Spotlight: Della Berkshire

Each month, we at Love Design Studio like to shine a light on those that make our organisation what it is: our team.

Throughout our interview series, we like to get to know our team a little better, understand what motivates them in this industry, and learn more about their professional backgrounds.

In our eighth instalment, we spoke to Della Berkshire, Sustainability Consultant and BREEAM Assessor at Love Design Studio. 

So, without further ado, let’s introduce Della!

1. Let’s kick things off with a bit about you outside of work – what are your interests when you’re not leading on all things BREEAM, what are you looking forward to this summer?

My number one priority in life is my family, they are all adults, half of whom now live away from home. I try to make a point of organising a family dinner at least once a month. I love it when we are all in the kitchen working together. 

I recently got back into swimming. I try to get to the pool at least three times a week for an hour each session. The best time to swim for me personally is early in the morning. When I come out from the pool, I feel invigorated and ready to face the day with renewed energy.

And I love to read. One of my favourite books ever is Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. I still find things to revel in every time I read it.

Arsenal football club is the life blood of our family, we follow everything football. We have our own league on Fantasy football which we set up each year and this has been going for the last 5 years.

The winner of our league each year gets £15 from every other league member, I have won 2/5 times but unfortunately was not so lucky this year!!

2. You have had an impressive career within consultancy over the last 20 years. Could you talk us through your journey and what led you to take on the role of Sustainability Consultant and BREEAM Assessor here at Love Design Studio?

I was one of those people at school that probably had a lot of potential to go onto bigger and better things but wanted to go out into the big wide world. I left school at 16 and qualified as a hairdresser, working for seven years before realising that it wasn’t the career for me.

With two small children under three, I decided to go to back to college and took courses in History, Geography and Sociology which led me to Southbank University to do my Social Science degree.

Nobody told me the financial hardships I would face doing my degree in the early nineties while bringing up two small children alone while also trying to work at the same time as studying for my degree. Unfortunately, after completing two years, I had to walk away from my degree.

This then led me to a multi-disciplinary consultancy based 10 minutes’ walk from my home. This gave me the opportunities to train and specialise in multiple areas related to certification and design in the built environment, one of which was Ecohomes, my first foray into BREEAM.

I then trained and became certified to undertake Code for Sustainable Homes and New Construction assessments.

Subsequent positions with other companies expanded my BREEAM capabilities and training enabled me to become certified in Domestic Refurbishment, Non-domestic Refurbishment and become a BREEAM Accredited Professional.

After meeting and talking to Andy Love and hearing his vison for the company going forward with regards to BREEAM and other certification schemes I was hooked and so when he offered me the position here at the company I couldn’t refuse.

3. For those unfamiliar, how would you explain what BREEAM is and why it’s an important part of sustainable design and construction today?

Launched in 1990 BREEAM is recognised in over 80 countries but primarily in the UK. It is a sustainability rating system that can be used to evaluate procurement, design, construction and operation of a development against a range of targets based on performance benchmarks.

The assessments are undertaken by independent licensed assessors and covers a range of environmental issues. Categories under evaluation include energy, water use, health and wellbeing, pollution, transport, materials, waste, ecology and management processes.

Buildings are rated and certified on a scale of "Pass", "Good", "Very Good", "Excellent" and "Outstanding".

BREEAM focuses on having development strategies in place that centre around minimising construction waste, ways to reduce CO2 emissions and improving the environment for wildlife in surrounding areas. It offers portfolio owners/developers and those involved in the wider design team a framework to adopt sustainable solutions cost effectively.

4. What are your main roles and responsibilities in this capacity? What keeps you busy on a day-to-day basis?

The average day will see me providing technical assistance across the team on our energy modelling work, to ensure that the projects we work on are compliant with the requirements of Building Regulations, and regional and local policies.

I really enjoy the collaborative aspects of this work – working closely across the team to review my colleagues’ output and provide guidance on how they can strengthen their industry knowledge and skillset. It’s rewarding work!

5. Could you share more about the projects you are working on at Love Design Studio and how BREEAM is playing a central role? What are some of the specific targets or innovations you're excited about in your work?

My work since joining Love Design Studio has centred mainly around local services fit-outs to existing buildings.

Guiding the contractor and wider design team through evidential requirements for the targeted credits in order to reach the required target rating has been quite exhaustive but rewarding when there is an understanding of the level of information required to verify the awarding of a targeted credit.

In addition to the Part 3 fit-outs I am also involved in assessing a couple of new build hotel developments that also have communal elements to them.

The thing I love about new construction developments is the concept of what will be built, what will be installed and how the building will be used at the beginning of the process. Getting to do the site visit at project completion and seeing what was ‘on the drawing board’ come to life is really inspiring to me.

6. What improvements or changes to the BREEAM certification would you like to see to make the scheme more appealing or practical for project teams?

I would like to see more tools provided by the BRE for those credits that require measurement and monitoring, a lot of smaller contractors or those new to BREEAM don't as a matter of course record on site consumption of energy, water and transport on a monthly basis, nor do they have a standard Site Waste Management Plan. There are platforms out there that provide the tools to complete these requirements but they come at a cost. Simple tools to help them in the process would make our lives as assessors so much easier if we could pass on those tools for their use.

7. We know that certification is not perfect and comes with its challenges. What are some common misconceptions around achieving certification and how do you help clients and project teams navigate those?

From my point of view the biggest misconception is that it is a tick box exercise that requires little input from the wider design team, if only it was that easy!!

BREEAM is an evidence-based certification scheme, every credit requires robust evidence to confirm that the design meets a strict set of criteria as determined by the targeted rating.

I believe that being available from the outset for the client and wider design team, providing the necessary tools and guidance to navigate the strict criteria for each credit is essential for us all as a team to achieve the end goal i.e. a certificate confirming that the development/design has met the targeted rating.

8. Looking ahead, what’s your vision for the future of BREEAM at Love Design Studio? Where do you see the biggest opportunities and what kind of projects would you love to get stuck into next?

I hope that with the experience that I bring to Love Design Studio that we can continue to expand our current customer base and be in a position going forward to grow the team and provide services in other BREEAM schemes.

For the last ten years of my career the focus has been very much in the commercial sector, I believe I have worked on pretty much every type of development assessed under non-domestic BREEAM New Construction and Refurbishment & Fit-out. With the changing environment and the need to reduce CO2 emissions, existing housing stock needs to be future proofed. On that basis I would love to see housing associations and local councils ensure that the retrofitting/refurbishing of existing housing stock is to a set of recognised standards like BREEAM Domestic Refurbishment. A massive task to undertake but what a rewarding outcome for future building users knowing that the environmental performance of their homes has been improved and what a great opportunity as a certified Domestic Refurbishment assessor to play a part in those improvements.

9. And a non-BREEAM question to end. If you were made Mayor of London tomorrow, what would key policy changes would you make? 

In general, I think there needs to be more emphasis placed on Building Control and the process for signing off building works. As buildings and development plans are now incorporating a greater number of passive design and green measures, we need to ensure that developments are delivered in compliance with design specifications to achieve the targeted energy efficiency and thermal comfort performance. Residents also deserve to be provided with better information on both how their buildings have been designed and constructed, and how they should be operated.

This should go hand in hand with providing high-quality new homes and commercial buildings, and updating our existing housing stock.

10. Thanks for taking the time to share some thoughts with us today, Della. Do you have any exciting plans for the week ahead?

I have a trip to Cyprus with my partner coming up next week and I am trying to get myself organised. We are at the point in our lives where we don’t have to accommodate our children and their needs, it’s all about us, no stress and pure relaxation doing exactly what we want to do (those that have travelled abroad with children will know exactly what I’m talking about).