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  He posed the question as to why the property industry insists on using outdated names like “landlord” and “tenant” rather than “supplier” and “customer”; questioning if changing names would help to encourage improved quality and higher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. 

Sustainable Retail; The Customer is King!

Sanisburys Greenwich the first  
BREEAM Excellent Supermarket

It has been over twelve years since the first sustainable retail building was opened by Sainsbury's on the Greenwich Peninsula.  So you would imagine that the knowledge base has developed significantly over this period and that we are now producing much better more holistic solutions right?  Well, unfortunately I am not sure that this is the case!  You  see, the problem I would argue, is that we have fairly spectacularly missed the point when it come to designing sustainable buildings for the retail sector.  Rather than starting with the needs, wants and desires of the customer almost all of the developments have focused on energy efficiency to the virtual exclusion of anything else.



Borough covered market
is flooded with natural light



So why, if the retailers mantra is "the customer is king" has this not been the starting point for redesigning the buildings that we would like them to use, enjoy and want to come back to?  I believe that this is caused by a fundamental disconnect between the shop keepers and the teams that deliver their buildings.  Rather than understanding what the client really needs to drive sales, the process has been dumbed down to a repeater process that reduces risk but ultimately delivers an end result that is far from the optimum.

Natural lighting at
the Burlington Arcade

A good illustration of this point is the reintroduction of daylight into the sales floor.  At Greenwich we used a north light roof that not only provides light but also reconnected the interior of the store with the wider environment; creating a more comfortable, less claustrophobic environment, conceived to encourage customers to dwell longer and spend more.  Subsequent buildings have used light pipes to deliver the daylight, but with none of the other customer benefits.



Customer Centered Design



Customer centered retail design should offer the most comfort benefits to the customer using the least energy and materials necessary to satisfy their needs.  This would mean that all stores would be heated and if really necessary, cooled using underfloor systems, rather than blowing warm and cool air down into the occupied zone, because humans experience discomfort when heated from above.  This arrangement has the associated benefit that only the volume of the store nearest the floor that customers inhabit is conditioned.  Temperatures above the first two metres can be allowed to fluctuate more widely since nobody experiences them.



B&Q New Malden
 North light roof



Providing appropriate fresh air is also an important factor in creating a well tempered customer environment.  It is important that fresh air is delivered directly to the place where customers are, near the floor, rather than blowing it down onto them from above.  The reason for this is simple, all of the warm, moist, stale air that we exhale floats up and settles in a soggy, smelly layer against the ceiling.  When fresh air is blown down from above it has to pass through this layer where it enevitably mixes, resulting in a mixture of fresh and stale air being delivered!  Many high quality office environments use displacement ventilation delivered through grills in the floor and similar systems have been trialled in retail environments but have not yet been widely adopted.



Customers visiting
IKEA Southampton



Customers love natually lit retail environments; think of covered markets and arcades and you conjure up a picture of fresh abundant produce and upmarket boutique shops with beautifully lit produce.  So why is it that black box stores with little or no natural light has become the norm?  The argument made is that natural light is hard to control and can wash out display lighting.  Amazingly, galleries manage to light priceless works of art this way, we just need to try a little harder.  One of the other challenges that natural lighting poses is that the windows in the roof need to face north if overheating is to be avoided.  Sites do not always make it easy to orientate the roof in the correct direction and this has led to the increasing use of lightpipes as they do not require specific orientation.  This is in my opinion an over reaction and we need to develop innovative solutions to overcome what are realitively easy problems to solve.

Once we have created the optimum internal environment for our customers it is important that energy losses through the envelope are kept to an absolute minimum.  It really suprises me that buildings are still being built to Building Regulations minimum standards.  Insulation is relatively cheap and is much easier to install during construction than at some point during the life of the building.  I can see no reason why you would not install the maximum amount of insulation to futureproof the finished building, aiming to achieve a u value of between 0.1 to 0.15 W/m²K and carefully detail the junctions to ensure infiltration rates are less than 0.15 m³/( m².hr) @50Pa.

Simple lightweight timber frame

Operation V Embodied Energy

As buildings are designed to be more energy efficient the balance between operational energy and embodied energy shifts, placing more emphasis on the energy that is embodied in the materials used to construct the buildings.  This has led to a move away from steel and concrete to wood alternatives.  While this is to be encouraged, because timber locks in carbon, we do not currently grow enough of the stuff to satisfy demand.  A number of projects are making big sustainability claims based on the fact that they use a lot of wood and therefore sequester large amounts of carbon.  If you are building in Scandinavia where wood is plentiful this is not such an issue, however in Britian we do not produce much and it will be difficult to significantly increase production.  I believe that we should be designing hi tech timber structures that use our precious locally grown timber as efficiently as possible.  Through careful design and specification this approach will encourage investment in UK forestery and help to develop the UK timber industry.

Made in Britian

I believe that the continuing concern regarding the state of the UK economy, coupled with growing emphasis on the carbon footprint of the materials, will see a drive towards the use of more locally produced building materials.  This is likely to result in buildings specifically designed to be “Made in Britian” using local materials and components to reduce their total embodied carbon, create jobs and help to grow the UK’s building products industries.

Neptune Point Harrow
retail led mixed use development

Retail led Mixed Use Development

To support our ailing High Streets it is essential that new development is sensitively located to provide retail anchors that will attract customers to these under pressure locations and encourage linked shopping trips.  I believe that all new retail development should be designed to make the most of valuable urban land and to do this, high density mixed use schemes will become the norm.  This will not only ensure economic sustainability by incorporating residential uses above retail, it will help to increase the number of residents in the area who will patronise not only the stores that they live above, but also their adjoining local High Street.



Waitrose cookery school may
evolve into an in store concept



Experiential Retailing

The trend for creating more experiential retail environments has been developing for over a decade now, but has yet to really influence the design of most stores.  But, with the rapid growth in online retail and the inevitable impact that it is having on physical store takings there is a growing need for stores to offer more than simply selling products if they are to arrest the growth in virtual shopping.  I believe that we will see more retail stores incorporating environments where customers can actually try out products and learn new skills.  Imagine the Jamie Oliver healthy eating academy, attached to your local store, teaching customers how to cook and eat more healthy food.  At your local B&Q store you will be able to try new tools before you buy, learn skills from local tradesmen and even take a taster course run by the local further eduction college before signing up for full time study.  Incorporating educational facilities within retail environment will provide tangible benefits to the local communities that they serve and for early adoptors will dramatically change customer perception of their brands.



A New Sustainable Retail Architecture

It is now over a decade since Sainsbury’s at Greenwich, the worlds first sustainable retail building opened and it is, in my biased opinion, still yet to be supassed.  In these recessionary times it is essential that the sustainable stores of the future must utilise customer focused design to deliver enduring value by making customers feel comfortable, relaxed and more likely to stay and spend.  Every material and component must be selected to provide optimum performance with the minimum carbon footprint and material miles.  Social sustainability will I believe be of increasing importance and will result in new and innovative uses being incorporated into stores, providing customers and their families with education and training opportunities.  All of the social and economic benefits must be achieved with either neutral or ideally beneficial impacts upon the environment.  I am firmly of the opinion that holistic sustainability will be the key driver that will drive innovation and this will revolutionise store architecture.

Breakfast on Black 2: It’s All About the People Stupid!

The latest in our Breakfast on Black events took place last Friday, attended by an invited group of industry leaders with a passion for sustainable development.  Our speaker this time was Miles Keeping, Head of Responsible Property Investment at Drivers Jonas Deloitte.  Miles’ presentation focused on where value is created in sustainable development, focusing on the human factors and the role that buildings have on the productivity of their inhabitants.



Miles Keeping
Head of Responsible Property Investment
Drivers Jonas Deloitte



Miles kicked of by reviewing the plethora of legislation that has been passed to encourage energy savings in pursuit of the government’s target of an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.  Buildings, both new and existing are a key sector as they currently account for about a third of the UK’s total emissions, but as Miles pointed out there have been some very mixed messages coming from the coalition government around encouraging sustainable development.  He highlighted the weakening of the stance taken by HM Treasury, including the heavy cuts made to feed-in tariff’s and blocking the roll-out of Display Energy Certificates(DEC’s).  If as promised this is to be the most sustainable government ever then they have a pretty strange way of showing it!

He went on to explore occupier’s attitudes to sustainability, identifying that most large companies report on sustainability and that this has historically been driven by a range of different motives including:

1                    Increased regulation

2                    Stakeholder pressure

3                    Brand strength

4                    Cost savings

5                    Reporting and disclosure

6                    Business continuity

In Miles’ opinion one of the most powerful drivers for occupiers to choose sustainable buildings is risk mitigation, whether that is from increasing energy cost, impact upon their brands from undesirable media coverage, or direct threats to continuity of trade caused by the impacts of climate change.

He also identified a perceived link between buildings that fall into this category and increased productivity, but acknowledged that the evidence required to substantiate this claim is not yet available.  I find this surprising, as there is research dating back to the 1990’s undertaken at Cardiff University which quantified a 16% reduction in absenteeism in low energy buildings when compared to air conditioned examples in similar locations.  This is an area where our industry needs to undertake urgent research if we are to be able to prove the business case for sustainable development.

Miles showed an interesting diagram showing the different factors of sustainable design, starting with location as the most important factor and moving out to water, waste and energy efficiency.  For me what was most telling about this diagram was that if you discount location as often being predetermined, then the most important factors are design quality, occupier satisfaction, spatial efficiency, flexibility and adaptability.  These are all architectural concerns and they have the largest impact on the sustainability of the completed building.  This highlights the critical importance of user centred design and the significant but often poorly addressed issues around the relationship between people who occupy buildings and the design philosophy that informs their creation.



Diagram of the factors that influence
 sustainable design



There is some strong evidence produced by the British Council of Offices (BCO) which demonstrates that occupiers see factors including energy performance and associated costs as factors which will be of growing importance over the next 10-20 years.  In reviewing this data, Miles also identified that this study showed that low or zero carbon buildings will be areas to experience significant growth.  What is most interesting is that there is no mention of the effects that building design has on the productivity of occupants.  Is this because occupiers do not see this as relevant, or as I would suggest, that they simply were not asked?

What is clear, is that if tenants prefer sustainable buildings, then these buildings are de-risked, making them safer investments and potentially worth more.  The perception in the market, is that sustainable buildings offer greater resilience, are more effective and can offer organisations a competitive advantage.  There is a growing belief that there may be a “green premium” and that this may also accelerate the rate of obsolescence of older, poorer performing stock.  In combination these two factors may have a dramatic affect as investors move away from the old towards the new.  Miles highlighted this trend with research from The Netherlands on the value of energy labels in the European office market that shows a rapid divergence between the value of green index and non-green index buildings.

In conclusion Miles stated that there is increasingly compelling evidence to support a value shift in favour of more sustainable buildings and that this is associated with a perceived increase in risk associated with older, poorly performing stock.  He posed the question “when will productivity become a valuation issue” and stated that there is still a lack of reliable data to prove the link between building design and productivity and that this is a real problem.  I was left with the feeling that so far the industry has delivered only minor energy improvements and that these have been achieved by increasing cost.  The crucial next phase is that we need to demonstrate how sustainability adds real and enduring value and this is all about the productivity of the people who occupy our buildings; or put another way, it is all about the people, stupid!

Renzo and His Piano

Razia and Renzo at RIBA

The evening at the RIBA began well last night as Angela Brady the President making a slip of the tongue and introducing him as “Renzo and his Piano”!  What followed was the first in a series of interviews conducted by Razia Iqbal to be broadcast on the BBC World Service under the title of Dream Builders.  The extended interview format was split into sections with questions from the audience after each section.  This led to a rather fragmented event lasting almost two hours, which never really got to the heart of what makes Renzo Piano tick.

The first section and recurrent theme of the evening was The Shard, with a short film exploring the building and interview with the buildings developer client Irvine Sellar. He told us that when first approached to design a tower, Piano was reticent about undertaking the commission as he thinks that they are usually “phallic and undemocratic”!

The interview that followed set the tone for the evening, with Razia asking a series of not too taxing questions and then allowing Renzo to provide long, poetic, but rather thin answers.  We learned that he thinks natural light is good, lightness a virtue, machines are sexy and transparency essential.  A lot was made of The Shard being a “vertical village” incorporating retail, office, restaurants, hotel and residential uses, along with a public viewing gallery and topped with London’s highest meditation space, which can also cater for up to forty well heeled private function guests.

Piano described the scheme with lyrical prose, as being highly democratic, making a significant contribution to the urban environment and how the words “civic” and “civilised” are virtually the same in Italian.  I am not sure how democratic luxury shops, restaurants and hotels really are, but swanky flats and offices definitely are not!  Sure, it is great to get elevated views over a city from a public viewing gallery, but this can often be experienced by the punter as a long, segregated queue in uninviting left over spaces that are kept out of sight of the beautiful people who the building is really designed for.

Typicl office plan with north point

Sustainability was briefly touched on, with the justification of the all glass façade being that it is triple glazed, with interstitial blinds that automatically close when the sun hits the various splinters that form the envelope.  Piano talked about lightness of the construction but this was really about the visual lightness of the façade than the actual weight and related embodied energy of the structure, made with an enormous amount of concrete.  He claimed that The Shard is the most sustainable tower in the world but did not back up this audacious claim with any evidence.  I was left with the impression that, as with so much in architecture at present, you must tick the sustainability box, but there is no need to let it interfere with how the building is designed.

Following on from The Shard the discussions became more philosophical, with Renzo talking about the size of his organisation and the way they approach their work.  Interestingly he does not see big as beautiful and has imposed a limit of one hundred people so that he can oversee, but not control the output of his office. 

Images of his breathtaking studio, situated on a cliff overlooking the sea outside Genoa appeared on the big screen, along with pictures showing the great man at the helm of his luxury yacht Kirribilli, creating a picture of someone with a very pleasant, if rather suburban lifestyle. 

Richard Rogers was in the audience and it occurred to me that in both his work and the way he organises his practice he is much more engaged with the urban realm.  Rogers work in cities has built upon the ideas behind The Pompidou Centre or as Piano and Rogers refer to it Beaubourg, while Piano’s later works are more aloof, read as objects rather than integrated pieces of the city. When asked if they were to collaborate on another project in the future, what they would like to do, Piano suggested a tower, which Rogers discounted, instead suggesting a Piazza.

After the event I was left thinking that The Shard was a bit of a missed opportunity.  In theory the mix of uses, the context of the site and its adjacency to a major transport hub and the size of the budget should have delivered something remarkable, but this opportunity is I believe frustrated by the tyranny of the image and iconography of the shard as an idea.



Menil Collection

I am left with many questions.  Why are all of the different uses treated with the same elevational response?  What richness would have been created if the programme had been made apparent on the exterior?  How could solar aspect and orientation have informed the design of each of the surfaces?  Is a narrow tapering form really the most appropriate shape to try to fit such a wide range of different user groups and activities within?



Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre

I have always had a great respect for the work of The Renzo Piano Workshop and their approach, creating intelligent, beautifully crafted, simple elegant modern architecture.  Their Menil Collection and Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre are highlights, shaped to respond to and manipulate the external environment to condition and regulate the interior, adopting bio-climatic design principles that directly govern the appearance of the completed buildings.  It would have been great if this approach had been taken in London, then we really would have had a relevant, provocative addition to our city. 

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. 

Greenbuild Expo 2012

I am writing this blog on the train back from Manchester after presenting at Greenbuild Expo 2012 struggling to decide whether or not it was worth the long trip north.  This was my first time at this show and I have to say it did make a pleasant alternative to the monster that EcoBuild has become.  On the positive side the presentations take place within the exhibition hall, so it is easy to catch those that are of most interest and catch-up on the trade stalls in between.



Greenbuild Expo at Manchester Central

I had a good look around the show first and found that although there were less manufacturers represented than EcoBuild, there was the now familiar range of PV, low energy lighting and solar water heating solutions, along with a smaller number of consulting companies and media organisations.  The product with the largest range of options was definitely biomass heating systems, ranging in scale from the domestic right up to the industrial.  I was left wondering if we are increasing the amount of fuel we grow at the same rate that different technologies for its consumption are being brought to market? 

Before making my presentation I had just enough time to catch a session by Rachael Mellows of M&S and Ed Dixon of Simons Construction on M&S’s Plan A, Sustainable Learning Store at Cheshire Oaks.  They build two of these projects each year and then undertake post occupancy evaluation before incorporating the most successful initiatives into their mainstream development programme.  What is surprising is that as a repeat client there is still this separation between learning and development.  I think it would be cheaper and easier to redesign their standard store model in such a way that it is economically sustainable and able to be rolled out everywhere.





What was most noticeable about the presentation was the emphasis placed on community consultation and engagement during both the planning and construction phases.  There was some interesting ideas about local procurement with the majority of packages drawn from companies within 25 miles of the site and then 50 miles if no suitable companies are available locally.  It was stated that for each package about 60% is spent on labour with the remaining 40% on materials and that the majority of expenditure on labour is spent locally, whereas materials need to be sourced from much further away.  I am old enough to remember when the majority of M&S products were “made in Britian” and this got me thinking that it would be great if their buildings were specifically designed to be made with building products and materials from the UK.



Institution of
Civil Engineers
8 Storeys Gate Building

In the afternoon I spoke about our project for The Institution of Civil Engineers at 8 Storeys Gate, as part of the session on commercial refurb.   I ran though our approach to the refurbishment of this grade 2 listed building in Westminster, explaining how user centred design and social sustainability were at the heart of our design process.  There was significant interest in research that Professor Doug King has carried out that begins to challenge measurement of CO² emissions not on a per square meter basis but instead uses a per workstation measurement. 

This analysis suggests that mixed mode buildings are more sustainable than passively conditioned exemplars as they do not rely on low occupation densities.  This also offers the benefit of larger teams being able to work in closer proximity improving communication and user efficiency.  We have used these higher densities to create a wider range of social spaces throughout the building.  These provide venues for colleagues to meet and share knowledge on an informal basis, helping to break down barriers to communication created in multi storey buildings.

I concluded by making a challenge to the traditional, three ring, Venn diagram that places sustainability in the region where the rings intercept; arguing instead that social sustainability should be at the centre of a target diagram, constrained by economics and with environmental design that meets the needs of both users and the budget with the least impact on the planet.



Renault Twizy Electric Quadracycle

As I was leaving the Manchester Centre I had the chance to take a first look at Renault’s new Twizy electric quadracycle with a 70 mile range on a full charge that only costs £1.  Even better, it is road tax exempt.  If only building technology products could be so well resolved and so cheap to run.