Rebuilding Broken Britain

To create enduring value within our economy I believe that we need to radically change not only the nature of the buildings that we build, but also, the way that we procure them.  To achieve holistically sustainable buildings it is essential that the procurement process is intelligent and able to assess and reconcile the social, economic and environmental aspects of every project.  However, this is not currently the case, as is amply demonstrated by the current fashion for meaningless architectural “iconography” being built in the City of London.



These projects have all been procured by professional, repeat clients, who claim to take sustainability seriously.  So why are they all building painfully fashionable, contorted building forms that are expensive, spatially compromised, have thermally inefficient fully glazed facades with deep plans that are impossible to daylight?  They have no doubt been encouraged to take this path by senior planners in the City who make powerful recommendations as to which “starchitects” work they would like to see added next to the City’s architectural zoo.  I would argue that developers of these schemes have simply applied a green wrapper to their activities and continued with business as usual, rather than embedding sustainable development at the core of their activities.

To achieve the required paradigm shift, we need to select design team members for their demonstrable track record of innovation in the field of sustainable development.  Project specific briefs should be prepared and published that define what is to be built and what key performance indicators will be used to judge the success of completed projects.  These indicators must include annual occupant satisfaction surveys, operational energy expenditure along with maintenance expenditure, with outcomes made publically accessible: after all, most of these buildings ultimately become assets of our pension funds!

I believe that we need to arrest the decline in quality and fitness for purpose of development; where we can calculate the cost of everything but having little or no understanding of where construction creates value.  To be relevant we must sever the link between construction output and the creation of investment assets whose value bears little or no relation to the performance of the building.  The fact that we are still debating if a “green premium” or a “brown discount” exists is powerful evidence that we are unable to effective ascribe value to the products created by our industry.  In my opinion Quantity Surveyors are obsolete and should be retrained to become Value Managers, able to orchestrate and create enduring value for clients and the wider UK economy.  This would be a good first step in redefining the why that teams interact, smashing professional silos can be and remade to encourage the sustainable outcomes that are urgently required.

Intelligent procurement must incorporate local procurement, so that communities that experience development receive social and economic benefit from the process.  We must stop packaging up ever larger parcels of development and instead place more, smaller, lower value contracts with locally based small and medium sized companies (SME’s) to create more jobs and spread construction expenditure more equitably throughout the UK.  Local firms who will be forced to live with the products of their labours, whereas national or international builders are far less accountable to the communities who inherit the buildings that they deliver and where the value that is created by the process benefits remote shareholders rather than communities.

The idea of local procurement should I believe be taken further with the construction industry supporting locally manufactured building products and materials that also create jobs and value.  This philosophy needs to be incorporated at the brief stage, requiring design and delivery teams to embrace the notion of the final building being Made in Britain, with public reporting of the outcome.  This initiative could drive a fundamental socio-political shift, moving away from a reliance on services to create value, restoring the balance the in the UK economy by supporting manufacturing.

There is a strong belief that Design & Build is the best answer for most buildings and clients.  However, as the recession has continued to bite it is noticeable how the amount of “design” that is being undertaken by contractors has dramatically reduced.  It is essential that Project Managers undertake detailed analysis of tender returns, if clients are to get the buildings that they think that they are buying, rather than the best that the contractor can cobble together without the correct amount of timely, expert detailed design.

Large organisations are changing their terms and conditions, increasing the time that suppliers have to wait to be paid; contractor Carillion now expect suppliers to wait 120 days to receive payment.  This creates cash flow issues further down the supply chain and can result in small, well run companies going out of business.  Associated with this issue is the protracted nature of contractual negotiations, demands to agree to unfair and ultimately uninsurable terms and conditions, resulting in significant delay in the period from starting work to receipt of the first payment.  It is essential that the government takes urgent action to get the money moving and should start by insisting that all appointments are agreed prior to commencement and strict 30 days terms are mandatory.

We must increase investment in training and education to equip our workforce with the skill, knowledge and expertise required to add sustainable value, regardless of the individual’s role in the supply chain. Crucially, I believe that we need to invest in vocational training to radically improve skill levels within our sector and create a workforce who are able to deliver construction to the higher levels of performance required.  The industry must offer great career opportunities for all regardless of gender.

For the construction sector to once again become an engine for growth in the UK economy then investment must be focused not on iconic new build schemes but instead on the refurbishment of our existing building stock.  We urgently need to invest in improving the performance of our existing buildings now!  This will create jobs, establish the essential missing link between energy efficiency and energy supply, reduce our reliance on expensive imported energy and ultimately reduce the number and cost of the next generation of nuclear power stations that we will be forced to buy from aboard if we are to keep the lights on.

To rebuild broken Britain sustainably we need to radically change the things that we build, along with the ways that we procure them.  Professional boundaries need to be challenged and new bodies established.  I would argue that none of the existing professional bodies can provide the leadership needed and what we require is an Institution for Sustainable Development, open to all professions and their clients, which can effectively research, promote and lobby for change.

Localism should be reinterpreted to demand that the value created by development directly benefits the communities that host development, creating jobs and economic activity close to the site.  On a national scale we should develop a new vernacular architecture using materials and products that are Made in Britain, including the development of upcycled products that convert waste materials into new construction products and materials.  Fundamentally we need to understand, through compulsory Display Energy Certificates (DEC), how every building in the UK is performing and then use this intelligence to guide a national refurbishment mission to dramatically improve performance.

This piece was first published in Sustain Magazine May/June 2013

Black Thoughts on Ecobuild

Well that’s ecobuild over for another year, and I for one say good!  In many ways I think that ecobuild reflects many of the barriers that are preventing our industry delivering the step-change that is required to address the pressing issues of our age.  As I walked around the vast, artificially conditioned interior of ExCel London what struck me most powerfully was the gap between presentation and reality.

Every product has
been greenwashed!

In the evolution of sustainable design I believe that we have really not changed much at all; all that has changed is the words that we use to describe products and the spin that is used to emphasise their virtues.  Ecobuild is dominated by major global construction product manufacturers and suppliers all of whom have added words like “eco” or “green” to the descriptions of their products and then, in the vast majority of cases, simply continued with business as usual.

The high cost of exhibiting at the show prevents most small companies and start-ups from displaying their wares, so almost all of the really interesting things that one found in the early shows, back in the good old days at Earls Court, have now disappeared.  For me to continue to make the annual pilgrimage to the Royal Docks, this must change.  I think that as the UK’s largest construction trade show there is a responsibility incumbent upon UBM, the franchises new owners to give something back, and this should be in the form of small low or no cost stands for small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) and start-ups.

As a practice, we have an initiative called Product of the Month where we ask our team to identify innovative sustainable building products and materials.  On average we have noted that it takes at somewhere between 3 and 5 years for the products that we find to appear at ecobuild.  Clearly, this would be cut dramatically if they were able to exhibit at low or no cost.  Also, by gaining exposure sooner they are more likely to survive and thrive.



The international nature of the industry is reflected at ecobuild, with significant space given over to foreign firms, with a rapid growth in those coming from China.  Many contractors now boast about having their own global supply chain, able to source products direct from Chinese manufacturers, cutting out the middle men.  But is this really a sustainable model for the UK economy?

I passionately believe that we need to rebalance our economy by growing our manufacturing sector.  This is essential if we are to create the range of jobs that we need to achieve full employment and long term social cohesion.  Construction products and materials manufactured and sourced from the UK create jobs and ensure that value is created in the UK and not aboard.  Removing long distance supply chains also delivers easy cuts in embedded carbon, which is increasingly important as we cut operational energy.

Glabal trade,
large carbon footprint!

Local sourcing of construction labour will ensure that host communities benefit from the construction process, but I would like this principle extended.  Small and medium scale (SME) businesses create jobs locally and in greater numbers than large national or international firms.  I would like to see all state funded procurement favour local small businesses for all contracts below £5 million.  Locally designed and built projects will help reconnect the property industry with the communities that we should be serving, correcting the distortions that have occurred due to property being seen primarily as an investment asset class rather than a means of enhancing the efficiency and wellbeing of building occupiers.

There is a pressing need for radical change to make the construction industry relevant and capable of addressing the concerns of our age.  The future must be small, local and accountable if we are to deliver intrinsically sustainable development.

Re-Imagining Design and Embedding Sustainability

Sustainable design is something that all architects do now; right?  It’s on every practices website, included in all their presentations and has been totally integrated into the way all buildings are designed.  Even the RIBA is now belatedly “on message”, promoting the idea that buildings should be designed to be sustainable.

 

Mies van der Rohe glass skyscraper
 concept designed in 1919

 So, how come the buildings that we are constructing now have not changed significantly since the birth of modernism almost one hundred years ago?  Mies van der Rohe published his revolutionary concept for a glass clad skyscraper back in 1921 and you could argue that we have been repeating this typology, with only minor amendments, ever since.  Is the Shard not just a less efficient more compromised variant of this underlying philosophical position?

What has changed is the rhetoric that accompanies each of these increasingly contorted iconic projects; all of which claim to be exemplars of sustainable development.  Clearly, it is not only architects who are guilty of not walking the talk when it comes to sustainability; developers, funding institutions, governments and local authorities are all rebranding their particular form of “business as usual” in a new recycled paper wrapper!

Renzo Piano all glass

 Shard nearing completion 2013

 It is my strongly held belief that this incremental improvement approach is no longer sufficient and what is required is a fundamental reappraisal of why, what and how we build.  In short, I believe that we are about to enter a period of rapid and revolutionary change that will result in re-imagining design and the development of an entirely new Sustainable Architecture, shaped by an understanding of the challenges that we face and therefore directly relevant to the concerns of our age.

To achieve the necessary paradigm shift we must challenge some deeply ingrained behaviours and beliefs and fundamentally re-evaluate the reasons why we build at all. This process must start by placing social sustainability and needs of building users at the heart of the design process.  It is no surprise that the best examples of sustainable design are conceived when the building’s users are known before design commences.  Also the greatest value that a building design can create is not in energy savings but in helping to improve the productivity of the people who work in them.  To achieve this added value it is essential that buildings are designed from the inside and the needs of the user out.  This philosophical approach creates massive opportunities for creativity and innovation, once the dead hand of style is rejected, in favour of a new sustainable building aesthetic where each design decision is directly informed by its social, economic and environmental issues.

Our CAFOD project, that I will be presenting at the UKGBC’s Re-Imagining Design course on the 27^th February, is a good example of this approach.  The key aspect of the project’s evolution was that we did not win the commission with an image of a completed building, but instead explained how we would assist them, as a non-expert client, to develop a bespoke; user centred sustainable solution, shaped to fit their immediate needs and facilitate organisational change.

Black Bio Climatic office

 tower concept 2005

This approach is in stark contrast to the vast majority of speculative commercial buildings, which are conceived primarily as investment assets and whose appearance and architectural style are determined at inception.  This procurement process, I would argue, results in the current fashion for more and more contorted building forms, as design teams strive to make the most remarkable, arresting images, rather than the most sustainable designs, to secure commissions.

If we are to make the UK’s building stock more sustainable I believe it is essential that funding institutions only agree to invest our pension contributions into demonstrably sustainable buildings.  This will change overnight what gets commissioned, since developers want to be able to sell their completed developments so that they can reinvest profits into the next development opportunity.  It will also result in less risk and more predictable returns for the funds, since sustainable buildings will either command a “green premium” because they are more desirable or at worst will not experience a “brown discount” due to their increased occupation costs.

In re-imagining design I believe that we need to place social sustainability at the heart of the design process, with the explicit intention of delivering buildings that create value by demonstrably improving the performance of the people who occupy them. This philosophical shift will finally close the cost benefit gap that makes investing in higher performance difficult to justify.  Over time the quality and value of the UK’s building stock will increase, creating value and safe guarding the investments that ultimately fund our retirement.  A paradigm shift of this magnitude will create a New Sustainable Architecture that is relevant and valuable.  As Mies van der Rohe put so succinctly;

“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space”

Surely the will of our epoch calls for urgent, radical change; re-imagining design to deliver buildings that create enduring value for the people who use them, the organisations that own them and the society that they are part of.

Don’t delay, the future starts today!

BOB 3: Ethical + Fiscal = Inevitable

A group of carefully selected building industry leaders recently gathered for the latest Breakfast on Black held at The Fire Station in Waterloo.  After a hearty breakfast guests were treated to an informative and challenging presentation from Richard Francis, Director of Sustainability at Gardiner and Theobald. 



Richard Francis
Director of Sustainability
Gardiner and Theobald



Richard’s presentation “Ethical + Fiscal = Inevitable” was delivered with his trademark combination of transatlantic easy style and powerful analysis of the challenges facing the construction industry.  His presentation was split into four sections coving both the immediate drivers for change along with those that he has identified as looming just beyond the horizon.  He neatly summarises the journey ahead as the progression from beauty pageant to talent show, illustrating the need for evidence based decision making along with more intelligent procurement.

Drivers

Richard started by identifying the proliferation in regulations that are being developed to try to achieve more sustainable outcomes.  He made the point that when looked at as a whole there are some key facts that can be identified; that the direction of regulation is to encourage disclosure which leads to transparency and that transparency is essential to allow a market to be created.

The market that is emerging is characterised by wider choice, with smarter occupiers demanding shorter leases and more flexibility.  He posed the question as to why the property industry insists on using outdated names like “landlord” and “tenant” rather than “supplier” and “customer”; questioning if changing names would help to encourage improved quality and higher standards of aftercare.

He reviewed the current state of the market and identified that there has been a dramatic growth in the amount of available second hand property on the market which has increased from about 3 million square feet in 2000 to over 13 million square feet by 2011.

When investors, developers and occupiers are asked to identify the drivers that they believe will lead to property becoming obsolete in the next 5 years, they all identify energy efficiency as either the first or second most likely cause.

Change

Richard characterised the market as in a state of rapid and multifaceted change, with buildings increasingly being judged on how they perform, with savvy occupiers scrutinising certifications like BREEAM and LEED assessments and demanding evidence that actual performance in use is as predicted before they are willing to sign-up.  He sees a growing trend that is moving away from simply quantifying cost to growing importance placed on assessing value.

He illustrated this trend with the fact that 10 years ago it was hard to define, measure or value green buildings, but that over this period specialist knowledge relating to sustainability has become more generally accepted and that this has lead to a transformation of the market as a whole.  He illustrated this point with a quote from Jones Lang Lasalle 2011 Perspectives on Sustainability report:

“Five years ago, a corporate real estate executive might have thought sustainability was a costly way to make the company look good to employees. Two years ago, that same executive probably focused on energy management as a way to save money in the short run. Today, he or she may be pursuing green strategies that enhance employee productivity”.

For most companies, property costs are normally amoungst their top three highest costs, along with those associated with employing their personnel.  In striving for value it is essential that the effect that building design has on occupant behaviour is more deeply understood.  Richard made the powerful point that people are the crucial, but until now overlooked, economic component of sustainability.

He reinforced this with the 90% rule; namely that 90% of most organisations environmental impacts come from property occupation, that 90% of most individuals working life is spent indoors and that 90% of whole life costs can be directly attributed to their personnel.

When senior executives are asked about the relationship between productivity and sustainability over ²/₃ of respondents expect more sustainable buildings to facilitate their people being more productive, and that these productivity gains represent the largest potential economic benefit that sustainable buildings can deliver.

Economics

While Richard acknowledged that the notion of sustainable buildings commanding a premium is difficult to prove, there is he contends a growing body of evidence that this may be the case.  He presented data drawn for the UK, Europe and the US which quantified this “green premium” at somewhere between 3 and 8%.  He also explored the notion of a “brown discount” where poorly performing stock is financially penalised by the market; demonstrating that increased energy costs could account for as much as £3.00 per square foot.

He posed the question if this approach were applied to occupant productivity what would that do to the value of the best and worst performing examples?  As CBRE identified in their 2011 publication "Sustainability the Great Differentiator", a 10% increase in performance could easily equate to added values equilivalant in many cases to an organisations total rent.  Richard went on to highlight that total staffing costs equate to 10 times total property costs (design, build, operate and maintain) for a building with a typical 30 year lifecycle.

Next Steps

Richard concluded his presentation with his take on what the future may look like. He challenged the way buildings are valued, based on historic performance and taking little or no account of performance in use or wider sustainability issues.  He expressed his opinion that due diligence processes are being adopted by many larger occupiers to properly assess buildings and that this approach provide a good indication of the likely direction of travel of the industry as a whole.

He explored the subliminal messages that property performance conveys about brands and how this association is likely to drive increasing demands for higher performing buildings that reflect wider brand values.  He asked why should customers trust companies who cannot manage their assets and people well and by implication why should they be trusted with our resources?

In thinking about what a brands building says about the way they value their people Richard made the connection between a commitment to sustainability and the ability to build loyalty, engagement, efficiency and pride among its workforce.  As Richard put it:

“if you think it is just about the building, you are missing a giant opportunity”

He finished off his inspirational presentation with a checklist of key actions that should be adopted to ensure more sustainable outcomes:

•         Recognise the importance of performance

•         Understand the limitations of existing standards

•         Think beyond compliance

•         Understand how buildings enhance mission

•         Realise that items with the greatest benefits often have the least costs

•         Anticipate change by reverting to principles

I am left thinking that there is a serious disconnect in the property industry that is directly created in the way that buildings are viewed primarily as investment vehicles and not great place for people to inhabit.

You would have thought that risk averse property investment funds would attach enhanced value to lower risk, more sustainable buildings, however to date this has not been the case.  Similarly, occupiers must demand buildings that can demonstrate that they have been conceived specifically to enhance occupant performance.  Finally, developers must select design teams who can demonstrate that they approach their work from a “user centred” philosophical perspective. 

User Centred Design: Towards a New Sustainable Architecture

Dieter Rams, the designer behind some of Braun’s most successful products and a major influence on Apple’s Jonathon Ive, powerfully stated in a speech in 1976,



Dieter Rams



“A designer who wants to achieve good design must not regard himself as an artist who, according to taste and aesthetics, is merely dressing up products with a last-minute garment. The designer must be the “gestaltingenieur” or creative engineer.  They synthesize the completed product from the various elements that make up its design. Their work is largely rational, meaning that aesthetic decisions are justified by an understanding of the product’s purpose”.

He went on to articulate his ethos of user-centred design and his now famous 10 commandments of what constitutes good design:

Innovative	Honest
Useful	Long lasting
Aesthetic	Thorough to the last detail
Understandable	Environmentally friendly
Unobtrusive	As little design as possible!



Rams designed hi fi



You have to say that this is still a pretty compelling list, which is hard to argue with.  What is interesting is that while there are products, including I would argue, many designed by Apple, that follow this philosophy, architectural design from 1976 to today has, in the main, tried to satisfy as few of these principles as possible, making a virtue out of the irrational and on occasions the down right perverse!  You only need consider the latest iconic London tower or many of the Olympic buildings to see that what grabs the attention of the media is often the triumph of style over substance.

However, we have found that there are some notable exceptions to this trend, that I would argue signal the beginning of what will become a paradigm shift.  We have been fortunate to work for a number of owner occupier organisations, who having not been able to find buildings that satisfy their criteria have taken the courageous decision to build for themselves.  One of their key requirements is to create spaces specifically designed around the needs of their users, which reinforce the cultural and philosophical values that they hold.  They are not interested initially in what the building will look like, but how it works and what benefits it will bring in terms of reinforcing their values and how it will deliver measurable improvements in the way they conduct their core activities.

Central to their thinking is the way building design can facilitate team working, communication and knowledge sharing.  Ultimately, they demand solutions that will enhance the value created by the people who use them.  To achieve this objective requires a reappraisal of the nature of the workplace, challenging assumptions regarding occupation density, open plan to cellular ratios, break out space organisation and the provision of congregational facilities where all members can be brought together.  The architecture is developed from the user outward, rather than trying to force them into a pre-defined container.

This approach challenges the traditional Venn diagram that defines sustainability as being located at the intersection of the social, economic and environmental aspects of a project.  To articulate this approach we have developed the Black Target Diagram that places social issues at the centre of the process.  Economic factors form the outer frame to ensure that what is proposed is as innovative as possible while being deliverable within the available budget.  Environmental impacts must be minimised without impacting on the needs of the user or the economic sustainability of the overall project.

I believe that this approach will deliver the paradigm shift that is required if we are to address the challenges of our age, delivering buildings that are intrinsically sustainable.  They will no longer be designed simply to reinforce the house style of their architects, but will instead deliver a radical new sustainable architecture, moulded and shaped to satisfy the needs of its intended users.  It will be rational, logical and inherently beautiful and most importantly, capable of responding to the massive challenges that our society faces.

I believe that the future is already here, but it is just that we have not noticed yet.  We urgently need to design buildings that are relevant and this can only be achieved if we apply a user centred design process, focused on social sustainability and adopt the rigor set out in Dieter’s 10 commandments. 

Green Architecture or Sustainable Development?

At the Building Centre this afternoon for their session,

“What Does Green Architecture Mean to You”?

Hosted by Ellis Woodman, Editor of Building Design and the architectural correspondent for The Telegraph, Ellis introduced presentations from four emerging practitioners, Tom Coward of AOC, Justin Bere of Bere Architects, Dan Jones of Civic and Adam Khan of Adam Khan Architects who briefly introduced their work.

Ellis opened the session by referring to a Tweet that he had received this morning questioning how the line-up of speakers had been selected.  A good question, was this more to do with promoting emerging new practices and less to do with their approach to sustainable architecture?  His criterion was to find panelists who approach sustainability from a broad perspective, going beyond simply considering technical issues.  I would argue that it is impossible to consider sustainability without going beyond the technical, but then I have no idea what constitutes green architecture either.  Maybe all would become clear? 



Gaylingay Eco Hub



First up was Dan Jones of Civic who illustrated his approach with a case study of the Gamlingay Eco Hub, a refurbishment and extension of an existing 1960’s community centre.  The low population of the village location, along with its lack of cultural diversity, made the project ineligible for grant funding and this led to a slow funding and development process over a seven year period with the client community leading the process.  He claimed that the building was “dark green” as it features an enviable array of low energy technologies including PV’s, solar thermal water heating and a ground source heat pump.  These were included not simply because they were “the right thing to do” but because, he claimed, they made the project economically sustainable by helping to secure funding and reducing running costs.  It was not clear what measures had been undertaken to improve the thermal insulation and airtightness of the 80% of the existing building that was retained.  Similarly, it would have been good if the claimed benefits of the renewables had been backed up by some number.  He concluded by saying that for him green architecture was not simply about buildings but had more to do with working closely with the community that occupies them.



No 1 Low Carbon Drive



Tom Coward of AOC was next up and presented not a piece of architecture, but as he described them, a series of conversations that they had produced to encourage the retrofitting of existing homes.  These included their No 1 Low Carbon Drive project, a full size, two storey exhibition pavilion, first installed in Trafalgar Square, that showed a range of interventions home owners can make to improve energy efficiency, a low energy dolls house, currently on display at The building Centre and their current proposal to reconfigure part of the exhibition space at The Building Centre into a full scale walk through installation of a house, where low energy products are displayed in the relevant parts of the home.  The most interesting aspect of AOC’s projects was the clear simple methods that they have developed to engage the home owner.  He illustrated the urgent need for action by making the point that only 12% of our existing housing stock was built since 1990 and therefore the remaining 88% is in urgent need of significant retrofitting if we are to achieve our carbon emission commitments.    He concluded with some observations of how our priorities are skewed to favour property speculation over investment in improving our homes and illustrated the point with the fact that to recoup the investment in retrofitting a house would take 25 years but most owners move every 6 to 12 years.  In theory, the Green Deal should help to overcome this issue.  Interestingly, he discussed the idea of “energy descent” where lower consumption is seen as synonymous with reduced choice and ultimately a less desirable future.  This to me is the real challenge, we have to develop an architecture that is demonstrably better to inhabit while using significantly less energy and this can only be achieved by placing people’s needs and social sustainability at the heart of the design process.



Brockholes Visitor Centre

Adam Khan began by challenging the term “green Architecture”, stating that it is a tautology like humane, civilised or beautiful architecture and is unhelpful.  I would put it more strongly; it is actually meaningless.  He characterised the current architectural debate as a battle between those in denial of the need for change and a group of new green functionalists who measure everything but are unable to value what is important.  It strikes me that a healthy dose of sustainable functionalism is a good thing, helping to break the stranglehold of the current obsession of the media who extol the virtues of the iconic with no real interest in the relevance of the work.  Adam described his personal journey of discovery during the course of their Brockholes Visitor Centre project, driven by their client who was passionately committed to sustainable development, illustrating the point with reference to the learning that he had made through following the BREEAM process.  He talked of his surprise at being challenged by other team members about the inclusion of large amounts of glass at low level in the original concept and acknowledged that effective teamworking is central to the environmental performance of the finished building.  He concluded by praising FAT’s scheme for New Islington as a good example of green architecture because it only uses expensive details on the front elevation and was conceived to allow occupants to customise and adapt behind the fancy if thin front facade.  I found this argument about as convincing as the stage set architecture that it credits!



Mayville Community Centre



The final presentation was by Justin Bere of Bere Architects who championed the Passivhaus process as the best method of achieving affordable green architecture, illustrating his claim with evidence of actual delivered energy savings of completed buildings; including their Mayville Community Centre, in use.  The facts and figures were compelling and helped to differentiate his approach to those of the other speakers.  This is a crucial issue if we as a profession are to build a body of evidence to convince sceptics of the urgent need for change.  He talked compellingly about how comfortable Passivhaus buildings are, citing constant internal temperatures during both winter and summer, with regulated internal humidity helping to improve indoor air quality and even reducing house mite numbers.  Justin spoke from a position of knowledge and expertise that was both intelligent and engaging.  He identified the importance of exceeding the expectations of buildings users and powerfully illustrated the point with an anecdote about a group of elderly users who report that their new community centre is a more comfortable environment than their homes.  However, this may tell us as much about their homes as it does about the finished building

Ellis concluded the session identifying how user groups and bottom up action had shaped a number of the projects presented and posed the question if this would result in a redefinition of the role of the architect, before inviting questions from the audience.  These ranged from specific issues around green specification to more strategic questions including the role of the planning system and the conflict between existing Conservation Area policies and the need to retrofit external insulation.  I posed the question of whether a paradigm shift in thinking is required if we are to effectively address the issues of our age.  Interestingly, this was interpreted by most of the panelists as advocating a “technofix” rather than adopting the core principles of bioclimatic architectural design and a return to the basic principles that have guided the architectural development for centuries.

While it was an interesting session, I was left feeling that we have a long way to go if we are to address the urgent challenges of our age.  The fact that we are still talking about green architecture is depressing; let’s face it even the RIBA are belatedly embracing the idea that sustainable architecture is the way forward and are consulting members on embracing a definition of sustainability based on the Bruntland definition, dating back to 1987, incorporating social, economic and environmental components.  I had hoped for the emerging young guns to offer some radical new perspectives but I was ultimately left a little disappointed.

Redefining Sustainability and the Decline of Ecobuild

So, it is that EcoBuild time of the year again!  I gave a presentation in the session “Changing behaviour for the energy efficient operation of buildings” about how buildings can be designed to improve occupant behaviour and energy consumption.  The session was very well attended, standing room only, with over eighty people in the room.  Not bad for the last session of the day.

John Connaughton of Davis Langdon who opened and chaired the session provided a good overview of the issues encountered when trying to encourage more energy conscious occupation.  John explained how we have become a “powered up nation”; in love with our gadgets.  This has led to a dramatic rise in small power consumption that has negated much of the savings made by more efficient systems and higher performing building envelopes.  In his office John has used thermal imaging to show occupants the energy wasted by transformers and adaptors.  He also identified that as energy performance improves occupants tend to increase their comfort levels by turning up the heating or air conditioning.

Following John, Joanna Eley of AMA Alexi Marmot Associates explored her research work with the Cabinet Office that demonstrated how difficult it is to use traditional methods to change occupant behaviour.  She described a number of initiatives that have been developed to address this issue, including CoolBiz, a Japanese Government backed scheme that encourages employees to change the way they dress for work to suit the climate, rather than simply relying on heating and cooling systems.  Joanna also presented the work of Dan Lockton, who designs products specifically to affect user behaviour, including a light switch that looks messy when it is on; and is tidied up by switching it off!

Peter Fisher of Bennetts Associates introduced his talk with a comparison of the work of Dieter Rams and Jonathon Ive, using the Braun Razor and the Iphone to illustrate that both the simple razor and the complex phone have been designed with an obsessive focus on simplicity and ease of use.  He drew the analogy with the work of his practice, who strive to achieve buildings that occupants can understand and are intuitive to use.  To illustrate this philosophical approach he presented their recently completed project for the refurbishment of Hampshire County Council Headquarters in Winchester.  This is a great scheme that I have had the pleasure to visit.

For my presentation I focused on user centred design and the need to redefine the way we think about the interrelation between the social, economic and environmental aspects that make up sustainable development.  I proposed that the traditional Venn diagram composed of three equal overlapping circles was no longer appropriate and proposed that we should move to a target model that places social and user needs at the centre of the design process, with the economic constraints defining the outer edge of the target with the environmental responses developed to satisfy the needs of both.

I also described work that we have been developing with Doug King of King Shaw where we challenge the metrics that we measure to assess the performance of buildings.  We believe that considering energy use per square meter is irrelevant and that we should as an industry move to measuring it on a per occupant basis!  When this approach is applied it produces some very interesting results, including higher levels of energy use in passively conditioned offices when compared with mixed mode solutions due to the higher densities of occupation that can be sustained in the latter.

While the presentations at EcoBuild continue to offer a broad range of both subjects and speakers, I am not sure that the trade show element has managed to stay relevant.  In many ways the use of the “eco” prefix that is applied to the show and all products on display, from toilets to solar panels, regardless of their actual performance characteristics, reflects a wider malaise in the construction industry, namely its failure to holistically embrace the social, economic and environmental aspects that must be addressed in the quest for more sustainable outcomes.  It feels to me that now is the time for a new forum to be developed, where smaller more innovative companies can afford to display their products.  Any thoughts on what we should call it?

Waterworks?

Having been invited by the BIFM to present to their Midlands sustainability group on water issues linked with buildings, I thought some research was in order. CAFOD's Romero House, our BREEAM Excellent office for the charity in Southwark, seemed like the obvious choice of building to discuss with its green roof, low flush toilets, water saving fittings, rainwater harvesting and most importantly enthusiastic occupants who epitomise those who have embraced the need for what is termed 'behavioural change'.

CAFOD's green roof

Looking at the raw figures, the numbers seem impressive - a 4,500 litre rainwater tank in the basement supplying all of the buildings toilets and urinals, occupying a corner in the plant room near the ground source heat pumps. But its only just big enough to provide 4.5 flushes on average per toilet for the 300 occupants before fresh rain is required to water the green roof and then flow down into the harvesting tank. I've not needed my umbrella much this year and suspect that the potable mains 'top up' is more fill up! It's estimated that only 10% of the office's need has come from the rainwater tank. As an organisation CAFOD are committed to reducing their water usage - but they can't influence when or how heavily it rains - a phenomena increasingly effected by climate change, where we are experiencing more erratic and intense weather patterns.

 CAFOD's rainwater harvesting tank

At VolkerFitzpatrick's office, which was completed 3 years ago, we know that over 50% of the toilet flushing demand is met by the rainwater harvesting tank - providing a significant reduction in potable water use and in excess of £800 saving in water charges. That's a water tank 4 times as large as CAFOD's and serving half the number of people. Should we have dug a bigger basement for CAFOD, excavating more material and shipping it to landfill, or get the client to buy a bigger site for an above ground tank? What's the correct economic and environmental balance?

 

The conclusion put to the BIFM at the end of the presentation, was to continue to meter and monitor water supply, and build up reliable post occupancy data that will inform future design decisions. Technology Strategy Board funding is currently being sought to obtain that data and then assess the value of each water saving component. Such data whether related to toilet flushing or on site surface water attenuation through green roofs has wider social benefits. At the start of the presentation we saw that Thames Water's £4bN 'Supa Sewer' was required to deal with our inability to manage the discharge of water from our buildings - a massive attenuation tank running for 25km under the bed of the river Thames. If we adopt a more holistic approach that money could be spent locally benefiting the wider community - although centralised infrastructure projects are the flavour of the month.

                 
We aim to please! Urinal at B&Q New Malden