With an ongoing commitment to protect people and the planet, Scotland has set a target of net zero emissions by 2045. As such, it should be no surprise that several of our clients have looked to surpass the required Building Regulations standards and provide more sustainable, low energy buildings throughout 2024. 

This extends to adaptive reuse and retrofit, where sensitive thermal upgrades and adaptations are required on heritage and listed buildings. It’s a huge passion of ours to bring redundant and dilapidated listed buildings back into use, whether this be residential or commercial, and create energy efficient and adaptable buildings. Increasingly we’re using sustainable and natural materials to improve the building’s energy performance and reduce running costs, protecting the future legacy of these cultural and historically significant buildings.  

This sustainability focus has been encouraging for us as our practice pushes towards achieving our own net zero ambitions. Two of our team achieved their Passivhaus Designer Certification this year and we will continue to upskill more colleagues on achieving Passivhaus, Retrofit and various sustainability qualifications throughout 2025.  

Elsewhere, biophilic, the love of living things, and wellbeing- inspired designs have been popular again this year. This includes integrating natural materials, ensuring good air quality and natural light into our buildings, which are an important part of improving physical and emotional well-being. It’s a trend we are passionate about and integrate into all our designs. Our masterplan development at St Andrews West is a good example of this where windows are oversized to maximise light and the landscape is a key focus of the development, creating a stronger connection to nature for the community, well-connected pedestrian-only routes and enhanced views from the properties. In 2024 we fully embraced our love of nature and plants and installed a two-storey living wall in the entrance of our office studio in Kinross. 

Looking ahead to 2025, the focus must be on the housing crisis and a continued commitment towards slowing climate change. 

As a result, our practice will be creative with capacity and design in our housing and masterplanning projects while also striving to incorporate a mix of uses creating more sustainable communities. We are working with modular companies and looking at more innovative ways to deliver housing efficiently at all scales of development from large masterplans to small gap and infill sites. This will all require a positive engagement and collaboration with local authorities to ensure we are working collectively towards creating more sustainable communities, whilst meeting the housing needs.

Additionally, we anticipate new legislation for Scotland’s design standards in relation to energy use, to be adopted in 2025. In April this year, the New Building Heat Standard was introduced within the Scottish building regulations removing the use of direct emission heating systems such as oil and gas boilers in favour of heat pumps and networks. The new legislation for 2025 will introduce Scotland’s equivalent to the Passivhaus standard. It will be a welcomed change to reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency, air quality and the thermal performance of our buildings - both residential and commercial property.

We are currently faced with the challenge of retrofitting most of the new homes across Scotland due to the use of low-quality materials and low levels of insulation installed for many years, when we should have been striving to do better. 

With this new legislation in place and a genuine willingness from developers and designers alike, it will be essential in our journey to meet Scotland’s net zero targets. Our approach to design will support this while also cultivating biophilic, and wellbeing-inspired spaces to live, work and play.