Applications / the whole picture

Environmental analysis

Wind, sun, heat, air and energy all come out of the same geometry and the same weather. We simulate them on one model, at the stage where the design can still change. For a single building, a new development, or an entire municipality.

Why together

01

Fixing one problem can create another.

Turn a tower to fix the wind at its base and you move the shadow onto the square next door. Plant the trees that cool a street and you slow the airflow that was clearing it of traffic pollution. Open a corridor for summer breeze and you have opened it for winter storms as well.

Studied one at a time, each of these looks like a solved problem. Studied together, on one model, they are a set of trade-offs you can actually decide between. That is the difference between a report that proves a design and a report that improves it.

What that is worth

  • One model, one mesh Built once and reused across every question, instead of paid for seven times.
  • One team No coordinating between consultants who each hold a piece of the answer.
  • One summary Written so a client, an alderman or a jury can read it without a fluid dynamics background.

What we look at

02

Six layers as standard, and a seventh where the design calls for it. Each one is a study we also deliver on its own.

At any scale

03

A building

One building, and everything around it

A tower, a hospital, a school. The model covers the neighbours too, because their wind and their shadows are part of the answer.

A development

A new district, block by block

Masterplans, waterfronts, campuses, station areas. Design options compared against each other before one is chosen.

A municipality

An entire town

Every roof, every street, one consistent picture. Where the heat sits, where the wind is unusable, which roofs are worth their solar and wind investment.

Whole towns we have done this for

04

Five European municipalities, assessed at full town scale so their councils could plan with numbers instead of assumptions.

Austria

Horn

Open country on the edge of town, where exposure changes street by street.

Austria

Eggenburg

A medieval centre, where narrow streets set both the heat and the wind.

Italy

Dolo

Summer heat and air quality along the Riviera del Brenta.

Italy

Castelfranco

A walled historic core, assessed without touching what makes it worth protecting.

Portugal

Fundão

Sun, heat and energy in a climate where shade is the scarce resource.

And the rest

More than 100 commissioned studies in nine countries since 2018, from single buildings to city districts.

Some of our studies ->

When to ask

05

Concept

Massing, orientation and spacing are still free. This is where the analysis is worth the most and costs the least to act on.

Permit

The evidence an authority asks for, in the form it asks for, before the file is submitted rather than after it is refused.

Detailed design

Screens, canopies, planting, facade details. Smaller moves, tested rather than guessed.

At concept stage a problem is solved by moving a building; after the permit it is solved by a screen, a canopy and a negotiation.

Certification

Evidence for certification credits

Schemes such as BREEAM, LEED, WELL and DGNB award credits for wind comfort, daylight and shading, thermal comfort and air quality. Those credits need evidence, and the evidence is simulation.

We are not assessors and we do not issue certificates. What we deliver is the analysis behind the credit, in the format your assessor asks for, early enough that the design can still earn it.

Also useful for

  • Permit files, where an authority asks for wind or shadow evidence before it decides.
  • Public consultation, where a map of the actual effect settles an argument faster than a paragraph about it.
  • Competitions, where the environmental case can be made with numbers.
  • Municipal climate and energy plans, where the same maps become the baseline to measure against.

What lands on your desk

06

01

Maps

One per layer, at pedestrian level, against the criteria that apply where you are building.

02

Options compared

Your design against the alternatives, so the choice is visible rather than argued.

03

Where it fails

The specific corners, hours and days that miss the threshold, and what changes them.

04

A readable summary

The findings in plain language, with the technical report behind it for those who want it.

Tell us where you are building, and what worries you about it.

A site outline and a design stage are enough for us to say which layers your project needs and what the analysis would involve.