FutureHaus

Whatever platitudes our politician’s come up with to justify their negligent lack of investment in energy efficiency and low carbon supplies, I believe that we must now accept the inevitable; the cost of running our homes is likely to increase dramatically! In response to this I believe that the FutureHaus will be sold not on what it cost to run but instead on the energy yield and income that they can deliver to occupants.  I believe that the design of the home is on the threshold of a period of rapid and dramatic change.  Energy costs and concern regarding energy security, coupled with technological innovation will see the home moving from a consumer to a producer of energy. 

Smart systems will store excess energy in household appliances including hot water cylinders, fridges and freezers and new technologies will make battery back-up an affordable option to run the home overnight.  A new generation of small scale, building integrated wind turbines, concealed in roof ridge tiles, will silently and invisibly harness the wind to provide the majority of power during the winter months.  Even human waste will be processed within the home by small scale anaerobic digesters, designed to look like other domestic appliances, that can be integrated into the interior of the home and provide both heat and power, along with limitless amounts of compost to feed the organic fruit and veg grown in the rooftop allotment.

The major challenge of our age will be the retrofitting of our existing building stock; 80% of which will still be in use by 2050.  This represents a massive opportunity for trusted organisations to offer customers the advice and help that they require to bring their homes up to the carbon positive standards required.  As new green technologies mature, their costs will reduce making them affordable solutions for the vast majority of customers.  We will need to find affordable, less disruptive ways of insulating large numbers of solid wall housing and this offers a significant opportunity for job creation and growth in the wider UK economy.  The technology in the home will need to be managed and updated and this will see the growth in new service offerings that will maintain the performance of the home in a similar way to the role that the garage plays in helping keep your car on the road.

As homes move towards zero carbon and on to carbon positive, a series of exciting opportunities will emerge.  The home will be able to become the fuel station for the car, charging its batteries with clean solar energy.  Solar hydrogen panels will provide the fuel for a cars hydrogen fuel cell, with the same system used to power and recharge the home when the car is in the garage.  Technologies that store thermal and electrical energy will develop rapidly and will remove the concerns that customers may have about the intermittent nature of renewable technologies.

Timber used for construction will continue to expand, but there will be an increasing demand for locally grown timber that creates forestry jobs in the local market and where the value added through converting lumber into timber products benefits the local economy.  In areas like the UK where land for forestry is restricted this is likely to drive the development of engineered timber products like Structural insulated Panels (SIP’s) and structures made from round wood, forestry thinning’s, will use limited amounts of material in very structurally efficient arrangements.

Timber waste will be converted into wood flour or chippings and used in combination with recycled post-consumer waste plastics to form a range of extruded sections that will be able to be used for both structural and non-structural application.  Waste paper and card will be used to make high performance structural tubes, achieving the carbon sequestration benefits of timber while reprocessing and upcycling locally derived waste.  Ultimately the notion of waste will become obsolete, with all material reprocessed to create new, high value products, creating jobs and helping to grow our local green economy.

Manufacturing technologies including 3D printing and CNC machining will allow manufacturing to be relocated from the Far East and undertaken within local markets once more, saving cost, time and emissions associated with existing long logistics supply chains.  New manufacturing technology will offer the possibility for products like flat pack furniture to be designed and manufactured in store,  allowing all customers the opportunity to become designer, customising products to satisfy their own unique requirements.

Ultimately I believe that we are on the threshold of a new age where homes are designed not simply to provide shelter but to make a positive contribution to the economic and environmental as well as the physical wellbeing of occupants.  This will demand new solar settlements, innovative residential design and integrated and intelligent utilities.  If anyone out there fancies joining me in the quest to develop the FutureHaus, along with the settlements that it will create, please give me a call!

Phoenix HQ November Update

This is the second of an on-going series of blogs that aim to create a photographic log of the construction process at the Phoenix HQ.

At the end of October (click here to view previous blog) a couple of bays had been erected and we could look forward to the completion of the first half of the frame by the end of the month.

Site visit 01.11.2012

When we next returned to site at the beginning of the month the first half of the composite frame had been erected and the construction team were starting preparation for the first floor’s metal deck to be laid.

 

Site visit 08.11.2012

One week later the metal deck was down, and for the first time we were able to gain access to the first floor. At this point the scale of the spaces had started to become more apparent and we were able to envisage how it will feel when the building is in use.

 

 

Site visit 20.11.2012

 

After a two week absence from site the concrete for first floor slab had been laid and work is currently progressing with attaching the SIPs to the composite frame, although there have been some delays due to high winds.

 

Site visit 22.11.2012

 

Phase II of the frame started on the 26^th of November and will be complete within the next 3 weeks, when the overall mass of the building should become clearly visible. Concurrent with this, the blockwork is due to commence on the ground floor any day now and the layout of the public spaces and lift shafts will start to take shape. This should all be complete by the 6^th of January when first fix is due to commence. 

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.