Elemental

These are my links for October 30th through November 5th:

• GEO DYNAMICS – How sustainable are heat pumps? -:- Construct Ireland – Great, but long, article on the pros and cons of air source heat pumps. Level of detail is just right, with plenty of graphs and good argument.
• BSRIA review of NG Bailey’s Solais House – Great review of Solais House. I hadn't realised that it was a spec office before, having seen David Frise present it recently. That explains why it's aesthetically…dubious. Despite this constraint, promises to be a great example – although we await the POE results.
• A place for PVC in a sustainable world? | Forum For The Future – Fascinating article on PVC. Still not convinced about the green guide rating of A for PVC windows, but things are getting better: "It’s not the first time that TNS has wrestled with the issue. It originally grappled with the stuff in 2000, when, with the support of the UK Environment Agency, it investigated whether PVC could have any place in a sustainable society. The answer was a cautious ‘yes’ – providing the industry addressed some of its most pressing challenges."
• Sir Nicholas Grimshaw – People – Dwell – Great quote from Grimshaw on sustainability: "You’ve got to do a bit of lateral thinking on these green issues. It’s quite important to be pragmatic. The one thing we have to watch very carefully is polarization"
  Unusual to find a pragmatic architect – consultants and engineers usually much more pragmatic as they don't play the same zero-sum game as architects are forced into.
• Footprint » You should have been at the RIBA tonight… – Intriguing – anyone know anything more on Bill's views?: "Dunster also made a strong plea on behalf of the Code for Sustainable Homes, calling it ‘an enlightened piece of legislation in danger of being dumbed down by the UK-GBC and the ZeroCarbonHub.’"
• News : NDS – From Mandelson's Hinto Engineering Lecture: "Snow didn’t use the term, but he was angling at the idea that Britain was becoming a scientific knowledge economy. This is certainly the case now. We need to understand more clearly than ever the way in which our pure science and applied science underwrite our prosperity, not least so we can strengthen their contribution to economic growth.
  The wider costs of any failure to do this are very high, both for our own economy and society, but also globally. Snow was worried about how a scientifically illiterate society might fail to feed the expanding populations of the developing world. That concern is still very much with us, and to it our society would have to add the massive problem of decarbonsiation and the management of our environmental impact on the planet. "
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Never Waste a Good Crisis – Another report added to my 'must read and comment pile': "Government, as a client, needs to understand the enlightened thinking that better and more intelligent designs improve patients’ recovery in hospitals and learning outputs in schools. So, rather than reduce the number of schools and hospitals being built, it must sponsor smarter and more productive solutions and reduce the amount of money wasted on the procurement process. For Government as a policy maker, the challenge is to create an environment that incentivises innovation and speeds up the modernisation process."
• Thoughts on Copenhagen: Nicholas Stern | News | Architects Journal – Good series of interviews from Hattie in the AJ, on COP15, including this one from Nick Stern: "Energy consumed in the construction and operation of buildings is responsible for more than one third of total energy use. According to the fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, the building sector has great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
  It concluded that the energy consumption of new and existing buildings can be cut between 30 and 50 per cent without significantly increased costs.
  Architects, together with other built environment professionals, have the strategic and technical skills to deliver buildings that both lead to lower emissions and withstand those impacts of climate change that are now inevitable. With existing technologies, these buildings are now affordable. New technologies are constantly being created. What is required is the vision, leadership and commitment to make a low-carbon future reality."
• Thoughts on Copenhagen: Pooran Desai | News | Architects Journal – The run up to COP15 has started, with this snippet the most interesting thing I found in AJ's recent piece, from Pooran Desai: "To achieve effective change, we need elegant solutions and a sensible systems-based approach to zero carbon; for example, recognising electricity as a pooled resource and not unnecessarily converting buildings into power stations. Land use is as critical as carbon emissions."

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These are my links for May 5th through May 11th:

• BREEAM: BREEAM Extranet – Elements of the BREEAM Extranet are now available to all with a public log-in option – loving how BREEAM are continuing to open up to all.
• Multiple monitors boost productivity by 35.5% | 18 Feb 2009 | ComputerWeekly.com – Some bias in that Fujitsu have an interest in selling more screens, but good to see some data on something I've suspected a long time (and I'm still hankering after Terry Pratchett's 6 screen set up): "Employees can perform a typical knowledge-sector job much more efficiently at a three-display workspace than at a conventional one, according to a laboratory survey by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), supported by Fujitsu.
  Fujitsu said this is particularly relevant for jobs where digital information has to be processed very frequently, as is the case for scientists, editors, engineers or insurance company employees.
  Overall, the study showed that larger screen areas increase productivity, and with the three-display workspace interconnected to form one desktop, Fraunhofer IAO scientists recorded increases in productivity of 35.5%."
• Andrew Winston – " I have a new book coming out this summer called Green Recovery. It focuses on going green in hard economic times. It lays out ways to get lean quickly, which can help companies survive today and preserves capital to invest in people and innovation. This plan can prepare companies to emerge from the downturn in a much better competitive position.
  My publisher is making a core part of the book available for free now. You can download my special report here:
  www.tinyurl.com/WinstonReport
  This pdf includes the introduction and the core chapter on getting lean. The other chapters on how the green wave is evolving, and how to get smart, get creative, and get (your people) going will be out by August in the full book."
• Andrew Winston: Is Bjorn Lomborg Dangerous or Helpful? – "Lomborg has a long habit of tilting at windmills that he mostly imagines. His most famous argument is that we shouldn't prioritize climate change over other pressing social priorities like poverty alleviation — as if they're all separate. The poorest people in the world are energy poor and don't have access to clean water — the two biggest environmental challenges of our time. He's always setting up false tradeoffs to establish his more "reaonsable" middleground…
  Lomborg's arguments are more subtle than he usually gets credit for. Probably 75% of what he says is dead on — but that's what makes him so dangerous. It's the other 25% that gets us in trouble."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Procrastiflation: Procrastination + Inflation – I'm a procrastiflator!: "The longer a task goes un-completed, the harder it is to do it.
  If you say you're going to call John Doe on Monday, and you don't, and you continue to procrastinate on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, it becomes harder and harder with each passing day to ever complete the task."
• Dave Gorman: Limescale – Hilarious post from Dave Gorman in which he fixes the economy by rerouting hard water from London to Scotland.
• Commissioning strategy to be included in revisions to Part L – Building Sustainable Design – "The proposed changes to Part L were due to come into effect in April 2010, but this target is now likely to be missed. A government spokesman said the April date “is becoming increasingly challenging and the revisions to the regulations could be put back to October 2010”."
• Wales introduces green building standard – PlanningResource – A sign of things to come for the rest of the country? "Housing developers will have to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 while non-residential buildings will need to achieve the BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard.
  The legislation will come into effect on 1 September 2009.
  Davidson said: "I am determined to use the planning system to move towards zero-carbon buildings. We need to do everything we can to make new buildings, from our homes through to our offices, as environmentally friendly as possible. The new policy will play a key role in achieving this.""
• Defra, UK – Sustainable Development – Need to write a sustainable policy? "The Stretching the Web tool was developed with the aim of helping practitioners to integrate Sustainable Development into their policy making as well as project or programme work. The web is a simple graphic that allows you to easily explore a broad range of key positive and negative impacts."
• Aecom buys Savant to boost European presence – Building – More familiar names go, as AECOM assimilates Faber Maunsell and EDAW further – now to be known as AECOM Europe. Follows the news that Whitby Bird now to be known only as Ramboll.

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