Elemental

These are my links for August 25th through August 30th:

• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Is it worth it? Energy project viability – excellent post from Jamie clearly explains ROI and other ratios.
• Footprint » Q & A on Ropemaker – Fascinating interview with Sarah Cary and others on Ropemaker: "The biomass boiler was driven primarily by the renewables requirement at planning stage in 2006. We also find that the climate for biomass in urban areas has changed, and that air quality issues are driving some local authorities to reconsider biomass. We have received a number of quotes for biomass pellet supply, and consider that we could have a reliable supply for the building if we desired. The price is variable, but it is currently more expensive than using the dual fuel boiler on gas. Given the low heating demands in city offices, the current cost of biomass, and the growing resistance on air quality grounds, we are finding that biomass generally does not currently make sense in urban offices. As Ropemaker Place was under fit-out construction last winter, we have not yet used the biomass. "

admin News biomass, feasibility, metrics, ratios, ropemaker

These are my links for August 18th through August 24th:

• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Stanford engineers’ new solar energy conversion process could revamp solar power production – "A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the Stanford engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called "photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source."
• Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Tries to Build an Eco-Friendly House – WSJ.com – Slightly concerned that Sott Adams couldn't leverage his fame to get some decent advice for his self build, but then this article wouldn't have been so entertaining: "The greenest home is the one you don't build. If you really want to save the Earth, move in with another family and share a house that's already built. Better yet, live in the forest and eat whatever the squirrels don't want. Don't brag to me about riding your bicycle to work; a lot of energy went into building that bicycle. Stop being a hypocrite like me."
• NewEnergyFocus.com – FiTs data shows “surprise uptake” by commercial sector – "The most up-to-date figures from Ofgem show that between the scheme going live and today (August 9), there have been 5040 installations, with 4969 of them residential, 57 commercial and 13 community installations. Of these, 13 were hydro, 142 wind and 4885 solar PV and the total installed capacity totals 21.9MW."
• INSIGHT: Save What’s Left: Architects as Stewards of Our Planet – "I am not arguing for mindless, indigenous architecture and the elimination of the architectural profession; I am arguing for a new adaptive architecture that clearly understands its regional setting. Our simple goals could be to reduce the consumption of energy in the building sector by 50% in the next 15 years, and then achieve energy neutrality in the built environment 10 years later. These achievements might be analogous to the Manhattan Project or to landing on the moon before the Soviets. The new focus on regionalism and energy conservation would be accompanied by a new attitude toward nature and the landscape, an attitude that seeks to conserve and reintroduce native species and native landscapes."
• Home | VELUX – via Rory Bergin's blog, a tool for modelling energy for domestic properties
• Op-Ed Contributor – Math Lessons for Locavores – NYTimes.com – excellent, though US-centric article on the absurdities of locavorism. Single issue arguments do annoy me.
• bere:architects » Blog Archive » First Welsh Passivhaus prototype – Fenestration Calculations & Cost Data – Hats off to bere:architects for publishing such a wealth of cost data. Lots of useful graphs and data.
• London Housing Design Guide – London Development Agency – "The Mayor’s London Housing Design Guide sets a new benchmark for housing in the capital and will soon be a requirement for publicly-funded homes. By consolidating and simplifying a comprehensive set of standards, the guide aims to provide consistency and clarity about what is expected in London from the outset of a development. The standards are anticipated to be taken forward across all tenures through the Mayor’s forthcoming draft Housing Supplementary Planning Guide (SPG)."
• Boris the builder: The Mayor’s vision for London housing | Life & Style – "Since 1980 there have been no mandatory minimum space standards for housing in the UK, ever since the famous Parker Morris standards for Space in the Home, which were drawn up in 1961, were abolished by Margaret Thatcher's government in 1980. This has led, in recent years, to London having the smallest new houses and apartments of any major city in the Western world — and this at the end of an era of huge economic growth and rises in living standards. A new apartment in London now is estimated to have up to 30 per cent less space than its equivalent of 40 to 50 years ago. The new guide contains 90 standards that will apply from next year on all new housing built on London Development Agency-owned land, or any developments funded by public money. More excitingly, it is hoped that the guide will be part of the updated London Plan after 2012, and as such will be planning policy — meaning it will cover all new housing in the private sector, too."
• grid carbon will stay high for some time yet « carbon limited – "the official line is that the carbon intensity of the grid will remain roughly steady until 2015, when it will plummet towards near-zero carbon in 2040. (As an aside, is it a coincidence that the dropoff comes in 2015, given that it’s the latest possible date for the next general election?) It will be interesting to see how that drop off moves in coming years. The announcement strongly reinforces the message from DECC that decarbonisation of heat will not be achieved through electrification. In other words, heat pumps are not the answer to decarbonising heat at the national scale."

admin News context, decarbonisation, dilbert, FiT, food, green, guidance, Housing, housing_standards, LDA, locavore, London, passivhaus, renewables, research, self build, solar, Stanford, tools, UK

[Edited 18 Aug - for some reason some blank links have been publishing - all the links I have tried to send are there, these appear to be addition. I suspect it is a result of me messing around on iPhone and iPad with settings - hopefully will be fixed next week - I've deleted the error 500 links]

These are my links for August 11th through August 17th:

• It Isn’t Easy Grading Green – GreenSource Magazine – Excellent, must read article on various global green building ratings. so good I couldn’t choose a quote – go read the whole thing.
• Clients wary of Davis Langdon deal with Aecom | Magazine News | Building – My obsession with M&A continues – here the multiplier is on sales rather than profit: “Tony Williams, chairman of consultant Watts, said the merger was an excellent deal for Davis Langdon and as a result other consultants could sell for a higher price. “DL’s price tag is 75% of its sales [based on Aecom’s figure of $430m, or £274m, for the 2009 calendar year]. I’d expect 100% in a bull market and 50% in a bear market. We’re not in a bear market but conditions are pretty difficult, so this is a good deal for DL.” In fact, he argues that it is a better deal than American engineer URS’ purchase of Scott Wilson for £223m, which was 66% of its sales. The result? “We’ve seen two deals where consultants have sold for well over 50%. So I’d say the benchmark is 70% for a decent business. Six weeks ago I’d have said 50-55% but now if I were a vendor I’d look for at least 60%.””
• Residents hit boiling point at the eco tower where turbines don’t turn | News – Oh dear: “But the turbines have barely moved, according to its new residents. They also claim the single boiler down the side of the building is overheating their flats. Resident Nathan Wheelhouse said: “When I left my house the other morning it was 28C at 7.30am — it’s tropical in there. The cold and hot water pipes flow next to each other. I feel like I’m in an eco experiment that has gone wrong at the design stage. I only moved in two weeks ago and I am not enjoying it.” “
• News – ‘Cheap’ solar geoengineering plans may have unintended consequences – The Ecologist – “‘Doing SRM is likely to be cheap,’ said Professor Granger Morgan, head of Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy, ‘so there is risk that a single nation or region might start doing it to solve a local or regional climate problem, and impose the impacts on all of us.’”
• Strata tower wins 2010 Carbuncle Cup | News | Building Design – “The building’s grim stridency is exacerbated by its sporty livery of alternating black and white stripes, configured, needless to say, in voguish barcode distribution. And to literally cap it all off there are the three gargantuan wind turbines at the top. The architect has trumpeted that these could supply 8% of the building’s energy requirements, which seems nothing much to shout about given the enormous expenditure in carbon that has been required to engineer such a baroque arrangement and the fact that this is a part of London that has absolutely no need for the creation of a 147m-tall tower. For services to greenwash, urban impropriety and sheer breakfast- extracting ugliness, we hereby award the 2010 Carbuncle Cup to the Strata tower.”
• A Glimpse of Dubai in Khartoum and Nouakchott: Prestige Urban Projects on the Margins of the Arab World – “We hypothesize that for these cities, located on the margins of the Arab world, prestige projects inspired by the Gulf model epitomize a new way of development based on hypermodernity. They epitomize economic development, success and opulence thanks to oil exploitation. Undergoing discovery and exploitation of oil resources makes the Mauritanian and Sudanese governments hope to follow the same path. Moreover, the towers of Dubai represent a specific cultural model for two states where affiliation to the Arab world is a contested political issue. The comparative approach brings out the importance of foreign investments in these urban transformations, characterized by privatization processes and real estate speculation. The emerging urban model is in strong contrast to the citizens’ expectations and national political unrest.”

admin News cities, geoengineering, global, greenwash, m&a, overheating, strata

These are my links for August 4th through August 10th:

• Why there are too many public sector chiefs spoiling the broth – Catching up on Jackie's posts – spot-on again: "It is the uncomfortable truth that the only public servants we really want to pay out of our hard earned cash are those that could readily get a job in the private sector if they so chose. We need to apply private sector mores to those that survive the cuts: we need to review what public sector services we need, what delivery structures are most appropriate, what skills, behaviours, attitudes and performance we need from workers and how we should reward and recognise these."
• Davis Langdon & Aecom: A history of mergers and aquisitions | Online News | Building – I *do* love a good M&A – nice potted history of DL: "Aecom have finally acquired Davis Langdon after months of financial wrangling. Both consultants have a long tradition of growth through mergers and aquisitions as their potted histories reveal."
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Green machine: Aircon that doesn’t warm the planet – tech – 27 July 2010 – New Scientist – Excellent article also covers ammonia and thermoacoustic(!!!) cooling: "Compressing CO2 generates much higher temperatures than HFCs – around 150 °C compared with around 60 °C. So Maidment and colleagues are investigating the idea of using the heat generated by CO2-based air-conditioning systems and fridges in supermarkets, for example, to provide hot water for nearby homes."
• Thinking larger than local « – "The RTPI has gone into battle with 28 other groups to ensure the survival of strategic planning. Being careful to avoid any mention of ‘regional’ the new coalition has written to Eric Pickles calling for ‘larger-than-local level’ planning to be enshrined in any reforms to the current system. It’s an impressive array of signatories (and acronyms) with the TCPA, ADEPT, BPF, CPRE, CIH, CIC, CLBA, FoE, ICE, NHF, NHF, POS, RIBA, RSPB, Shelter and WWF all lining up to back strategic planning, some for very different reasons."
• So You Want To Be a Green Building Attorney? : Green Building Law Update – "Green building is not a fad. But it is important to understand that green building is a subset of the overall construction industry. As "green" becomes standard practice, the term "green building" will go away and we will once again primarily refer to just "construction." Anyone interested in green building law should think of it as a niche within a niche. "
• T?F – "The Green City Calculator measures the ‘greeness’ of the city and makes it comparable. This tool for sustainable planning will be developed in this studio. Studio is a collaboration of T?F and Climate Design and Sustainability<br />
  Challenge<br />
  We need to measure the greenness of our cities. We have a lot of labels for buildings. Two for neighbourhoods are in development. But so far, there is no tool to measure and compare cities. We need the Green City Calculator, because cities are crucial in the fight against climate change. We need to measure our effords to know if they have an effect. And to know where we are and how far we need to get."
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error

admin News aircon, cities, cooling, m&a, planning

These are my links for July 29th through August 2nd:

• You’re not bullet proof | Magazine Comment | Building – [Paywall] Great article on LLP: "However, in the event of an LLP going into administration, the partners are likely to lose their capital contributions. Other liabilities are paid out first: mortgages, liquidation fees, employees’ wages for the four months prior to the date of the insolvency order, occupational pension schemes and general unsecured creditors.<br />
  If the partners introduced money as capital, their claim comes after the unsecured creditors. If they introduced the money as debt, they would be treated as unsecured creditors in respect of this money, along with the other unsecured creditors. The partners would also be unsecured creditors in respect of any profits due to them."
• House 2.0: Why are we saving water? – "There are two very simple ways of achieving this goal, and one very complicated one. The simple ways are to 1) charge the right amount for the water and 2) insist that appliances sold should meet defined efficiency standards. The complicated way is what Part G is now insisting on. Which is to try and regulate the end user behaviour by making them purchase water efficient appliances when they are building a new house.<br />
  The problems with this approach are numerous. Firstly, it only applies to new homes. Thus regular power showers will still be available from stores, but you will only be able to buy them if you want to replace an existing bathroom. Can you imagine how infuriating that will be to people building a new home? …<br />
  So what will happen? People will get their eco-shower heads passed by the building inspector, and then rip them out and put in the power showers… Nothing illegal about this at all. It’s just what happens when you make unenforceable regulations like this."

admin News enforcement, G, governance, legal, LLP, Part, regulations, UK, water

These are my links for July 23rd through July 27th:

• Worldchanging: Bright Green: Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities? – Read the whole article: “That sort of casual eagerness for the death of others is appalling. Worse, the strategy implicit in this vision of transitioning — that there can be local soft landings in the event of a global hard crash, that indeed the only proper scale at which to prepare for a soft landing is at the local level, and that perhaps collapse will solve some of our problems — is delusional.
  Collapse is not a tool for social change. …. Anyone who thinks an energy descent plan prepared by a community group future-proofs them against people like Charles Taylor has simply taken a vacation from reality.
  Local efforts can’t protect against the violence of a systemic breakdown. …To plan for the collapse of large-scale systems is to plan for widespread evil and suffering; ethical planning for the collapse is impossible: post-collapse idealism is oxymoronic.”
• All power to the wind – it cuts your electricity bills – opinion – 26 July 2010 – New Scientist – “Insofar as there is a problem, it lies in handing control of industrial policy to marginally priced markets. Market-based decisions are not technology-neutral. They favour short-term profits, and that encourages the building of power stations with low capital costs and high marginal costs. That means gas-fired plants, which are tailored to make a profit whether the spot price is high or low.
  In fact, hardly any nuclear or coal-fired plants have been built in the past 15 years, only gas-fired plants, along with renewables installed thanks to support mechanisms such as feed-in tariffs.
  If those mechanisms had been ruled to be market-distorting subsidies and removed, leaving the market to make all the calls, we would see nothing but new gas plants built. This would leave us vulnerable, wondering where tomorrow’s natural gas, on which we would be utterly dependent, would come from – a scenario that has only been prevented because wind turbines receive support.”
• Linking Green Buildings, Productivity and the Bottom Line | Buildings | GreenBiz.com – Interesting stats: “Indeed, the 2003 California report found average annual employee costs to be 10.25 times larger than the cost of space per employee. The author extrapolates these findings to calculate that a 1 percent productivity increase would therefore have a financial impact over time roughly equal to reducing property costs by 10 percent.”
• More than Passive – Michelle Kaufmann Studio – “Although he is introduced to me as “one of the world’s great Passivhaus experts” (and having designed over 100 built Passivhaus homes, he has earned this title), Walter is quick to respond saying that is not the title he wants. He clarifies in our conversation as well as during his very compelling presentation the next day. While Walter commends the Passivhaus intentions, he says that it is about more than that. It is about good design. “Designing a Passivhaus is easy. But we need to make sure we are designing good Architecture as well.” It is much more than just calculations and scientific numbers. “Good architecture is not a scientific result.” His message resonates strongly, as this is a fear of green rating programs in general (whether it be LEED, or other), that some architects will simply follow the checklist and not innovate or design.”
• A Bold New Model for Sustainable Cities – Robert G. Eccles and Amy C. Edmondson – HBS Faculty – Harvard Business Review – “Unlike the real estate developers doing places like Masdar in Abu Dhabi, New Songdo City outside Seoul, and Dongtan in Shanghai (basically “green” real estate plays with a “let’s build it and hope they come” approach), Living PlanIT’s model is to create an ecosystem of large and small company partners that will focus on creating products and services for sustainable urbanization. The people that the partners bring in to produce those products and services will be the anchor occupants of the model city. The hope is that this activity will then attract other businesses and inhabitants.”
• Commercial Lighting Solutions: Login – With lighting set to be the bete noir of Part L 2010, this looks intriguing (but US based): “The Commercial Lighting Solutions provide actionable “how to” guidance on ways to improve your building interior lighting efficiency and reduce your energy consumption, without compromising quality design criteria. Strategies include the use of high performance commercially available products, daylighting, and lighting controls, all within the context of integrated designs supported by performance specifications.”
• A Reporter at Large: The Island in the Wind : The New Yorker – Fascinating article on renewable energy in Denmark: “The biggest disappointment, though, had to do with consumption.
  “We made several programs for energy savings,” he told me. “But people are acting—what do you call it?—irresponsibly. They behave like monkeys.” For example, families that insulated their homes better also tended to heat more rooms, “so we ended up with zero.” Essentially, he said, energy use on the island has remained constant for the past decade.”
• Building4Change : Are airtight homes good or bad for occupant health? – “There is already strong evidence that energy efficient homes have a positive impact on occupants’ physical and mental wellbeing. Basic improvements in indoor temperature levels in winter and reduction in fuel poverty can have a significant impact. But there is a shortage of evidence to inform decision-making in this area and it is vital that risks to public health are not increased
  There are a number of areas where more knowledge is needed. Although 0.5 air changes per hour is the accepted norm, we lack a definitive assessment of a safe minimum level of ventilation. There is no comprehensive study on the part that home ventilation plays in ensuring health. We have insufficient knowledge of the actual ventilation rates being achieved in UK homes, impacts of ventilation system design, installation and operation, and impacts of occupant behaviour.”
• How to test your decision-making instincts – McKinsey Quarterly – Strategy – Strategic Thinking – This means that to protect decisions against bias, we first need to know when we can trust our gut feelings, confident that they are drawing on appropriate experiences and emotions. There are four tests.
  1. The familiarity test: Have we frequently experienced identical or similar situations?
  2. The feedback test: Did we get reliable feedback in past situations?
  3. The measured-emotions test: Are the emotions we have experienced in similar or related situations measured?
  4. The independence test: Are we likely to be influenced by any inappropriate personal interests or attachments?
• Enough With Jane Jacobs Already | By Andrew Manshel – WSJ.com – An odd article, but it reminded me of the existence of Whyte’s video “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”, which can be found online, worth hunting out: “More attention ought to be paid to the finely grained thinking of William H. Whyte and less to Jacobs’s overblown pronouncements and unprovable theories. Whyte was a close observer of people’s behavior in public spaces and emphasized the importance of the many subtle design features that make people comfortable in parks, plazas and public buildings. Following Whyte, designers, planners and community members need to pay more attention to proven, good ideas, to established data and to the fine points of landscapes and buildings.”
• They don’t build them like they used to: Steve Mouzon’s Original Green | Kaid Benfield’s Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC – ‘Original green’ means common-sense things like building with high ceilings, cross-ventilation and shading in warm climates, and building with steep roofs and southern exposure in cool ones. It means using original forms of transportation, such as walking and bicycling, whenever possible, and designing and inhabiting communities that facilitate such self-propulsion. It means growing food nearby, and ‘living local’ as much as possible. It means accepting a wider ‘comfort range’ of temperature; our ancestors, Steve points out, were adaptable and reasonably comfortable within a range of 30 degrees or so Fahrenheit; today people fight over two degrees’ difference in ‘thermostat wars.’ Original green places and buildings have intinsically smaller environmental footprints than conventional buildings and places, especially when lifecycle effects are included, and in many cases even if the conventional ones have the benefit of green technology.
• Theses on Sustainability | Orion Magazine – Worth reading the entire artcile: “THE TERM HAS BECOME so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment.”
• Dynamic Thermal Properties Calculator – Free excel tool, includes decrement, admittance and kappa values: “The motivation for producing this tool is a growing need among architects and engineers for more information about the thermal properties of construction elements other than just their U-value. This is needed to help optimise the passive performance of buildings and ensure a high level of inherent energy efficiency. Going forward, it is likely that far more attention will be paid to getting this right given the forthcoming changes to Part L and SAP. Another driver is the issue of climate change adaptation, which is starting to result in greater scrutiny construction materials and their thermal properties.”
• Climate change weather file generator – CCWeatherGen – Adaptation is flavour of the month: “The CCWeatherGen tool allows you to generate TMY2 or EPW climate change weather files with a few mouse clicks. You can produce ‘morphed’ climate change as well as ‘unmorphed’ present day TMY2 and EPW files from the original CIBSE/Met Office TRY/DSY format files. The CCWeatherGen tool is made available free of charge. However, it is solely distributed WITHOUT the required baseline weather files and/or climate change scenario data!”
• 2degrees : Discussion Topic – “BSI has announced the launch of its new Kitemark® scheme for Energy Reduction Verification (ERV) which will independently verify and certify those organisations that achieve a reduction in carbon emissions through lower energy use. The Environment Agency has approved the scheme as one of the Early Action Metrics that contribute to the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, the UK’s mandatory climate change and energy saving scheme.”

admin News Architecture, cities, CRC, data, decision, decision_making, definition, democracy, Denmark, Economics, Energy, environment, ERV, green, harvard, IAQ, innovation, Jane_Jacobs, leadership, lighting, Management, manifesto, nyc, passivhaus, planning, politics, Productivity, properties, renewables, resilience, strategy, Sustainability, thermal, transition, urbanism, weather, whyte, wind

These are my links for July 20th from 14:35 to 14:35:

• Living with rats: Time: the hidden backbone of a Big Society – "A better way might be to place a higher value on what Beveridge called idleness and we now label worklessness.<br />
  To do so, though, would challenge the consensus that (paid) work is the solution to poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have assembled extensive evidence to show that simply getting a job doesn’t eliminate poverty. But it has been unacceptable to suggest there might be real value and productivity in not having a job.<br />
  The concept of the Big Society might help our thinking here. If we want more voluntarism, neighbourhood activity and social capital, the greatest resource at our disposal is the time and energy of the economically inactive.<br />
  Not all have equal time or energy: but all have skills and talents that tend to be undervalued and ignored when they are not fee-earning. Many people already do a huge amount of informal or unpaid work: social care, looking after children, acting as good neighbours. We tell these people they should be in jobs instead."

admin News big_society, unemployment

These are my links for July 6th through July 11th:

• EIA – Press Releases – EIA Assesses Impact of Economic Growth, Oil Prices, and Future Policies on Projected Energy Trends – "World marketed energy consumption grows 49 percent between 2007 and 2035, driven by economic growth in the developing nations of the world, according to the Reference case projection from the International Energy Outlook 2010 (IEO2010) released today by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). "Renewables are the fastest-growing source of world energy supply, but fossil fuels are still set to meet more than three-fourths of total energy needs in 2035 assuming current policies are unchanged," said EIA Administrator Richard Newell….most nations are expected to return to the economic growth rates that were projected prior to the downturn. Total world energy use in the Reference case rises 49 percent, from 495 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2007 to 739 quadrillion Btu in 2035."
• 06/07/2010: EPA Announces Data Centers Can Now Earn Energy Star Label – Datacenters appear to be flavour of the month: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that stand-alone data centers and buildings that house large data centers can now earn the Energy Star label. To earn the label, data centers must be in the top 25 percent of their peers in energy efficiency according to EPA’s energy performance scale. By improving efficiency, centers can save energy and money and help fight climate change.<br />
  <br />
  EPA uses a commonly accepted measure for energy efficiency, the Power Usage Effectiveness metric, to determine whether a data center qualifies for the Energy Star label. Before being awarded the Energy Star, a licensed professional must independently verify the energy performance of these buildings and sign and seal the application document that is sent to EPA for review and approval."
• outsidewrecker: BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT – "But I think this kind of behaviour is incredibly short sighted of these companies. Not only will they lose their competitive edge by having a skills gap in the future, but these bright people, who now happen to be unwanted, will certainly become successful in the years to come. In all likelihood, they’ll be in positions of influence, with a long memory and a dim view of their uncaring treatment. With little or no effort the process of finding a the successful candidate out of many bright young things could be carried out more humanely. How difficult is it, for instance, to be courteous and to offer feedback on the process and how well the applicant did? Instead you get a Simon Cowell style contest that is every bit as brutal as the X Factor."
• environment: YALE magazine – Spring 2010 – Agree with this sentiment 100% – in 5-10 years time, sustainability 'departments' will not exist: "The aim, says Stern, is to embed sustainability in the basic training of architects. But he adds, “I don’t think sustainability is a design aesthetic, any more than having electricity in your building, or telephones, or anything else. It’s an ethic, a basic consideration that we have to have as architects designing buildings.” American architects, designers and builders are “in an early, slightly naive phase” in coming to terms with sustainability, he says, and “we have to get everybody’s attention.” But they will catch up fast enough, Stern argues, so that “in 10 years we’re not going to talk about sustainability anymore, because it’s going to be built into the core processes of architecture.” Advertising sustainability, he says, will be like an architect getting up in front of a room to “proudly proclaim how his buildings didn’t fall down.”"

admin News Architecture, centres, data, Energy_Star, EPA, recruitment, Sustainability

These are my links for June 29th through July 1st:

• Gentrification and Its Discontents – Magazine – The Atlantic – "Zukin declares that she “resent[s] everything Starbucks represents,” which really means that her urban ideal is the cool neighborhood at the moment before the first Starbucks moves in, an ever-more-fleeting moment. Indeed, what has changed since Jacobs’s day—and the reason, as these books attest, that gentrification has become so intense an issue—is the speed of the transition of districts from quasi dereliction to artsy to urban shopping mall. This acceleration results from the ways consumption has become the dominant means of self-expression (Zukin is perceptive on this point) and from—relatedly, ultimately—the acceleration of the global economy."
• CIBSE CHP Group Seminar – Great overview of CHP: "To determine the appropriate size of a CHP system, there are several approaches that can be taken. The base load heat demand could be the benchmark for selecting a unit so that all the heat produced is used. Alternatively, the system can be sized based on the electrical base load without regard to the heat demand. In either case, it is possible that there is a more optimal size than will meet just the base load. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of daily or hourly loads is necessary for correct sizing. It is also important that the true base load energy demand is determined before sizing a CHP system. This means that energy efficiency measures should be implemented first to reduce energy demand and thus reduce the size of CHP system required."
• Interview: Michael Pollan | Life and style | The Guardian – I'm a massive fan of Pollan – great interview: "Big Food as it exists today is, patently, not sustainable. Two shocking statistics: before 1950, every calorie of fossil fuel energy expended on food production resulted in 2.3 calories of food; these days it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of your edible foodlike substance."
• Urban farms: can you source a complete meal from inside the M25? | Life and style | The Observer – Good to see Rosie is grounded in reality – urban food will never feed London entirely: "Nobody knows exactly how many farms there are in London. In a report, I read that there are 500 but I find it hard to believe. "I find that a bit hard to believe, too," says Rosie Boycott. "I haven't found that many. But they are there. Obviously it's barking to suggest London is ever going to be able to feed itself but there are things we can do to help small producers come to market. And of course a lot of it is about education.""
• Taxing carbon: Worth a go | The Economist – Perhaps not the panacea we hope for, but good to see someone is crunching the numbers: "A carbon tax has many more general advantages as a fiscal tool, too. It would be simpler and more predictable than the current jumble of tax breaks, trading schemes and purchasing obligations. The principle—that polluters pay for the damage they cause—is easily grasped, and it is politically attractive to tax “bads” such as pollution instead of “goods” such as work and entrepreneurship. And, by establishing a reliable price for carbon, it could give businessmen the certainty they need to invest in greener technologies. But the effect of that is likely to show up only after 2020."
• New Statesman – No hands to the pump! – The problem with ASHP: "But there's a problem. According to the Energy Saving Trust, carbon emissions are not actually reduced if air-source heat pumps replace gas or oil boilers, but only existing electric heating and coal-fired systems. Ground-source heat pumps are only slightly better. Yet the proposed guidelines do not specify where heat pumps should be installed to qualify for the subsidy. So the danger is that thousands of heat pumps will be drawing a subsidy of more than £1,000 a year, while delivering no emissions benefit."
• Construction Manager – Features – Great article on SKA: "According to Hall, the scheme could address several gaps in the market. “It suits smaller projects, and it’ll help tenants who aspire to a green fit-out but who might have taken space in a building that doesn’t have BREEAM excellent or very good. And I’d say our project managers have found it easier to get to grips with Ska compared to BREEAM.”<br />
  Ska has been developed to capture data from the smallest interior refresh to major refurbishments, judging their sustainability criteria in isolation from the building they sit in. The system is designed to be user friendly, based on a free online tool that helps to guide early design decisions. The project team can then make headway on cutting carbon without calling in a specialist consultant. “The guidance is exceptionally intuitive, so no one’s sitting around saying ‘where’s our BREEAM assessor when we need him’,” says Skansen director James Pack."
• Five Myths About Sustainability – BusinessWeek – Good common sense: "LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide guidelines for, and certification of, sustainable buildings. There are many highly sustainable buildings that are not LEED-certified; it's not a requirement for being green.<br />
  If an organization won't benefit from LEED certification, we don't recommend it. It's costly and time-consuming so there has to be a business value to get the plaque on the wall. There are times when a project is highly sustainable, but pursuing LEED certification is not the right business decision."
• Paul Miller » Whole Earth Discipline – Book duly added to wishlist: "Stewart Brand’s book Whole Earth Discipline is one of the best books I’ve read in the last few years, partly because it’s very well written and researched but mainly because it made me change my mind about some important issues.<br />
  Perhaps the easiest argument for me to accept (although I still learned a great deal) was the section on cities. It’s always made sense to me that cities are more efficient use of resources and are the driving force behind new ideas and problem solving. I’m a pretty big believer that new things happen when you bring people together who have different skills and experiences. You can either design those situations – as things like the Manhattan Project show – or you can just sit and watch as it happens in cities – the more cosmopolitan and connected the better. Of course, as cities grow they develop new problems, but they solve them just as quickly as they produce them."
• Government prepares 2050 low-carbon master plan – 25 Jun 2010 – BusinessGreen.com – "The report is expected to argue that the UK will need to electrify much of its infrastructure if it is to have any chance of meeting the 2050 carbon targets.<br />
  "An 80 per cent target means that realistically we need to electrify large sections of transport and heating," said the government spokesman. "That means that while overall energy demand may fall, demand for electricity could double by 2050. All the big investment challenges we face relate to that change.""
• Sustainability: World’s Most Sustainable Building – Not sure about 'most' sustainable, but it does look striking: "the Wuhan New Energy Center boasts to have a zero carbon footprint. The lily shaped building generates its own energy thanks to the vertical axis windmill and solar chimney. The building also harvests rain water within the building. The roof of the building is basically a solar panel array for generating electricity. The design allows the building to be cooled naturally. Designed by the design consultants Grontmij and Soeters Van Eldonk Architects the building will eventually stand 140 feet tall."
• Target Zero | School Guidance Report Summary – Interesting report – particularly interested on the NPV work: "The maximum on-site derived operational carbon emission reductions of 119% of regulated emissions (against a target of 124% for true zero carbon performance), can only be achieved using a package of energy efficiency measures, a 50kW wind turbine, 1300 m&sup2; photovoltaics, biomass boiler and 216 m&sup2; solar thermal panels. These measures incur an increased capital cost of 11.5%, which have a positive 25-year net present value (NPV).<br />
  To achieve economic true zero carbon performance requires the integration of off-site LZC technologies such as tapping into a district CHP plant"

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These are my links for June 27th from 10:35 to 10:35:

• FT.com / Reportage – High-speed trains will transform Europe – These trains are more than just amenities for spoiled travellers. Western Europe’s unique selling point has always been fast travel between cities. The region’s good luck is what the historian Norman Davies calls a “user-friendly climate”: it is mild and rainy. Because of that, the land is fertile, allowing hundreds of millions of people to inhabit a small area. That creates networks. For centuries now, the interconnected peoples of western Europe have exchanged ideas fast. The “Scientific Revolution” of the 16th and 17th centuries could happen in western Europe because its scientists were near each other, debating and networking.

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