Elemental

These are my links for April 30th through May 1st:

• Women in construction get funding boost – "A successful initiative set up to support women working in the construction sector, has been granted £420,750 further funding to continue."
• Building Sector Must Change to Meet Global Energy Targets, New Study Finds – "New modeling by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) shows how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60 percent by 2050 – essential to meeting global climate change targets – but this will require immediate action to transform the building sector…
  “The market alone will not be able to make the necessary changes. Most building owners and occupants don't know enough and don't care enough about energy consumption, and inertia is reinforced by assumptions that costs are too high and savings too low…” Stigson said.
  The project took a bottom-up, market-driven approach to understanding the barriers to lower energy use, based on the most detailed view ever of the current state of energy demand in buildings… Using computer simulations, researchers were able to show the market response to various combinations of financial, technical, behavioral and policy options, identifying the optimum mix to achieve transformation for each market studied."
• How to… prepare for an economic recovery – Times Online – Great list of ten things to remember – including learning from history.
• Zero Carbon Hub releases report on zero carbon definition – Building Sustainable Design – "Complexity of ‘allowable solutions’ – Suggestions for ‘allowable solutions’ – to make low carbon buildings more efficient – were thought by some to be too complex and difficult to deliver in practice.
  The report also indicates consensus on the following issues:
  Biggest challenge is in meeting design standards on site: Achieving low air leakage rates and eliminating thermal bridges regarded as bigger challenges than high efficiency windows, highly insulated floors, walls and roofs.
  New definition and framework should be carried over to non-domestic buildings and to the energy section of the Code for Sustainable Homes
  Over 90% of delegates agreed or strongly agreed that legislation is required to ensure higher energy efficiency in homes.
  Delegates wanted to see advice on the energy efficiency targets for 2016 specified with the 2010 update of Part L of the Building Regulations."
• USGBC: LEED 2009: Technical advancements to the LEED rating system – Regionalisation has been done on a zip code by zip code basis (US only). Eg: Colorado has 650 odd permutations of priority credits (obviously many are the same). Bonus points (one per credit) are awarded if the priority credits for the building location are achieved. An interesting way of recognising regional differences – carrots rather than sticks.

admin News 2009, building, Building_Regs, construction_industry, emissions, forces, gender, global, LEED, market, recession, UK, WBCSD, women, zero_carbon, zero_carbon_hub

What I’ve been reading about:

• Survey warns of low profit margins – Building Design – A third of architectural practices made so little profit in the boom times that they could go bust with the onslaught of the credit crunch, an RIBA survey has revealed.
  This year’s RIBA Business Benchmarking Survey, released to BD this week, shows that just 67% of firms met the industry safe standard of profits equalling 15% of total turnover.
• EH’s Heritage Counts report calls for ‘recycling’ of older buildings to cut CO2 emissions – Building Design – English Heritage argues that a significant proportion of energy savings will come from adapting historic buildings. Properties built before 1919 contribute just 5% of carbon emissions, despite making up one fifth of all housing stock, it estimates.
• Dubai to tighten up its act on green regulations – Building – In practice, standards vary wildly across Dubai. Build on any land controlled by Dubai World, the investment company that controls large parts of Dubai and owns developers including Nakheel, and all buildings must achieve 29 compulsory LEED credits, many of which cover energy and water use. Smith says that these add up to a building a notch short of a LEED silver rating. Tecom, which controls Dubai Internet City, has another set of requirements. And all areas are subject to controls by Dubai Municipality, which requires compliance with Decree 66.
• Dutch to adopt BREEAM – Building – The Dutch Green Building Council is to adopt BREEAM rather than LEED as its building assessment tool for the Netherlands.

mel starrs News architect, BREEAM, buildings, Building_Regs, Dubai, existing, historic, LEED, netherlands, profitability, RIBA, statistics

These are my links for May 20th through May 23rd:

• 800-CEO-READ Blog: Thoughts on Seth Godin’s “How To Read a Business Book” – reading (business) books is an act of mediation. It is a mental refuge for you to explore your thoughts and feelings about work, but also life as a whole.
• Building physicists wanted – PI insurance for low carbon consultants is higher because insurance companies see providing advice on sustainability as high risk.
• Water regs to cut waste and scalding – Building – The main change is aimed at cutting water use to 125 litres per person per day in new dwellings, just below the limit set in the Code for Sustainable Homes for a level one and two home.
• That bubble, reputation – Building – Failure to comply with the law will always be unethical and damage reputations. But conduct may not be contrary to the law yet still damage your reputation.
• Go with your gut – intuition is more than just a hunch, says Leeds research | Press releases | Media | University of Leeds – Research from my alma mater reinforcing Malcolm Gladwell's Blink.
• To Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog – I'm sure Steve Levitt wrote this as a joke, but it misses the mark on so many levels. And his assumptions for calcs are miles off. Good comments from readers which are worth a look.
• Think debate: Are engineers the new architects? – Building Design – Had the pleasure of seeing this 'live' at Think08. Good points from both sides and if the questions is changed to which would you rather be, then both make a compelling case for engineering…
• eco town round up – Martin has gathered together an impressive list of articles on eco-towns from around the interweb.

mel starrs News Building_Regs, construction_industry, debate, eco, Economics, ethics, globalwarming, Housing, insurance, joke, Psychology, READING, research, think08, water