Elemental

These are my links for March 24th through March 29th:

• Lack of integration threatens UK’s sustainable buildings – Nothing new here – what are we going to do about it?: "The report argues that the "large number of interfaces" between the parties to the construction process, coupled with "high transaction costs and risk of duplication and re-work", serves a body blow against efforts to the rapid growth of sustainable buildings. It recommends that at the start of a project, "an integrated project delivery team with in-depth knowledge of the construction process" must be put in place."
• Design for Homes – Continuing Professional Development (CPD) – Masses of CPD pdf's – including articles from Pooran Desai and loads on sustainable communities.
• Transsolar Climate Engineering: Moderating The Design Process- 3/1/2009 – Building Design & Construction – "Among the participants were two German engineers, Matthias Schuler and Thomas Auer, who, according to Schuler, came away from the project with two overriding ideas. The first was that the most energy-efficient buildings they studied had been designed from the start with the target of reducing energy consumption—holistically, not as an afterthought.
  The second grand idea was that the “conversation” between architects and engineers was halting, at best. “Engineers think in numbers, architects think in pictures,” Schuler recalls. “There was a need for a moderator”—an entity that would iterate ideas back and forth between members of the Building Team to enable them to integrate the physical elements of any building project to produce the optimal solution."
• Architects are creating toxic ‘killing machines’ – Building Design – "Architects are creating “killing machines” by not considering the toxicity of the materials used in buildings, America’s leading sustainability expert William McDonough said this week."
• The Four Sins of LEEDwashing: LEED Green Buildings That Perhaps Aren’t Really Green : TreeHugger – 1) The Sin of Not Following Through
  2) The Sin of Valuing Gizmos Over Appropriate Design
  3) The Sin of Laughably Inappropriate Use
  4) The Sin of Wretched Excess.
• BRE-PassivHaus-Primer.pdf (application/pdf Object) – Passivhaus is flavour of the month at the minute. Nice 8 page pdf explaining the principles and the differences between passive and passiv.

admin News architects, Bill_McDonough, building, buildings, collaboration, construction_industry, CPD, design, engineers, green, holistic, IAQ, integration, LEED, passivhaus, reference, RIBA, Sustainability, Sustainable, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, toxic

Today I updated my CDM training, and learnt about the 2007 changes which came into effect 7 April 2007 (nearly 2 years ago). Not that much has changed from a designer point of view. The planning supervisor is now called a CDM co-ordinator. Other key changes for designers are:

If you need to brush up on your knowledge and are a designer (i.e. anyone who prepares or modifies a design OR arranges for or instructs any other person under their control to do so) then there is guidance here from CITB. A summary of duties is available here.

And if you are in any doubt as to if you are a designer? If you specify an outcome (pure performance spec, or as a client representative, for example), then probably not. If you specify HOW to achieve that outcome, then yes, you are a designer.

admin Regulation CDM2007, CITB, compliance, designer duties, HSE

These are my links for March 17th through March 23rd:

• Built on Collaboration: Being disciplined – KPI's for use of extranets/collaboration tools – I love the idea of this. After all, what gets measured gets managed. However, will there be the temptation to file every email back and forth on where best to have the next design team meeting?
• A/N Blog » Design for the Younger Set – A list of pop-up books for kids on architecture.
• Review of the BSRIA Briefing – achieving zero carbon – "There was nothing magical about truly sustainable buildings, added McWhirter. They are simply better ones.
  "We don't need to sell people into deep green lifestyles or set them on the pathway to eco-enlightement," he said. "Sustainable buildings should be designed to be appealing, gentler on our pockets in terms of running costs, gentler on our health in terms of improved internal environment, and much more gentle on the planet."
• How Green Buildings Should Look: Ken Yeang : TreeHugger – via lagavulin, a nice piece on Ken Yeang. BTW, anyone know if there is an actual difference between ecomimesis and biomimicry?

admin News Architecture, books, BSRIA, buildings, design, extranets, green, Ken_Yeang, kpi

I’m not quite sure when I crossed the line from nerdy reader (a lifelong habit) to full on geekdom, but I suspect it was when I discovered blogs. I’m not ashamed by my geekiness, in fact sometimes I’m quite proud of it. But it wasn’t until I started working with a bunch of Gen Y’s who, if the press are to believed are constantly IM’ing and Youtubing and can only converse by txt, and my geekiness was an order of magnitude greater than theirs, that I began to realise how far across the line I’d crossed.

So how many of the signs below can you identify with?

1. You have a personal contact card from Moo with your twitter, gmail, linked-in and blog address listed, colourfully illustrated with photos from your Flickr feed
2. You have editted a Wikipedia page and monitor changes to it via RSS
3. You digitally stalk an online ‘celebrity’ i.e. you have a Dilbert day to a page on your desk, follow the RSS feed, read Scott’s blog but just don’t think much of the animated cartoon (alternatively your fangirl/boy obsessions may centre on a different victim – Merlin Mann, Neil Gaiman, or Wil Wheaton are all fair game – now Kathy Sierra isn’t blogging (though she is on twitter) I can’t think of another female in the same league?).
4. You look up information while a discussion/argument is still in progress – that’s what google on the crackberry was invented for, right? My friends will probably disown me if I ever get my hands on an iPhone.  Hat tip to geek dad for pointing this one out.
5. You have chosen the technologically superior (and most importantly, free to view) Humax over paying for a Sky+ subscription, and you prefer to gorge on TV series on DVD in their entirety than wait for a paltry episode per week. Having been burned as an early adopter for most gadgets you’re waiting for internet TV to settle down before committing to any one solution.
6. You have read, digested and tweaked David Allen’s Getting Things Done within an inch of the original intent, and now run a complex system of notebooks, Gmail filters, Zoho notebook, Instapaper, WatchThatPage and RTM, which someday will be consolidated into the mother of all productivity systems
7. You have turned one of Hugh McLeod’s gaping void cartoons into a business card, mug, mouse mat or t-shirt (see also no.3 above – fangirl/boy behaviour)
8. You own and tote around a Linux netbook such as the Asus Eee and generally favour open-source or creative commons over traditional models of intellectual property
9. You have cracked your work’s IT lockdown and only ever use Firefox, plus you have tried to introduce colleagues to Yammer or Twitter, Delicious and/or wikis and discussion forums
10. You know your Meyer Briggs personality type and thinks it explains quite a lot

There is obviously no hope for me. This list could have been expanded to 20 quite easily, but I thought I’d better stop before I completely expose all my foibles! Anyone else wish to confess their geeky habits or quirks?

admin Geekery Geekery, Productivity, Web 2.0

These are my links for March 11th through March 15th:

• The Building Futures Game – Building Futures – The Building Futures Game is the outcome of 3 years research and development work carried out by the Building Futures team, CABE and architectural practice AOC. The toolkit emerged through a shared desire as to how one might enable communities to think about the future of their neighbourhood, while providing stakeholders with an interactive and alternative way of consulting with a wide variety of groups on their concerns and aspirations.
• Disney Aims for Zero Carbon Emissions, Zero Waste in New Environmental Goals | GreenerBuildings – "The corporate responsibility report lays out seven long-term environmental goals for the company:
  • Zero waste.
  • Zero net direct greenhouse gas emissions from fuels.
  • Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption.
  • Net positive impact on ecosystems.
  • Minimize water use.
  • Minimize product footprint.
  • Inform, empower and activate positive action for the environment"
• T-Zero – "T-ZERO is a free internet tool that provides independent sustainable refurbishment advice to users, with the option of linking directly to the suppliers, manufacturers, and installers of any measures you choose. It is designed for those refurbishing their own homes, homes they manage, or the homes of clients, taking you through a series of simple steps."
• How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air – TED 2009 « GreenSpaces Blog – More 'healthy' plants (I'm slightly obsessed with the original NASA study – spider plants are *good*). Mother in Law's tongue for bedroom, and Areca Palm for living room.
• Welcome to YouCanPlan – via Be2Camp and then EcoBuild: "Our idea is based on the concept of ‘enabled self procurement’ or ESP to help build new sustainable communities. ESP is a process where future residents of communities are supported as the developers of their own homes, combining the choice of self build with the efficiency of speculative development."
• Green for go: sustainability in the JCT contract – Building – "Following an industry-wide consultation, it published Building a Sustainable Future Together, a guidance note which is principally concerned with how sustainability in design and construction is provided for in contract documents. It also includes new contract clauses that extend those currently in JCT contracts, such as the Framework Agreement. The two principal new clauses are:
  1) The contractor is encouraged to suggest economically viable amendments to the employer's requirements which, if instructed as
  a variation, may result in improvement in environmental performance in the carrying out of the works or of the completed works
  2) The contractor shall provide to the employer all the information that he reasonably requests regarding the environmental impact of the supply and use of materials and goods which the contractor selects."
• A second look at solar power on roofspace « lightbucket – Lightbucket doesn't blog often, but when he (she?) does, they're worth reading.
  "Averaged over the year, rooftop PV can exactly match England’s electricity sales, but there is a huge seasonal variation. During the summer, PV output is higher than the full-year average, but electricity demand is lower, so PV can supply more than twice the total demand. The situation reverses in midwinter. In December, the month of lowest insolation, rooftop solar PV can meet only 20% of electricity demand. Additional capacity will be needed to meet winter demand. Energy storage technologies can smooth out variations in output over a 24-hour timecale, and maybe longer, but certainly not over 6 months.
  If we had solar photovoltaics on all roofspace in England, we could comfortably meet England’s summertime electricity use, but only a fifth of wintertime electricity use."
• Ten things to manage in a recession: 4 – executive costs « pwcom 2.0 – Paul illustrates Charles Handy's 'Hollywood' model perfectly: "… some AEC professionals have already opted to work as freelances or as independent consultants, undertaking a succession of contracts of their own choice instead of working for an employer. Particularly in the consultancy sector, just as small firms might combine with others with complementary skills and/or resources, so experienced individual professionals could combine with other independent practitioners to compete for work and then form part of the multi-disciplinary team appointed to undertake the project. …. Being formed of a group of independent ‘e-lances’ or ‘tech-nomads’, the operational overheads of such a multi-disciplinary consortium are also likely to be lower, making their services more cost-effective – an advantage likely to be underlined if the team also uses low-cost collaboration technology to manage and share its data."
• You are the weakest link, goodbye – Joan has a list of funny/tragic redundancy stories.
• cityofsound: Work and The City, Frank Duffy (2008) – Good review of Duffy's book: "In particular, Work and the City convincingly details how this has led to a grossly inefficient under-utilisation of resources with damaging effects on individuals, corporations, and almost all aspects of urban ecosystem."
• Sustainability Consulting: What is it, and am I qualified? Part I « Bright Green Talent Musings (www.brightgreentalent.com) – And I count myself amongst those who say sustainability is NOT a discipline: "As individuals from all kinds of backgrounds and industries push into the field of sustainability consulting, it can become murky as to what that work even entails. This is especially true when considering the different perspectives and methodologies that are employed and adding even more complexity is the variability among clients and their needs. Thus, this quote sums up for me what sustainability consultants are trying to do – they help businesses address and redress the way in which they operate so that they will be better positioned for the market of the future a la decreasing their negative impact on the natural environment. Some argue that like the trends of international business and e-commerce, sustainability will at some point cease to be its own discipline and assume its rightful place within all of business practices."
• » Perpetual beta SuDoBE — Sustainable Design of the Built Environment – Chris makes a great point: "What would happen if we treated buildings as being in perpetual beta state? How would this change things in the construction industry? Perhaps developers and the design team would make a long term commitment to upgrading the building in line with occupants’ (and others’) experiences after the building’s initial release.
  Of course buildings, like most artefacts are in perpetual beta. There are always ‘bugs’ to iron out and features that don’t work. Many of our new low and zero carbon buildings will fail either from the outset or a few months or years down the line. It would be a real step forward if we could admit that now and put in place the mechanisms that will allow us to decide whether they are working as intended, to fix them when they aren’t and to pass on what we have learned to Carbon 2.0. Would the industry allow us to do that? Do we need to ask?"
• Robinson Low Francis to slash staff pay 12.5% – Building – I'm sure this is just the same as cutting salaries by 20-40% – surely they'll just end up doing a similar amount of work, in fewer (probably longer) days (was my experience of working part-time, anyway): "At engineer Scott Wilson, some senior staff have agreed to work three- or four-day weeks, according to Jerome Monro-Lafon, its UK managing director."
• Survey confirms building control officers enforce regs – Building – "The LABC’s survey looked at 2000 projects to see how many potential contraventions would have occurred if a building control officer hadn’t stepped in and enforced the regulations. It found Part A attracted the most enforcement action with building control officers asking for remedial action in 18% of projects followed by Part L at just over 16% and Part B at just under 16%. Part G which deals with hygiene attracted enforcement action in just 1.5% of the surveyed projects."
• Natural lighting and sustainability | Sustainable Building Blog – Building Sustainable Design – "The tightening regulatory allowances placed on artificial lighting are already beginning to push the limits of what lighting technology can deliver. Our regulatory framework must not become unworkable or breed dull, unhealthy and uninteresting visual environments. The lighting community must steer regulation through better government lobbying, but we should not forget the place natural light has in avoiding the need for regulation in the first place."
• Pursuing the Elusive Goal Of a Carbon-Neutral Building by Richard Conniff: Yale Environment 360 – "But Kroon is also a reminder of what even some of the best hearts and minds in the sustainable design movement cannot yet achieve. For a “green premium” unofficially estimated at about 5.7 percent of construction cost, the Kroon design team managed to reduce projected energy use and emissions by 61 percent below the levels for a comparable building of conventional design. The biggest savings came not from sexy new technologies but from figuring out how to make the design function like an old-fashioned cathedral, with a slender profile for maximum daylighting, an east-west orientation for greater solar gain on the long southern exposure, careful use of shading, and plenty of stone and concrete to store thermal energy. A solar photovoltaic array and geothermal wells will supply much of the remaining energy load. “We got damned close to carbon neutral,” boasted a construction manager…"
• Sustainable Cities – The most useful output I've seen from CABE – sustainable cities website. A feast of information and examples: "This website gives expert advice on planning, designing and managing a sustainable place. It cuts through the complexity with clear priorities for action. And it shows which places are getting it right."
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Reverting to type (by Don Ward) – Don Ward has a great post: "The industry loves lowest price tendering – it invented it, and back in 1963 codified it in the NJCC’s code of practice for single stage tendering. Large parts of the industry have since conspired with clients over the years to continue with lowest price tendering – it is easy, and it means you don’t have to work too hard to deliver on value. But let’s face it, it usually knowingly sets the project up to fail. It’s a bizarre process – as a questioner said at a conference the other day put on by the Universities of Reading, Loughbrough and Salford, construction must be the only industry that competes to deliver the same thing for the client rather than something different? And is it the only industry that thinks it’s clever to make its money by screwing the client and/or the supply chain?"

admin News air, Architecture, assessment, backcasting, book, british, building, buildings, built_environment, CABE, charles_handy, cities, community, completion, Computer, construction, construction_industry, contracts, CSR, data, daylighting, design, disney, ecology, Economics, Energy, england, environment, future, green, Housing, in, JCT, LEED, Management, modelling, neighbourhood, offices, part_L, planning, plants, POE, recession, refurbishment, regulations, renewables, review, solar, statistics, Sustainability, technology, tendering, UK, urban, urbanism, use, visioning, web, workspaces

One residual effect from my MBA is a penchant for the mighty monthly tome, the Harvard Business Review. Incredibly expensive in the UK, but always has great quality content.

Some of my favourite snippets from the February edition (which has probably just disappeared from the stands – lesson #1 of blogging – publish before irrelevance sets in):

There were a host of ideas in the Breakthrough Ideas of 2009, most of which is not behind the publication’s normal subscription fence, including:

From Goldstein’s ‘Harnessing Social Pressure‘ on pg 25, “A publicized behavioral norm becomes a “magnetic middle”, drawing people toward it. To avoid inadvertently encouraging your best-behaved customers to backslide, try showing approval for their behavior.” Ties in neatly to not scaring people into going green.

On pg23, a Rwandan CAD bureau, Gasabo 3D Design, is held up as an example of the outsourcing opportunities now available in sub-Saharan Africa.

Benyus and Pauli on pg28 discuss ‘The Business of Biomimicry‘ including DSSCs (dye sensitised solar cells). 60% cheaper than traditional PV cells, although not yet as effective, this could be a technology to keep an eye on.

By far the most intriguing feature is on Arakawa. The arcihtect’s intention is not to die and to this end, creates architectual features that promote “death resistance” by requiring people to navigate unsettling, disorienting, and dangerous but whimsical spaces. I can’t decide if this is genius or completely bonkers.

And great news for me on pg37 in Pentlland’s ‘How Social Networks Network Best‘:
“A recent MIT study found that in one organisation the employees with the most extensive personal digital networks were 7% more productive than their colleagues.” Those with the most cohesive face-to-face networks were 30% more productive (but unfortunately they didn’t define ‘most cohesive’). Either way, social interaction of either kind is important.

On pg39 HP announce their aim of ‘literally instrumenting the planet‘ using CeNSE. Think of the possibilities for POE in buildings?

The case study this month is a topic dear to my heart ‘Gen. Y in the Workforce‘. As the first commentator says,”this is a classic case of impatient Generation Y meets “pay your dues” Generation X.” The article could have benefitted from more advice on how to manage Gen Y expectations, but it’s good read nonetheless.

The ‘Seize Advantage in a Downturn‘ is an imminently sensible article, advocating keeping an eye on cashflow and securing credit. It would be easy to turn the article around and apply the principles to individual careers in an effort to recession proof one’s career.

The article ‘Why good leaders make bad decisions‘ was the subject of HBR Ideacast earlier this month. Again, a topic I am intrigued by. One of my favourite topics on the MBA and a book I would recommend to anyone is Bazerman’s Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Despite being a textbook, it is imminently readable and indeed a better source of information than what turned out to be a fairly weak and disappointing article.

There are a few other articles which I haven’t covered. The March edition is now out.

mel starrs News business, decision making, Gen X, gen y, HBR, outsourcing, recession, social networks

Last Monday I attended Green Monday, a monthly networking event for corporate climate change leaders in London. I was first alerted to Green Monday by Phil back in September, but this month was the first time my calendar had conspired to allow me to attend.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion and then went on to round table discussions. I really enjoyed the panel discussion – some highlights of which I jotted down on the crackberry (I’d been very remiss and forgot pen and paper).

First up was Dr Peter White of Procter & Gamble who was keen to emphasis they exercise no trade-offs. Meaning that it should be possible to have both sustainability AND performance, rather than compromising with a sub-standard product. Coincidently, I am currently reading We-Think
by Charles Leadbetter and P&G are featured heavily in it in the chapter on We-Think business. According to the book P&G have set a goal of getting 50% of their new ideas from external sources and encourages open-innovation. All its patents will be released either 5 years after they are lodged or 3 years after a product is shipped. So the innovative new detergent which washes at 15ºC which Peter referenced, should in theory be in the public domain within 3 years – which can only be a good thing for climate change. This is a vast shift in IP strategy and something all companies should be thinking about, if not yet implementing. The models of business are changing.

Next up was Marie Louise Ter Boek of McDonalds. Colleagues had scoffed at the idea of McD’s having the audacity to sit on such a panel, but times have moved on. The “big bad corporates” are learning and evolving and we are all playing catch-up with each other. Last year’s greenwashers can turn out to be this year’s heroes. Anyway, Marie was heavily referencing DEFRA’s framework which was very timely as I had re-read the summaries that morning. Written by Futerra, there are two strategies  for positively communicating climate change: Rules of the Game (pdf) (relevant to changing attitudes) (long version available from DEFRA here (pdf, 48pages)) and New Rules:New Game (pdf) (relevant to behaviours). Recommended reading and hold an explanation as to why eco-bling such as urban wind turbines might act as a catalyst to further action – big socially visible actions can lead to smaller actions such as energy saving lightbulbs, so whilst we engineers lament the physical energy contribution, we are missing the social knock-on effects – something to ponder).

The third speaker was Alan Knight who was frustrated by our current language of doom and gloom. Do we talk ourselves down? He was keen to emphasis enthusiasm and ambition. What does the future world look like? Imagine a world of 20% of today’s carbon, no poverty, no obesity, diabetes etc. He was also keen to promote the business case for framing solutions in a positive way. As he said, there is no business case for famine (he was referring here to Lovelock‘s prediction of 8 billion dying). There is an opportunity to reengineer today’s lifestyle to be 20% carbon but edit out bad choices. Again, no trade-offs. Requires an air of optimism – don’t talk ourself into defeat. Alan “blogs” here (no RSS and very few posts).

The final speaker was Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century. I had high hopes of fireworks given his voice over at CiS, but he was remarkably calm and calculated. He talked of the triple crunch of climate, financial and energy. Asset assessment is, in his opinion, systemically wrong (gas and oil). He was keen to promote The Oil Crunch Report authored by Arup, FirstGroup, Foster + Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury, Stagecoach Group, Virgin Group, and Yahoo. I’ve not had a chance to read it yet, but the thrust is that a peak in cheap, easily available oil production is likely to hit by 2013, posing a grave risk to the UK and world economy. Other interesting tidbits from Jeremy included the fact that 18 of 27 european countries now have FIT (feed in tariffs). He was also keen to point out that there is no magic bullet – solar is one of maybe 50 families of alternative technologies.

The roundtable discussion afterwards was broken into different topics and I opted for commercial real estate. The table discussed the zero carbon consultation and experience varied from those who had read it several times to those who hadn’t heard of it at all. The majority of us however agreed that we had consultation fatigue. Then it was time to schmooze. Like any of these events, it takes a couple of attendances to build relationships, so no million pound deals were made, but I was pleased overall.

All in all, it was a good gig. I’ve applied for a space again next month. It’s a much more organised and less rowdy event than London Green Drinks (which is currently overrun in it’s current venue – making it a hot, sweaty and slightly unpleasant experience).

mel starrs Opinion business, Climate Change, London, renewables

These are my links for March 8th from 16:38 to 17:37:

• Government rule changes baffle EPC firms – Building – "At present, assessors who are qualified to use the EPC software sign off data gathered by unqualified field workers, as the law does not explicitly forbid this. The communities department letter said that by the beginning of next month data collectors would have to be as qualified as the desk-bound staff who assessed the data and signed the certificates."
• One step at a time to saving the planet | Matthew Taylor’s blog – Another thought provoking piece from Matthew Taylor, asking us to pick one short term priority and sticking to it: "In contrast, on climate change there seem to be hundreds of different ideas and plans covering timescales ranging from the next few years to the middle of the century. Each of us has several opportunities a day to ‘do the green thing’ so we end up overwhelmed, confused and susceptible to lapsing into the fourth of CT’s paradigms: fatalism."

admin News EPC, green, politics, Psychology, stroma

After basically deleting the blog and starting from scratch (importing all the old posts into WordPress) I think the issues are now resolved. I may still be changing hosts so a little oddness may occur over the next week or so, but for now, enjoy the new look.

admin Uncategorized Housekeeping

Apologies for the weirdness on the site for the past week or so. I have a tech support ticket lodged and hopefully things will be looking like normal again soon. Those reading via RSS should not be affected.

mel starrs Uncategorized