Elemental

Well, slightly belated as 11 April 2009 was the 3rd birthday of this blog, but I figure people have better things to do with their bank holidays than read this blog.

Last year I jotted down some stats, so for this following along at home, I’ll give some quick updates.

My hits have increased almost 50% from almost 8000 last year to nearly 12,000. Which is incredible, really. I once heard a rule of thumb, that it took 3 years for a blog to become established. Seems that’s held up for me at least. So for anyone else who is struggling, and wondering if it’s worth it, keep going, it all comes together eventually.

By far, my most popular post has been June’s Rough Guide to BREEAM 2008, which to date has been viewed a staggering 1,482 times. I’m stunned.

I’m in the process of clearing up links, categories and tags, reviewing old posts, clearing out old drafts and general spring cleaning. I’m hoping to follow up on some of my old posts and tie up some loose ends in the next few months. But no promises. Looking over old posts, I have a very poor habit of promising to write something and then not following it up, as the next, more exciting, shiny thing comes my way. So, if I do it, I do it. If I don’t, c’est la vie!

Again, thanks to everyone who has read, commented, twittered or sent me emails in the past year, especially those who let me know when when my site was broken (which it was for a considerable chunk during the winter).

admin Housekeeping analytics, birthday, Blogging, statistics

These are my links for February 7th through February 27th:

• Why and how I blog « Robert Kyriakides’s Weblog – Great post from Robert explaining how he manages to blog so prolifically.
• Expedition’s blog » Think Up Mondays – Chris Wise et al are trying to create something useful out of the recession: "For one year, the employees of Expedition will be dedicating their Monday’s to thinking. Thinking about thinking, thinking about what we do, thinking about how we do it, and why. Think Up, the impetus behind this year of Mondays, is an educational company formed within the auspices of the Useful Simple Trust. The remit is large, but so is the ambition: to use the opportunity that the economic downturn has presented us with to think up a new raison d’etre, and modus operandi as engineers, and to train ourselves into shape."
• Study shows 30% above ASHRAE energy efficiency difficult to reach in buidlings, 50% unreachable- 2/24/2009 12:16:00 PM – Building Design & Construction – "Findings show that although significant energy efficiencies can be achieved (varying by climate zone), reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback. The study concluded that achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable. "
• buildoffsite – An industry-wide campaigning organisation that promotes greater uptake of offsite techniques by UK construction.
  Buildoffsite is an alliance of clients, developers, designers, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, government, advisors and researchers.
  Goal – A ten-fold step-change by 2020 achieving a 100% increase by 2010
• Summary — ManuBuild – "The ManuBuild vision is of a future where customers will be able to purchase high quality, manufactured buildings having a high degree of design flexibility and at low cost compared to today. For the first time, inspirational unconstrained building design will be combined with highly efficient industrialised production.
  ManuBuild targets a radical breakthrough from the current "craft and resource-based construction" to "Open Building Manufacturing", combining ultra-efficient (ambient) manufacturing in factories and on sites with an open system for products and components offering diversity of supply in the market. "
• Passive design primer for offices – Building Sustainable Design – Excellent article from an ex-colleague, Doug King: "Finally, I’d like to introduce the idea of “passive survivability”. This is a concept that will become far more important as we start to feel the pinch of declining fossil fuel resources and over-stretched utility infrastructure. One of the first effects of energy demand exceeding supply will be rolling power cuts, as happened in London’s West End during July 2006. While some businesses may be able to operate with emergency generators, for many the impact could be catastrophic as deep plan buildings will be uninhabitable without artificial lighting and ventilation. Some buildings may have to shut down during the power cuts and for a business, having sent staff home, a whole day’s production may be lost. Passive buildings, on the other hand, should continue to be habitable, albeit with reduced comfort levels, and the backup power supply will only be required to maintain the office equipment."
• Le Corbusier – creator of the modern world – Times Online – Great article – I have an aversion to Le Corb after my history of architecture lectures at Leeds Uni, but I'll be pottering off to the Barbican with every other architect and engineer in the UK in the next few months…
• BREEAM: In USE – The successor to the old BREEAM M&O assessment (management and operation) – In Use, has been announced. No sight of the manual yet, so can't really comment. Looks like it will tie up with DEC's…
• What if Jane Jacobs had directed "Slumdog"? | Congress for the New Urbanism – "Despite their appearance of mess and squalor (and struggles with sewage and public health), the world's major ghettoes are in some ways quite green. Residents often live where they work, rolling up sleeping mats each morning and dispensing with petroleum-fueled commutes. Even garbage is picked clean of all reparable items or tradable commodities, making places like Dharavi the world's ultimate recyclers."
• Architecture: Stephen Bayley discerns the shape of things to come | Art and design | The Observer – "The UK's first Passive House, designed by Bere Architects, is now being built in Camden, North London. It will, perhaps, be a little bit like living on the Northern Line: what fresh air there may be is pre-heated through subterranean channels. Other problems? Ecological perfection will demand a quality of detailing hitherto unknown to our native builders. And there will be no flinging open the windows to greet the new green dawn. That way you squander your patiently retained heat."
• Wind turbines on Bahrain WTC start turning – "The BWTC's turbines are predicted to provide 11-15% of the power needed to operate the offices of the 50 storey twin towers."
• 5 Emerging trends from the recession | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist – "Generation X is the first generation in the US ever that will earn less than their parents. And Generation Y has an incredible amount of debt due to baby boomers pushing up college costs and housing costs while real wages went down."
• Meteonorm – Global Solar Radiation Database – What is it? – METEONORM 6.1 (Edition 2009) is a comprehensive meteorological reference, incorporating a catalogue of meteorological data and calculation procedures for solar applications and system design at any desired location in the world. It is based on over 23 years of experience in the development of meteorological databases for energy applications.
  METEONORM addresses engineers, architects, teachers, planners and anyone interested in solar energy and climatology.
• Imagine – "‘Imagine’ is a database which captures school design best practice from around the world.
  Architects and researchers from the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield [BDR] have conducted a critical analysis of over 150 schools, highlighting excellence in design according to different themes. It considers integrated ICT, environmental design and flexibility for space and learning.
  This resource is aimed at providing inspiration for creating innovative teaching and learning environments called for by the Government’s Building Schools for the Future initiative. Research for this database is sponsored by Balfour Beatty Education and Partnerships for Schools. New research is conducted every three months to ensure the database is kept up-to-date and topical."
• Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC) – JBED: Journal of Building Enclosure Design – Free pdf's of back issues of this US/Canadian publication are available here. In Winter 2007 issue there is a good article on the UK experience of air tightness from Nigel Potter of BSRIA. Lots of good data scattered throughout the issues.
• Unversity funding will be linked to their carbon performance | Education | The Guardian – via lagavulin: "From 2011, Hefce will link the money it doles out for capital projects to universities' carbon performance. The smaller the reduction in carbon, the less funding they will get."

mel starrs News air, ashrae, Blogging, BREEAM, cities, construction_industry, consultants, data, database, design, efficiency, Engineering, gen_X, gen_Y, Jane_Jacobs, Le_Corbusier, manufacturing, MMC, offsite, passive, passive_survivability, passivhaus, payback, recession, renewables, Schools, slums, statistics, tightness, UK, weather, wind

You may have noticed it’s been quite quiet around these parts. Life has been busy and it’s clearly not quite as easy to switch to knocking up a blog post whilst out socialising as it was when I was chained to my PC every night studying.

I may have found a solution though. I am writing this post from within Wordpress on my crackberry. If this works, expect posting to resume on a slightly more regular basis, especially if I can get outgoing links to work (any hints on that gratefully received – I’m giving up for the minute).

mel starrs Uncategorized Blogging, wordpress

These are my links for August 30th through September 1st:

• Coal verses Nuclear (Jonathon Porritt) – I've not made much comment on George Monbiot's comments on nuclear – mainly because I agree with his qualifications. JP explains here why the green movement are in a kerfuffle about it by explaining: "a communicator as astute and clever as George should (and surely does) know the difference between a 'Yes … If' position and a 'No … Unless' position." JP's a "No…Unless" man…
• Rod Sheard leads MBO at HOK Sport – Building – After a long period of consolidation and M&A are we due for increased fragmentation and MBO's? The current economic climate would suggest not, but HOK Sport are going for it…
• Deadlines provide an opportunity – BSEE – Building Services and Environmental Engineer – BESCA's new accreditation scheme is the only one that certifies assessors to inspect both Level 1 (simple, packaged or VRV) and Level 2 (complex, central-cooled air or water) air-conditioning systems.
• Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » How to be an interesting civil service blogger (and not get fired) – via Tom Watson, a guide to blogging if you're a civil servant. Private sector bloggers can learn from this too – a good summary of things as they stand.
• CIBSE RESET tool (Excel spreadsheet download) – Further to TM38, this tool is intended to provide guidance to those responsible for the design, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of building services. It is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive and it will be necessary for users of the guidance given and results produced to exercise their own professional judgement when deciding whether to abide by or depart from it.

mel starrs News Blogging, business, calculators, certification, CIBSE, debate, EPBD, George_Monbiot, green, guide, m&a, MBO, nuclear, part_L, renewables, spreadsheet, TM38, UK

What I’ve been reading about:

• Design Builder – (Relatively) new kids on the DSM software block, 30 day free trial, uses the DOE Energy Plus engine. Anyone got any experience – good or bad?
• Task force gives housing the green light – "This is not about dumbing down or abandoning the concept of zero carbon. This is about ensuring the same high level of carbon savings, but allowing developers more flexibility" Paul King
• Definition of Zero Carbon Report – UKGBC pdf report (41 pp.) on more flexible definition of zero carbon. More on this when I get a chance to read it and others reactions…
• Feedity – Looks like Feedity has a revamp – turn any page into an RSS feed. Now have to go through the ones I did on on the old version and update. So not backwards compatible – bah!
• Smart opportunity missed – Smart metering threshold raised from 73,200 kWh per annum to 732,000 kWh reducing the number of potential businesses covered from 400,000 to 40,000.

mel starrs News Blogging, carbon, competitors, definition, domestic, dsm, EPC, Feeds, free, Housing, Metering, property, rss, service, Software, Sustainability, target, tools, UKGBC, web2.0, zero_carbon

These are my links for April 18th through April 19th:

• Construction Blog Practice – New blog from someone at Constructing Excellence
• Asus Eee 900 to hit shelves on 1 May – ZDNet.co.uk – Going to hold out for the new and improved version (plus the 7" is nigh impossible to source instore in the US)
• 11 April 2008 – iSBEM_v3.1.a Patch Release – We recommend all users to download and run the patch for iSBEM_v3.1.a which is available from the download page item 2.

mel starrs News asus, Blogging, CE, eee, isbem, laptop, May - ZDNet.co.uk, ncm, SBEM, Software, United States

Is is really two years?

Almost 360 posts, over 70 regular subscribers, almost 8000 hits in the past year*, including over 250 to BREEAM is a means to an end post.

*Over 20% of visitors use Firefox as their browser, most of the rest use IE.  Only 0.5% use Mac although one visitor found me using their Playstation 3, two with their iPhone. The two favourite screen sizes are 1024×768 (39%) and 1280×1024 (24%). 28% of readers are in London.

Guess I’m going to keep this up for the forseeable future then.

Some thoughts about the blog and where I see it going:

• I love using del.icio.us as a mini-blogging tool – 255 characters is usually enough space to comment on a news item and leaves me a lot more time to write “proper” posts
• Twitter is looking like a good way of micro-blogging but I’m not quite ready to add it into my main feed yet
• I still have a stupid number of drafts sitting around cluttering my mind, especially some book reviews I promised to publish over a year ago.  Mental clutter = distraction.  Will finish these in May once I get back to the physical copies of the books.
• The past year has been a whirlwind of scattered thinking.  I’m hoping to focus on topics in a more structured fashion for the next
• A bloggers to-do list is never finished.  The minute I get one thing done, I find another gadget or widget to play with or see some other niggle I want to fix.  All this on top of posting.  I must learn to accept this and realise things will never be complete.  Live with it.

Thanks to everyone who has read, commented or sent me emails in the past year, especially those who let me know when when my awesome web skills have broken the site.

mel starrs Geekery Blogging, Housekeeping, London, mini-blogging tool, statistics, twitter

These are my links for April 1st through April 5th:

• How To Find Lost Objects – via LifeHacker – a 122 page pdf on a similar vein to www.flylady.net
• IES <VE SBEM> EPC SOFTWARE MEETS 6TH APRIL DEADLINE – IES on the ball again when it comes to SBEM (even though their DSM software IMO is the tool you ought to use)
• Cover It Live – via Simon Dickson, a killer live blogging app. Might try this for Think 08…
• Cutting carbon will grow US economy – Researchers at Yale University reviewed 25 leading economic models and showed that GDP would increase by around 3 %/y if dramatic carbon cutting measures were adopted across the country.
• 1 April 2008: New release of iSBEM_v3.1.a for EPCs – The overheating calculation still isn't working – expect yet another version in the future…
• Hong Kong BEAM – Green Building Label – Interesting statistics – "A US study, for example, found that certified green buildings cost 1.8% more to design and construct, but yield 20% cost savings over the life of the building."
• PM helps householders go green – Article not that exciting in itself, but found it via Twitter. I love Twitter…"Green Neighbourhoods initiative will give a "green makeover" to up to 100 neighbourhoods in England with an aim to reduce their carbon footprints by more than 60 per cent."
• China Launches Green Building Council: An Interview with Kevin Hydes, World GBC Chair – China, BREEAM and LEED. International standards currently only used in office buildings for multinationals or upscale apartments. China's version called what? (link goes to mandarin site)

mel starrs News BEAM, Blogging, BREEAM, business_case, calculator, carbon, certification, China, commitments, dsm, ebook, Economics, free, government, green, Green Building Council, gtd, ies, Kevin Hydes, LEED, lifehacks, Productivity, SBEM, Simon Dickson, Software, United Kingdom, United States, web2.0, www.flylady.net, Yale University

I love blogging.  There are those who believe that it can be a little one sided, but for me, I find it an infinitely better communication tool than say, a letters page in a magazine, or even email.  Case in point, last week I expressed disappointment at Bovis’ BREEAM targets.

Andrew Kinsey (their senior environmental manager) dropped me an email with their press release, which goes into much more detail.  It appears Building magazine may have slightly under-reported the facts.  From the press release:

Design – All new build projects and major refurbishments of £5million or more in contract value achieve a minimum BREEAM VERY GOOD rating or equivalent and where our client’s aspiration meets our own aspiration of BREEAM Excellent or equivalent, we will deliver this rating by 2010.

That’s better.  And whilst I still think it’s a pragmatic, rather than trail-burning approach, I am impressed with the quality of the conversation we were able to have in a relatively short space of time.

Andrew is either scouring the internet for mentions of Bovis (by using keywords like I descibe here and here) or he’s a regular reader.  Every firm should be monitoring the internet for mentions of their name and responding in a timely and level-headed manner to those criticisms or comments.  It’s so easy to do, there really is no excuse not to.

Next time, I’d like to see Andrew (or whoever) drop a comment direct on to the blog, so when people come across the article in the future, they can see the response.  So perhaps blogging isn’t quite a conversation – but it does give the opportunity for comment and response, archived together for however long the page continues to exist in cyberspace…

mel starrs Uncategorized Andrew Kinsey, Blogging, BREEAM, communication tool

Another funny architecture blog – this time at Part IV .  Who knew these creatures had a sense of humour…

mel starrs Uncategorized Blogging