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
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?
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