Elemental

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These are my links for February 22nd through February 23rd:

• House 2.0: Dickon Robinson – "(Dickon Robinson) made some interesting observations about social housing, particularly so as he has been so intimately involved in it at Peabody. He recalled that the original council houses, built in the 20s and 30s, were only available to people who had jobs, and that they were regularly inspected by council officials to see that they were being properly cared for — these selection criteria were relaxed after WW2, when many families had to be rehoused. He then suggested that for some, social housing had become "deeply dis-empowering" because tenure was secure, rents were low and thus it "stopped you having to get up in the morning." He also spoke out against pepper-potting, the current practice of mixing affordable with private housing, the logic being to avoid building ghettos. He thought it hadn't been a great success and that, by and large, people were happier living with neighbours of similar social standing. Interesting thoughts, running counter to the prevailing mainstream"
• two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 2 « carbon limited – Great post from Casey – read both: "Here are my problems with using the SO to fund retrofit:
  1. It’s unfair – everyone pays, while only a small proportion of households get a retrofit in a given year
  2. It’s inappropriate – you’re asking the big energy companies to transform the energy market when their mission is the diametric opposite
  3. It’s a false market – government loves to let the market solve problems (quite right too!) but the supplier obligation isn’t a market, it’s just regulation. Large energy companies may be motivated to find the least cost option but not where the results would threaten their core business. This includes opening up the energy market to new players.
  PAYS on the other hand only affects those whose houses are refurbed and should keep bills steady rather than increase them. And done correctly, it could create a very large market of small and medium businesses, spawning competition and innovation."
• Living with rats: Stop talking about the knowledge economy. Start building a wisdom economy. – As always, a thought provoking post from Julian Dobson: "The knowledge economy is competitive. The wisdom economy is collaborative. The knowledge economy assumes that if we can know that bit more than others, we will get what they have or keep them from getting what we have. It believes in dog eat dog. The wisdom economy says dogs do better when they hunt in packs. It sees knowledge as something to be shared and built collaboratively. It is highly suspicious of the intellectual property industry and the crowd of litigators and branding experts who hang on its coat-tails. Where the knowledge economy is amoral – your disadvantage is of no concern as long as I am succeeding – the wisdom economy accepts at a profound level that your disadvantage is my problem."
• At last the Tories nail their planning colours to the mast – just in time for Bura@20 ! – The Regeneration Blog – Jackie Sadek comments on the Tory Green Planning paper: "Community engagement is really very hard to get right, particularly in areas of deprivation, and almost impossible in areas where there is wide disparity of household income. It just feels a bit naive; "Planning for Real" was always a little fanciful (almost hippie-like) and there now seems to be some sort of romantic notion that we can become like the people in "Passport to Pimlico".
  Frankly the Cameron claim that Open Source Planning "will mend our broken planning system" is really a very strong one. The claim that "it'll help to build stronger communities and help to mend our broken society too" is eye-wateringly ambitious indeed. The ideologue in me (still alive and kicking) would like to think it's worth giving it a go, but this policy is going to have to be implemented by people who really know what they are doing."
• Argument Against Environmental Benefits of Locally-Grown Food – Not unbiased by any stretch, but some valid arguments: "The report explains that linear travel miles are not indicative of total energy use and therefore not necessarily a valid measure of the environmental impact of moving food over long distances. Instead of total miles traveled, the report states that the energy use per unit of food moved paints a more accurate picture of overall energy use…Shipping eggs across then entire U.S. by tractor-trailer to a grocery retailer is still the most fuel-efficient, eco-friendly option, said the report. This underscores the tremendous efficiency achieved through modern transportation systems and economies of scale. While the report did not examine all food products, it does conclude that “food should be grown where the agricultural resources and capacity are most suited to efficient food production,” rather than close to population centers."
• Introduction : Future Venice – I found Rachel Armstrong via TED talks – this looks intriguing: "It is hoped that, since it is possible to design the metabolism of a protocell, a type of protocell might be engineered to capture carbon dioxide from a solution and turn it into its solid carbonate form to produce “pearls” of solid carbon dioxide. This system would form the basis for a new carbon-fixing building material. Early stage experiments to test this hypothesis are currently being conducted."

admin News co2, Economics, food, Housing, Knowledge, miles, PAYS, planning, protocell, refurbishment, retrofit, SO, UK, wisdom

These are my links for January 15th from 14:23 to 14:23:

• McDonald’s seeks to cut cows’ methane emissions | Environment | The Observer – The fast food chain, which uses beef from 350,000 cattle a year for its burger meat, is to conduct a three-year study into methane emissions from cattle on 350 farms across Britain. Gas produced by flatulent livestock accounts for 4% of the UK's total carbon emissions. It is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse agent. A study carried out in America in 2006 calculated that producing a single cheeseburger involves the emission of around 3.1kg of carbon dioxide.

admin News agriculture, emissions, environment, food

These are my links for July 26th through July 27th:

• International Green Construction Code (IGCC) Now in the Works| News | Architectural Record – International in the same way the World Series is a global baseball competition: "On June 29, the American Institute of Architects, along with the International Code Council (ICC) and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), announced their intent to create an International Green Construction Code (IGCC).
  The new code aims to cover all aspects of sustainability in the built environment, from roofing to ventilation strategies, drawing from existing codes and standards to create one universal code. The code will apply to new construction and renovations. “We hope this will bring all of the separate efforts together and put them under one umbrella to make it easier for jurisdictions to know what they are adopting,” says Adolf Zubia, ICC board president."
• CBI climate change progress tracker. CBI on climate change. – Climate change remains one of the most critical issues affecting the UK, but in tough economic times it is at clear risk of slipping down the political agenda. Urgent action to cut emissions must be delivered if we are to hit government emissions reduction targets, ensure a future independent supply of energy, and manage rising energy costs.
  The CBI’s Climate Change Tracker is a tool developed by the CBI to track progress against the priorities set out in the CBI’s 2007 climate change report, Climate change: everyone’s business.
  The Tracker benchmarks the progress of the priorities for action set out in the report, focusing on the immediate decisions and delivery needed up to 2010.
• Dubai development may be down, but it’s not out – Los Angeles Times – Fascinating and scary article on Dubai: "In the heart of most cities, the biggest piece of land that a single developer is typically able to control is one square block. …In Dubai, whole districts of the city, many covering dozens of square blocks and hundreds of acres, have been given over to single developments. Seeing architectural diversity within any project as a threat to the bottom line, their creators usually hire a single firm to design them around a recognizable theme…
  The result is a surprising twist on the privatization of cities like Los Angeles, where public space is notoriously scarce. In the privatized city, as the well-known critique goes, people aren't forced to mix with people who are different from themselves. They are hidden from that interaction inside their private cars and gated developments. … In Dubai, remarkably enough, the same is true for buildings, which tend to cluster together with other pieces of architecture just like them."
• Property’s Quangocracy – Property Week – Excellent dissection of the RDA's and their spending. MIPIM anyone?
• Charter of the New Urbanism | Congress for the New Urbanism – My Jane Jacobs obsession has lead me to the doors of New Urbanism and their charter. With LEED-ND and BREEAM Communities rearing their heads, time to get to grips with New Urbanism and what the future holds…
• Frank Gruber: New Urbanism: Very Misunderstood – "New Urbanism, although it has antecedents in mid-century voices (such as that of Jane Jacobs) …is a movement that arose in the 1980s among architects upset not only with the decline of the quality of the built environment but also with the failure they perceived of the profession of architecture to pay attention to the spaces between buildings and the larger urban or regional context…
  New Urbanists are attacked from both sides of America's cultural divide. Chances are, if you mention New Urbanism to group of forward thinking, contemporary design professionals, whether architects or planners, they will roll their eyes. To them New Urbanism, …is a facilitator of sprawl, not a solution. …New Urbanism is hopelessly nostalgic.
  But if you find yourself among a group of conservatives or libertarians, … you'll just as likely unleash a denunciation on the grounds that New Urbanism aims to thwart the natural desire of Americans to live in a single-family house on a cul-de-sac."
• Media library · Town and Country Planning Association – "Leading planning and housing charity, the Town and Country Planning Association(TCPA) will celebrate its 110th AGM today by publishing a Manifesto for the 21st Century. The Association’s vision – Towns and Countryside for a New Age of Challenge – sets out a new set of aspirations which directly address today’s challenges of climate change, globalisation and social justice.
  The TCPA’s Manifesto comprises four main elements: choice and diversity; cities and the larger task; a revitalised countryside; and networks of cities, towns and villages."
• The Effect of the Recession on Partnering in the Construction Sector – Excellent presentation from Don Ward, which he presented at the AEC networking meeting at the Building Centre last week. Slides 31/32 hold key messages for me. A lower price for the client does not necessarily have to eat into our profit margins (and in fact, shouldn't – we all need to make money).
• Real Time Carbon – I love this – I have a great deal of time for anything coming out of AMEE : "Until now, anyone trying to understand the carbon impact of the electricity they use has only had a single static Government conversion factor. The factor – currently 527 grams CO2 per kWh of electricity – is updated only a few times a year.
  The standard figure is based on a number of assumptions about the mix of energy used to generate electricity – the "generation mix". It tells consumers nothing about the carbon intensity of electricity at a given time.
  Real Time Carbon wants to help energy users see the real-time carbon intensity of electricity so they can avoid consuming at times of high emissions. We look forward to a time when appliances, buildings and factories automatically manage demand according to the carbon being released."
• Our Seven Commitments – Royal Town Planning Institute – Interesting work from RTPI, but it feels a little late? Interested to find out how they do with no.1, behavioural change, and good to see it isn't a "cast-in-stone" mainfesto : "The seven commitments are supported by a living and continuously improved action plan that will deliver practical outcomes, benefiting communities at the global and the local scale."
• U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu: “Global Warming Is the Greatest Challenge Facing Science” « The Dirt – "In the case of energy-efficient buildings, Chu argued local knowledge drives local building development, and needs to be updated to ensure best practices in energy-efficient buildings quickly go global. ”Buildings are local. We don’t ship buildings to Denmark.” He described the type of knowledge needed for creating energy-efficient buildings as a sort of “hands-on,” practitioner’s knowledge –”it’s like a gardener’s craft or like those who know how to cook well.” Still, he thinks it is possible to “teach each other how to capture carbon, how to create more energy-efficient buildings.” To those who argue that any intellectual property (IP) transferred overseas should be protected, Chu added “it’s not about intellectual property (IP), it’s about people.” He also argued that the case for energy efficient buildings is economic — highly energy-efficient buildings can reduce current energy consumption by four-to-five times, putting “more money into people’s pockets.”"
• Ch 13 Page 79: Sustainable Energy – without the hot air – From David MacKay's excellent book:"“it’s better to drive than to walk.” Whether this is true depends on your diet. It’s certainly possible to find food whose fossil-fuel energy footprint is bigger than the energy delivered to the human. … According to a study from the University of Exeter, the typical diet has an embodied energy of roughly 6 kWh per kWh eaten. To figure out whether driving a car or walking uses less energy, we need to know the transport efficiency of each mode. For the typical car …, the energy cost was 80 kWh per 100 km. Walking uses a net energy of 3.6 kWh per 100 km – 22 times less. So if you live entirely on food whose footprint is greater than 22 kWh per kWh then, yes, the energy cost of getting you from A to B in a fossil-fuel-powered vehicle is less than if you go under your own steam. But if you have a typical diet (6 kWh per kWh) then “it’s better to drive than to walk” is a myth. Walking uses one quarter as much energy."
• DOE: Building Energy Codes – News Item – "The decision to create the joint publication resulted from the recent legislation passed by the U.S. Congress, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Act establishes an energy efficiency goal of 90 percent compliance with the 2009 IECC and Standard 90.1-2007 in all 50 states by 2017. In establishing this goal, the Federal legislation recognizes the 2009 IECC and Standard 90.1-2007 as the energy efficiency benchmarks for residential and commercial buildings.
  Because the ICC and ASHRAE documents complement each other, publishing them in one book benefits architects, designers, engineers, and code officials. It makes it easier to choose between design options, and helps make sure new and renovated buildings are in compliance with the latest references and local building safety codes."
• Bad British Architecture: BLAR MHOR HOUSING IN CAOL, FORT WILLIAM BY ARCHIAL FOR LORNE DEVELOPMENTS – Very quickly, a firm favourite on my blogroll. Ghost of Nairn in acerbic form as usual: "One helpful rule of thumb, from Nairn to you. When someone presents a masterplan with a perimeter of a line of trees, it means they're trying to hide something. Do not trust these people."

admin News amee, Architecture, ashrae, building, buildings, business, carbon, carbon_intensity, CBI, Chu, climatechange, code, criticism, development, Dubai, Economics, efficient, electricity, Energy, food, global, globalisation, green, international, IP, Jane_Jacobs, local, manifesto, masterplanning, New_Urbanism, partnering, planning, RDA, recession, RTPI, Sustainability, TCPA, UK, urbanism, US

These are my links for April 16th through April 20th:

• Of Age, Youth and Wisdom – The Regeneration Blog – Of all the new Estates Gazette blogs, I'm enjoying Jackie's the most. Wise words today and a point well made: "regeneration is all about delivering where the market has failed."
• AIArchitect This Week | Face of the AIA: Sustainability: The Legacy of Fitch – "How would Fitch appraise our profession’s embrace of sustainability? He’d caution us against making the same mistake as the Modernists by placing too much emphasis on technological fixes. He’d goad us to study the ways in which vernacular architecture uses native genius to keep buildings in environmental equilibrium. He’d encourage us to pursue preservation, restoration, and adaptive use as tools toward sustainable cities. And he would no doubt chide us in his warm, Southern drawl, “Took you long enough.”"
• EnergyPlus Version 3.1 and OpenStudio v1.0.3 Available « bldgsim – New version of EnergyPlus is released.
• Footprint » London Yields – "On the issue of food security, the exhibition quotes Lord Cameron of Dillington who said that Britain was ‘nine meals away from anarchy’. To illustrate how real the issue is, one wall is dedicated to a food map showing the origins of the contents of a two-person household’s weekly shop (from the ‘every little helps’ supermarket). Each item was described in terms of the country it came from, the resultant miles it had travelled and how much CO2 in kg per pack this equated to in terms of air and sea miles. Out of a 24 strong list, only 8 items were from the UK and products easily produced in the UK such as apples, broccoli and lamb were source from elsewhere."
• Places and infrastructure-Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) Green Lease Toolkit: London Development Agency – "These guidelines are non-prescriptive, helping owners and occupiers to agree carbon, energy, waste and water reduction strategies which best fit with the circumstances of individual properties. With this toolkit it is possible for any owner or occupier to positively engage in developing practical ways to effect significant change, with the hope to accelerate the process of making London’s existing commercial properties more sustainable."
• Real Life LEED: The BIG Review: LEED 2009 Reference Guides Released – Great post on the changes to LEED. More thoughts when I get a chance to read and digest.

admin News 2009, architect, blogs, building, carbon, commercial, estate, food, freeware, green, leases, LEED, real, regeneration, security, Software, Sustainability, UK

These are my links for September 11th through September 19th:

• BREEAM set to cover communities – Building – Unlike existing BREEAM tools, the assessment will take into account regional requirements. Cotter said: “For example, does the development meet the criteria for employment stimulation? It’s about making sure development complements regional local planning requirements.”

  It has not been decided whether the assessment will include existing buildings.

• Rogers and Foster shun nuclear design framework – Building – “Ethically, we wouldn’t get involved in projects like this. We have a fairly strict constitution set up by Richard [Rogers] which prohibits work on military schemes and power stations.”
• NHF demands stricter CO2 timetable for housebuilders – Building – Orr said: “Currently, private developers are not being compelled to meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions at all. In fact, they are being allowed to put their profits ahead of the survival of future generations.

  “It's time that ministers legally locked private developers into the same timetable as housing associations. We have long been calling for the government to ensure that from April 2008 all new private homes emit 25% less CO2. And we would like ministers to make certain that all new privately built homes are zero carbon by 2016, at the very latest.

  “Unless the government compels the private sector to meet the same standards and timetable, private companies will simply try to wriggle out of their environmental duties, saying it costs too much.”

• The Question of Global Warming – The New York Review of Books – "Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful."
• OMNIVORACIOUS: Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria: Author One-to-One – via Ben Casnocha, Friedman takes Zakaria to task on the alleged green revolution: "So you'll know the green revolution is happening when you see some bodies–corporate bodies–along the side of the road: companies that didn't change and therefore died. Right now we don't have that kind of market, that kind of change-or-die situation. Right now companies feel like they can just change their brand, not actually how they do business, and that will be enough to survive."
• Felicity Lawrence: We could slash our CO2 emissions if we ate less meat. What a pity Boris Johnson doesn’t agree | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – Whilst the article is good, the reason I am flagging this one is the fact that McD's are the Olympics 2012 official caterer. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
• TALL BUILDINGS OFFER ECONOMIC BENEFITS, SAYS REPORT: British Property Federation – Fascinating study on tall buildings (in response to Boris quashing some of Ken's plans, I strongly suspect) in London: "The exercise was one of changing the distribution of employment, rather than total levels of employment. The economic benefit was equivalent to the annual output for each of those 80,000 workers increasing by £2,500 a year. A second scenario redistributing those 80,000 workers to less accessible parts of Central London produced a decline in output equivalent to £1,600 a year for every one of those 80,000 workers."

mel starrs News 2016, BREEAM, carbon, change, co2, communities, company, corporations, Economics, environmentalism, ethics, food, global, green, Housing, London, nuclear, policy, private, quote, revolution, Sustainable, tall_buildings, warming, zero

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

• Kyoto2 Oliver Tickell – Kyoto2 is a framework for a new Climate Protocol under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for 2012 and beyond.
• Steering a sustainable path through GM issues | Forum For The Future – In summary, GM might have a role to play in securing a more sustainable food production system in the future…but, it’s definitely not a ‘silver-bullet’ solution to world hunger, climate change and poverty.
• Food and the G8 (Jonathon Porritt) – "There is a deep, hugely damaging fault-line running all the way through it (Food Matters), captured in a brave but ultimately forlorn attempt to hold both "business-as-usual" and "business transformed" within the same policy framework."
• Beware of hype on the value of green buildings- 7/1/2008 – Building Design & Construction – Use data with caution: "the LEED rating has no effect upon commercial rents, but the Energy Star rating is associated with rents higher by 2.8%"
• Soaring energy costs herald more whole life costing in construction – Building Services Journal – Excellent article on WLC, comparing private and public funded projects. Author is from the improbably named "Davis Langdon Mott Green Wall" which just goes to show the current state of consolidation in the industry…
• Romanian Green Building Council – Romanian GBC have set up a blog to inform peeps of it's movements and developments. Nicely implemented.
• Rethink Your Business Model Around Green – Harvard Business Online’s Leading Green – green businesses are challenging the conventional wisdom that centralized production delivers a sustainable advantage through economies of scale. In fact, in the emerging green economy, many businesses are shifting to distributed models where production i

mel starrs News blog, business, climate, data, environment, food, GBC, globalization, GM, green, policy, population, statistics, strategy, Sustainability, UK, WLC

What I’ve been reading about:

• Arup director on sustainability: communities should be retrofitted – 10/06/2008 – Contract Journal – Peter Head and Chris Twinn appear to be on completely different pages…
• Monbiot.com » Small Is Bountiful – Monbiot on why small is better:There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.
• BSRIA Press & Information > BSRIA launches NBS specification writing service – "Many BSRIA members and customers subscribe to specification writing services such as NBS. Our new service will help them unlock potential to make the most of the time saving and quality assurance benefits."
• Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores? – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog – Dubner takes on the locavore argument, especially Pollan's view, and finds it lacking. IMO, Pollan sells because he takes a stance – black and white sells – pragmatism doesn't…
• Marginal Revolution: The carbon footprint of food – My fascination with the food debate continues. Eat local accounts for 4% of the footprint – better to be a vegetarian and have fewer kids.

mel starrs News agriculture, arup, BSRIA, capitalism, carbon_footprint, Economics, farming, food, NBS, specifications

These are my links for June 1st through June 2nd:

• Top Ten Reasons for Top Ten Lists – Harvard Business Online’s Tom Davenport – Harvard Business with sense of humour? Funny top ten list…
• Don’t trip up: Prices should be incentive enough – "It is bizarre that at a time when food prices are rising and production is slowing, governments still subsidise their farmers not to produce."
• Updated: Exxon repels climate change shareholder revolt | CorporateResponsibility.Net – Has anyone else been following the Exxon story? Good potential case study in shareholders vs. wider stakeholders needs. For the record, shareholders won out, this time.
• Keep on the sunny side | Comment is free – CIF comments are always a mud slinging affair – here Tim Worstall calls Tony Jupiter "economically illiterate if not actually innumerate". Now, now boys – play nicely. The actual article is intriguing.
• What I’d say – No Impact Man answers the question "what if we're wrong about climate change": "The list goes on and on, but in short, I am glad that we have embraced the opportunities presented by the crisis of climate change in order to improve our society in ways we s

mel starrs News case_study, CIF, climatechange, CSR, food, HBR, solar, stakeholders, subsidies

These are my links for May 27th through May 29th:

• 10 Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work – Harvard Business Online’s Tammy Erickson – Why Gen X are ditching corporate companies for start-ups. As always with lists, there are some generalisations, but some insight here.
• Show Us Your Food: A Q&A With the Authors of What The World Eats – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog – Another book from the guys who brought us Hungry Planet. Great article on What the World Eats.
• e-Oculus » Archive » Firms Vary Approaches to Going Green – "Buildings should work more so their systems work less". Paul Stoller from Atelier 10
• Design Build Network – Morgan Lovell’s Green Office Demonstrates Blueprint for the Future – "The project is one of just two of its kind in the country to achieve an 'Excellent' rating from assessors." – anyone in a position to dispute this? Does sound likely to me…
• Monbiot.com » Majesty, We Have Gone Mad – Goerge, IMO, back on form.

mel starrs News Activism, books, BREEAM, career, competitors, conferences, consumption, corporate, culture, food, globalization, leadership, Management, nutrition, oil, Saudi, UK, work

Among my construction and sustainability feeds are a growing number of food and economics links. Seems everything is connected. Whilst it’s not something I would blog about full time (a little too far off topic), I am constantly educating myself on the issues (readers have probably picked up themes from my del.icio.us links). Here is a passage which I found thought provoking today:

Free-market fundamentalists often criticize environmentalists (and other non-fundamentalists) for wanting to interfere with the natural, unfettered workings of the economy, which are supposed to embody some quasi-mystical perfection. Their argument would carry more weight if those supposedly simon-pure markets hadn’t already been endlessly tinkered with in order to tilt the playing field in favor of one business interest or another.

I’m not going into the food issues here – as I’ve already said, a little off-topic. My point is less about food and more about broader issues. One’s beliefs about economics, which are often* seldom explored and have roots in ‘nurture’ (what your parents believed, what papers you read, what your peers think), are a reflections of other beliefs such as how you believe a business should be run.

I’m sure there’s more to explore on this topic but I haven’t quite formulated my theories yet. Let’s just say I’m still in reconnaissance mode. But if you find any links which you think may be of interest to me in the meantime, drop me a line or leave me a del.icio.us link (just tag with for:melstar73)

mel starrs Opinion beliefs, Economics, food