Consultancy
Overview
Waugh Thistleton provides international consultancy services to support developers, investors, architects, contractors, and policy makers overcome the barriers commonly associated with the design and construction of sustainable and engineered timber buildings. Our services include project specific audits and technical reviews, DFMA support, insurance risk assessments, research, and policy development.
Benefits
- Maximise project value and reduce capital costs
- Reduce whole life carbon and increase material efficiency
- Mitigate risks, safeguard robustness, and enhance resilience
DfMA
‘We integrate technical expertise with market intelligence to ensure stakeholders’ projects are delivered to their full potential with confidence and precision.’
Project Audit
Project audits provide a comprehensive evaluation of the suitability of engineered timber systems within the framework of your established design brief and market context. We assess both risks and opportunities, identifying strategic adjustments to enhance project viability, reduce embodied carbon, ensure regulatory compliance, and optimise durability. Through detailed analysis, we deliver data-driven insights to support cost planning and offer informed recommendations on system selection and supplier engagement. Where applicable, our assessments can be extended to include expert commentary on passive environmental design strategies, maximising sustainability and performance outcomes.
Project Optimisation
Our Project Optimisation studies build on Project Audit insights to identify and address the risks and opportunities of DfMA and passive design principles. We identify design refinements that enhance efficiency, value, and sustainability, focusing on structural grids, fenestration, and massing to reduce whole-life carbon emissions. These studies provide architects and contractors with information for cost analysis, demonstrating the benefits of DfMA solutions. By integrating technical expertise with strategic analysis, we support informed decision-making to maximise efficiency, sustainability, and commercial viability.
Technical Review
We conduct technical reviews of design, tender, and construction information on behalf of architects, specialist subcontractors, and main contractors delivering engineered timber buildings. Our reviews identify project-specific vulnerabilities, compliance risks, and inefficiencies, ensuring that design decisions do not introduce unnecessary complexity or cost. Appraisals identify how the project can be simplified to reduce cost, mitigate risks during construction and safeguard robustness to moisture and fire. They can also be expanded to include illustrative assembly details and outline specifications to support procurement and delivery.
Brief Writing / Technical Overlay
We create project briefs that align with your sustainability goals and KPIs, ensuring clear communication for your design teams. Our briefs can include design parameters and process documents, such as those developed for Swan/Nu-Build and L&G Modular Homes, to support the offsite manufacturing of MMC products and guide other designers in using these system principles.
We develop low-carbon design and DFMA strategies, incorporating them into written briefs for new projects across your portfolio. This includes creating technical ‘masterplan overlay’ documents that outline key strategies for implementing low-carbon technologies, like timber, ensuring technical compliance across multiple buildings and securing insurer support for long-term developments.
Insurance
‘We use industry insight and technical expertise to help clients secure competitive premiums on their timber-based projects.’
The use of engineered timber is unfamiliar to the insurance market, leading underwriters to apply a disproportionate premium on the basis that there is less historical data available compared with traditional materials like concrete and steel. By engaging with insurers early in the design process and communicating how risks are being mitigated through careful design and robust detailing, insuring engineered timber construction can be cost competitive.
As contributors to the Mass Timber Insurance Playbook (MTIP), the Commercial Timber Guidebook and the New Model Building, we provide specialist risk assessments for developers and insurers, evaluating vulnerabilities and recommending mitigation measures. We can develop project-specific technical solutions and remediation strategies, and liaise directly with the market on your behalf to address concerns and deliver best-value outcomes.
Project Delivery
‘Helping project stakeholders achieve simple, durable, and cost-effective timber buildings.’
Client Design Advisor
We assist employers in delivering timber buildings by developing detailed tender specifications and appraising contractor submissions. Our process identifies risks, cost efficiencies, and compliance measures to optimise project outcomes. Post-contract, we provide quality assurance and technical oversight on behalf of developers, ensuring design integrity, compliance, and construction robustness. Leveraging our architectural and technical expertise, we help deliver exemplar timber projects that meet performance and regulatory standards. Our approach safeguards cost, quality, and compliance, ensuring successful project execution from specification to completion.
Advisory Architect
We provide additional consultancy services to main contractors and architects working on DfMA, engineered timber, and sustainability-focused projects. Our support includes technical guidance, peer reviews, product specification advice, and assist project teams in completing the detail design of timber-based assemblies and interfaces, ensuring compliance with statutory regulations and industry best practices. By undertaking pre-contract reviews of tender information, we can identify value engineering opportunities, advise on procurement, and assist in the development of alternative proposals.
Executive Architect
We offer executive architectural services to main contractors delivering DfMA, engineered timber, and sustainability-focused projects. Acting on their behalf, we audit, optimize, and develop technical and construction information from RIBA Stage 3 onwards. Our services include pre-contract reviews of tender information to identify value engineering opportunities and support the development of contractor proposals. We then collaborate in an architectural capacity to ensure successful project delivery.
Sustainability
‘Applying passive and regenerative design strategies to help deliver environmentally sustainable places and spaces.’
Life Cycle Assessment
We use in-house LCA tools to assess the whole life carbon impact of building design and material choices, offering recommendations to meet or exceed industry targets set by RIBA, RICS, LETI, and the UKNZBS. We support project teams in evaluating design iterations and can represent building owners to determine as-built whole life carbon figures for ESG reporting and environmental certification.
Passive Environmental Design
We use parametric modelling to assess daylight, overheating risk, and solar exposure, helping to tailor project proposals for reduced whole life carbon and improved internal comfort. Data-driven analysis informs the conceptual development of massing, form, and façade configuration (including shading), ensuring sustainable design principles are embedded from the outset.
Circular Economy
Designing to circular economy principles will ensure resilient supply chains, create competitive advantage, and stimulate growth within your business. We integrate circular economy principles into the built environment, prioritising resource efficiency, kit of parts solutions, and biogenic material specifications to deliver sustainable, future-proofed projects. We apply best practices outlined in BS 8001 (Circular Economy in Organisations) and UKGBC’s Circular Economy Guidance for Construction Clients to deliver services including material reuse strategies, design for disassembly, and LCA. Our Research projects including Woodcircles equip us with an understanding of the barriers and opportunities of circular design.
By aligning with leading industry frameworks and working collaboratively with contractors, manufacturers, and policymakers, we can drive circular design innovation that enhances the environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Our work is demonstrated through the services we offer, including Circularity Reporting, the production of Circular Design Guides, Reuse and Demolition Audits, Circularity Viability Studies, and the development of DFMA+D and Circular Building Systems
Research
‘Cutting through complexity to demystify the constraints and demonstrate the potential of low carbon approaches.’
Market Research
We work with trade bodies and public sector organisations such as TDUK to appraise the market and regulatory context for engineered timber buildings and systems, identifying the barriers and opportunities affecting the uptake of innovative low carbon construction solutions. We collaborate with stakeholders to identify and agree achievable outputs before undertaking detailed data driven analysis, primary research and literature reviews and disseminating conclusions. Previous examples include the Timber Typologies and Timber Policy series developed for TDUK and a deepdive into Procurement and Demonstrator buildings for the Irish Government.
Systems Design
We develop building system design solutions for both plot and masterplan scales, creating modular toolkits, technical details, and design guidance for the cost-effective, repeatable delivery of homes, workplaces, warehouses, and other structures. In collaboration with public clients like the DfE and Network Rail, as well as manufacturers and developers, we apply our DfMA expertise to define and deliver innovative low-carbon construction systems that enhance procurement efficiency, value, and economies of scale.
Advocacy
‘Promoting sustainable building practices through education, research, and advocacy to deliver scalable solutions.’
Policy and Engagement
We actively support the development of policies that promote the reduction of whole life carbon in the built environment, such as the European Green Deal. By collaborating with public sector organisations, independent policy institutes like Chatham House, and local authorities, we help identify and overcome barriers to adopting low-carbon building solutions, while developing practical tools and guidance to foster sustainable construction. We also work with corporate organisations to align their ESG policies with best practice environmental targets and assist industry bodies in lobbying government for regulatory reforms that incentivise innovation in the built environment sector.
WT-Academy
With relationships spanning UK and global universities, we have delivered architecture courses at Cambridge University, LSA, Yale, Build X Kenya, and the University of Arkansas. We lecture internationally on sustainable architecture and engineered timber at trade conferences like the International Mass Timber Conference, Building Green, and Build in Wood. We also engage in events within the construction, property, and insurance sectors, sharing case studies and research to promote innovative building practices.
Additionally, we partner with organisations like the V&A and the Design Museum to develop exhibitions and installations that raise awareness of timber and sustainable design, as seen in projects such as Multiply and the British Business Pavilion. Whatever the brief, we tailor programs and solutions to meet your objectives.