Lynne Sullivan: head of building design at Inbuilt

The consultancy – headed up by David Strong, previously of BRE
Environment – currently employs around 40 people, with plans to double in size by the autumn. Sullivan's team will provide architecture and urban-design services alongside other teams for engineering, benchmarking and programme management.

Inbuilt Consulting's sustainability assessment tool

When hiring Sullivan – formerly director of sustainability at Broadway Malyan – Strong looked for someone to provide what he describes as a 'thought leadership' role. 'Lynne fulfils that in spades – she has been involved all her working life in delivering sustainable buildings,' he says.

Broadway Malyan
We escape the smell of fresh paint to a nearby café. Sullivan talks of her time at Broadway Malyan. 'I made a name for myself within the practice by bringing in interesting projects and building a knowledge-transfer system between architects,' she says. Sullivan has taken this model to Inbuilt, working on a digital knowledge-management structure to ensure information flow between teams.

Shortly before moving to Inbuilt, Sullivan led Broadway Malyan's team for the Hanham Hall Carbon Challenge, a competition for a sustainable housing development near Bristol launched by English Partnerships last year.
Despite losing out to HTA, Sullivan maintains the competition had 'a fantastic agenda'.

Prior to her time at Broadway Malyan, Sullivan worked on sustainable buildings at ECD Architects. She says: 'At the time, ECD was unique in its combination of energy, environment and architecture.' While the practice later split in two, Sullivan took a valuable lesson from the previous arrangement of integrated services. 'At Inbuilt, we believe the joined-up offer is something that clients
will be interested in,' she says.

Stoke Newington housing
Sullivan studied at Brighton University, where her interest in sustainability was
cemented by a final-year project on low-energy housing. Her first job was for the London Borough of Hackney as architect in the Stoke Newington housing action area. 'It was really nitty-gritty stuff,' she says. Frustrated by the
way sustainability is often dismissed as 'the "S" word – just another box to tick,' Sullivan has gradually developed a multi-pronged approach
to the subject.

She is a member of the Department of Communities and Local
Government/Building Regulations Advisory Committee sustainability working party, which looks at 2006-2010 Part L revisions, and chair of their sustainability committee. She is a member of the RIBA Climate Change Programme Board, responsible for the institute's Climate Change Toolkits.

Scottish task force
Last year the Scottish government invited Sullivan to chair a task force to determine a Low Carbon Building Standards Strategy. 'We came out with a slightly different, if not more challenging, recommendation than that set by Westminster: to improve the fabric and energy consumption of all building stock rather than focus on zero-carbon new homes,' says Sullivan. 'Many say it's a shame England and Wales haven't gone the same way,' adds Strong.

Currently Sullivan is absorbed in recruiting her new team. 'Inbuilt brings together all the things I have been doing in my career. The experts are now my colleagues and don't come in under a separate banner.

Passivhaus
'A Registered Social Landlord client has asked us to do a project to
the PassivHaus standard [energy-saving German design methodology], which we will have a UK licence to accredit. There will be a huge emphasis on demand reduction and energy efficiency.'

'I feel enthusiastic about the future,' says Sullivan. 'If I were an investor in the current economic climate, I'd want to invest in something as future-proof and environmentally friendly as possible. I'm hoping this will be a sort of shakedown, rather than a crisis for the profession.'

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