange Village Student Housing
University of Exeter
Large scale student housing
Higher Education
Living
Research & Consultancy
Southwark Pools Decarbonisation
London Borough of Southwark
Preserving leisure assets in Southwark
Community
NHS Church View EiRP
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust
Patient-first decarbonisation
Care
2_tiff.png)
Technicians Gallery Science & Industry Museum
Science Museum Group
Inspiring the next generation of technicians
Cultural
Broadway Cinema
Letchworth Garden City Council Heritage Foundation
Sensitive retrofit for a cinematic building
Strategic Advice
Mulberry Academy London Docks
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Championing design excellence in education
Schools
The Spirella Building
Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation
Sustainable plans for a historic asset
Working
12 Church Grove
Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS)
Community-led, affordable self-build homes
Living
Riverside Primary School
Perth & Kinross Council with Hub East Central
A pioneering Passivhaus school for outdoor play and learning
Schools
CoRE / Community Renewable Energy Project
East Ayreshire Council
Decarbonising in Scotland
Science and Innovation
Working
Campus Development Plan Plymouth
Plymouth Marjon University
A fully costed zero carbon roadmap
Higher Education
Strategic Advice
The Sustainability Centre
The Sustainability Centre
Connectivity to nature in the South Downs National Park
Community
Bicester Eco Business Centre
Cherwell District Council
UK’s first Passivhaus Plus and Zero Carbon office
Working
Community
Burry Port Community Primary School
Carmarthenshire County Council
Wales’ first Passivhaus school
Schools
Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre
Herefordshire Council
The UK’s first Passivhaus Archive Building
Cultural
Community
Coed-y-Brenin Visitor Centre
Natural Resources Wales (formerly FCW)
Brettstapel with welsh timber
Community
Cultural
TRP Sealing Systems Factory Development
TRP Sealing Systems
Optimising comfort. Efficient manufacturing
Working
Holy Trinity Primary School
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
School expansion with timber innovation
Schools
Staunton-on-Wye Endowed Primary School
Staunton-on-Wye Endowed Primary School
Learning with landscape
Schools
Blakenhall Community and Healthy Living Centre
Wolverhampton City Council with ABCD (All Saints & Blakenhall Community Development Partnership)
Regeneration for health and wellbeing
Community
St Luke's CE Primary School
Wolverhampton City Council and All Saints & Blakenhall Community Development Partnership
UK's first BREEAM Excellent Primary
Schools
Creative Media and Training Centre
London Borough of Southwark
Flexibility via conversion and extension
Community
Cultural
Chiltern Hills Gateway Centre
Bedfordshire County Council & The National Trust
Temperature Controlled. By the Chilterns.
Community
Cultural
The Genesis Centre
Somerset College of Arts and Technology
Earth. Straw. Clay. Timber
Higher Education
Science and Innovation
Taplow Court, SGI Headquarters
SGI-UK, a lay Buddhist Organisation
Expressing Buddhism
Cultural
Community
