JANUARY, 2026 by Oliver Riley
What’s the one thing we need to change about heat networks?The brief.
Because how we start decides how things end.
- The most important heat decisions happen before design begins.
- Briefs optimise for what is measurable not what makes life work.
- Risk pushed out of the brief reappears in homes budgets and trust.
- Changing what we ask for changes what becomes possible.
Hard truth one
We are designing heat systems but living with the consequences
Most people working in heat have a moment usually years into a project where they realise something uncomfortable.
The system works.
But life around it doesn’t quite improve in the way they hoped.
Bills stabilise but homes still feel hard to heat.
Carbon falls but confidence doesn’t rise.
Performance is met but no one feels proud of the outcome.
That gap matters.
Because heat is not an abstract service. It shapes how people wake up recover gather work and rest. It determines whether buildings feel supportive or demanding. Whether winter is manageable or exhausting.
When a brief defines success too narrowly it doesn’t just constrain engineering. It constrains life.
And yet we rarely talk about this openly because life is harder to model than kilowatts.
Hard truth two
Briefs quietly decide whose lives get easier and whose get harder
Every brief carries a hidden instruction.
It says:
This is what we care about.
This is what we will measure.
Everything else will have to adapt.
When briefs focus on capital efficiency complexity is transferred to operators.
When they prioritise certainty adaptability is squeezed out.
When they reduce people to assumptions people compensate in real time.
This is where systems thinking stops being theoretical.
Because risk doesn’t disappear it relocates.
To the caretaker who learns the system by feel.
To the resident who keeps an extra heater just in case.
To the organisation that absorbs friction year after year.
Hard truth three
Heat networks are not energy systems. They are care systems.
This is the shift most briefs have not yet caught up with.
Heat systems care for bodies.
For recovery.
For learning.
For ageing.
For community.
They sit beneath schools hospitals homes libraries workplaces holding conditions steady so life can unfold.
When heat works well no one notices.
When it doesn’t everything else becomes harder.
That means the real question is not just:
Does the system perform?
But:
What kind of life does this system make easier?
And that is not a sentimental question.
It is a design question.
What becomes possible when briefs shift
When briefs widen not to add complexity but to include life entirely different futures come into view.
We can brief for warmth as reliability not just efficiency. Homes that feel consistently liveable across seasons not optimised for averages.
We can brief for comfort as dignity. Spaces where people feel supported not managed.
We can brief for systems that learn. Networks designed to adapt as buildings usage and communities change.
We can brief for shared benefit not just compliance. Waste heat warming neighbourhoods. Fifth generation networks linking buildings into mutual support systems. Local energy becoming a civic asset rather than an invisible utility.
We can brief for trust. Systems people understand believe in and feel part of not ones they tolerate.
This is where fifth generation networks change the conversation.
Not because they are clever technically but because they allow heat to circulate like life does shared responsive and contextual.
What we might start asking for instead
Imagine briefs that asked:
- What would make winter feel easier here?
- Where does warmth already exist and who could it serve?
- How could this system support health learning and belonging?
- What would success look like in ten winters not two?
- How might this place feel different because this system exists?
These are not soft questions.
They are grounding ones.
They pull design back into contact with the world it will live in.
What this looks like in practice
Hospitals
Brief for recovery reliability and operational clarity not only energy targets. Design so clinical teams are supported rather than pulled into system workarounds. Use low temperature strategies and flexible heat sources that hold performance through the realities of live care environments.
Housing
Brief for stable comfort and ease of use. Treat understanding as part of performance. Make it legible for residents and manageable for operators. Design for real occupancy patterns and the difference between modelled behaviour and human behaviour.
Campuses and estates
Brief for energy exchange as a shared asset. Fifth generation networks can link buildings into mutual support systems where waste heat becomes useful again. This is not only decarbonisation. It is resilience cost stability and a platform for future change without tearing everything up.
A different starting point
We have spent years counting emissions and optimising assets and that work matters.
But heat offers something more.
It offers a chance to design conditions for life to thrive. To build systems that feel supportive rather than extractive. To align engineering excellence with human wellbeing and ecological sense.
That future doesn’t begin in the plant room.
It begins earlier.
With what we choose to ask for.
With what we decide heat is for.
If this way of thinking resonates the Better Brief Guide is simply a practical companion to help teams ask the right questions earlier and hold the line on what matters when pressure rises. You can find it here.
And if we are serious about people living well communities thriving and the planet healing then briefing is not administration.
It is an act of care.