Elemental

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

• Resisting Dickensian Gloom | Planetizen – I often read stuff I don't agree with, just to keep myself in check. This article is pretty much the opposite of everything I believe. I don't even know where to start. Suffice to say, statistics can be manipulated to back up *any* theory. I'm still a big fan of cities though…
• No more niches – we need sustainable innovation at scale (Jonathon Porritt) – "I spent a day last week at Ecobuild – ‘the biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment’. That absolutely wasn’t a claim that could have been made at the first Ecobuild, five years ago, which attracted no more than 1000 visitors. This year, there were more than 50,000 people there. Earls Court was flush with exhibitors, from some of the biggest companies in the UK to distinctly ‘alternative’ start-ups taking a massive gamble on enough people falling for their particular ‘breakthrough innovation’. There were countless meetings and debates going on the whole time, and the kind of buzz that one doesn’t always associate with events of this kind.<br />
  For the politicians who’d dropped in, and wandered around looking a bit bemused, it all said one thing: no more niches. This was about scale. New orders. Expanding markets. Innovation (in the construction industry!). And even, dare one say it, new jobs."
• Making the connection with sustainable development – The Regeneration Blog – Spot on Jackie – read the whole thing: "We got onto discussing whether "sustainability is the new regeneration" in terms of being the new emerging exciting industry to be part of, for the Noughties and the Tens, in the same way as regeneration was the party-to-be-at for the Eighties and the Nineties. And our verdict was: well, yes!<br />
  The parallels are all there. Environmental jobs are created on the fringe and (at least in the general perception) are still not mainstream. Despite a pretty coherent case, environmentalists still seem to be outsiders, banging on the door of the establishment. Those who choose the environment industry tend to be as messianic and passionate, as pointy-headed, as we were when we "invented" urban regeneration, in London Docklands (among other places) all those years ago.<br />
  Environmental projects tend to need the same skills that we deploy in urban regeneration…"
• Official figures show construction output falling again, but devils lurk in the detail | Brickonomics – More doom from Brian Green: "If you do a crude breakdown of the work sponsored by the public sector, doing your best to include PFI, and the work that is properly private sector, then you find that the public sector underpins close to half the work currently under construction. That compares with less than a third before the credit crunch (see graph 2).<br />
  For me that graph in one picture illustrates the increased level of risk in the construction market given the likely pattern of future public spending."
• Fewer redundancy in construction, but the future remains bleak on jobs | Brickonomics – Well reasoned doom (as ever) from Brian Green: "underemployment is, to some extent, becoming the new unemployment.<br />
  Broadly, the proportional cost of overhead per person increases with the reduction in hours. This makes each person, theoretically, less productive financially from the employers’ perspective.<br />
  Firms may be prepared to carry this cost for a limited period, but if they see no sign of an upturn the likelihood is of a further wave of job cuts. With people working fewer hours and proportionately carrying larger overheads, this (proportionately) increases the numbers of jobs likely to go."
• Feed-in tariff ‘killing off’ burgeoning UK small turbine industry | Environment | guardian.co.uk – Not that I'm necessarily standing up for wind, but the capital cost in this example is half that of the solar: "This will allow a 1.5KW turbine, producing an average of 800KWh a year in windy conditions – less than a fifth of the average UK household's electricity needs. By comparison, UK panel installer Solarcentury has estimated that the typical 18 metre square domestic solar panel installation would on average generate just over 2,000KWh – nearly half the average household's electricity consumption."
• 2009: EPCs in numbers | National Energy Services – Data, data, data! At last some figures which might indicate how many Part L non-dom properties built per year.<br />
  ND EPC (non-dwellings) 111,312<br />
  The post focuses on domestic market, but this is the first time I've seen *any* data on numbers of non-dom EPC's.
• The Archdruid Report: Energy Follows Its Bliss – Via Chris Tweed, a druid(?!?) explains exergy. Very long post – worth reading the whole thing: "In a very small way, as you sit there considering your cold coffee, you’re facing an energy crisis; the energy resources you have on hand (the remaining heat in the coffee) will not do the work you want them to do (warming your insides). Notice, though, that you’re not suffering from an energy shortage – there’s exactly the same amount of energy in the dining room as there was when the coffee was fresh from the coffeepot. No, what you have is a shortage of the difference between energy concentrations that will allow the energy to do useful work. (The technical term for this is exergy). How do you solve your energy crisis? One way or another, you have to increase the energy concentration in your energy source relative to the room temperature environment."
• SuDoBE — Sustainable Design of the Built Environment – Good to see Chris blogging again: "In the context of heated buildings, the ability of a source of energy to “do work” can be interpreted as delivering warmth to occupants. But as the post on exergy suggests, the concentration of heat is important and concentrated sources of warmth indoors are only available from fossil fuels. The erroneous assumption often made about warmth is that it doesn’t matter how it is delivered as long as it is capable of creating a comfortable environment. However, we know thermal comfort depends on the recent experience. If I return home on a cold day, what I want is not a uniform level of heating, which is increasingly the norm in new, highly insulated dwellings with small heating systems, but a high temperature heat source that will help me recover from the outside conditions quickly. There is an aesthetic pleasure to this which should not be underestimated."
• Creating excellent primary schools: A guide for clients | Publications | CABE – Helping primary school clients, working in either the local authority or the school itself, to make the most of new capital investment in their buildings.<br />
  There is a clear link between well-designed primary schools and pupil performance and behaviour. Successful school design is the result of hard work and collaboration between designers, contractors and visionary, committed clients.<br />
  Creating excellent primary schools takes readers step by step through the process, offering practical tools and a dozen inspiring case studies to show just what can be achieved.
• Rethinking biomass boilers | News | Architects Journal – "The number of stories reaching the AJ about the shortcomings of biomass boilers is growing daily. Sources say a raft of schools are giving up on their maintenance-heavy wood-chip or pellet-fuelled boilers and are instead relying on back-up gas-fired boilers.<br />
  This does not seem to be deterring design teams working on the new wave of Building Schools for the Future schemes, 86 per cent of which are going down the biomass route. Garry Palmer, director of advanced design at AECOM, which has been carrying out detailed research into biomass boilers, understands why this is. ‘Biomass is almost certainly the cheapest in terms of capital cost, and is the easiest way to get the additional Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF] funding available for low-carbon schools.<br />
  ‘However, when you look at lifecycle costs, other routes are more cost-effective… but the DCSF carbon calculator does kind of push you down the biomass route,’ adds Palmer."
• Making better use of Energy Performance Certificates and data: Consultation – Planning, building and the environment – Communities and Local Government – Hurrah – another consultation: "Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and Display Energy Certificates (DEC) have an important role to play in supporting our carbon reduction aims by providing vital information about the energy efficiency of buildings in England and Wales and advice about measures to improve their energy performance. To enhance their contribution, we are consulting on a number of measures to help improve the effectiveness of EPCs and to make better use of energy performance data."
• Frank Chimero has a blog. (How-To) – Good philosophy: "Why do we look for recipes? Because we’re risk averse. If we fail, it’s because someone else gave us the wrong recipe. We get to skip on the blame, but can claim the success.<br />
  But, there’s money in recipes. If there’s a recipe, that means there’s a secret. And you can sell a silver bullet. The thing is, most people that are giving you a recipe are pandering to your fear. “What if things go wrong?”"
• Facing up the biomass emissions – BSEE – Building Services and Environmental Engineer – "…many biomass installations already use a cyclone or multi-cyclone to remove particles from flue gases. However, cyclones are totally dependent on the mass of the particles for removal, so while they will remove around 50% of the coarser particles they do not remove particles below PM10. This is why the new Directive and its emphasis on PM2.5 has such significance for biomass installations…<br />
  Until recently there has not been a financially viable alternative but Hoval has now optimised a ceramic filter for use in biomass installations – without making the overall cost of a biomass installation prohibitive.<br />
  Capable of removing up to 96% of PM2.5 and PM10 particles, ceramic filters can be used with any type of biomass boiler and can retrofitted to existing installations, so they have the potential to address many concerns (real of perceived) about particulate emissions from biomass."
• Green Building Programs: The Fundamental Flaw! – Michael Anschel – Excellent point, well made (read the whole post): "If we are asking people to think about how everything is connected, how everything goes somewhere, how their actions impact other people, and about their relationship with nature, then why the hell are we telling them to check their brain at the door and pick up a code book? It is almost as moronic as suggesting the LEED AP test (an exercise in minutia), or the NAHB Certified Green Professional test (a joke) have the ability to turn someone into a green expert!<br />
  Green building requires you to think. In green building, there is no easy path or one-size-fits-all solution. The sooner everyone understands this, the sooner we can get back to the business of green building."
• FT.com / UK / Economy & Trade – BAE chief throws spanner in gas fitters’ work – "Gas fitters, photocopier repairmen and other technicians should stop calling themselves engineers, according to the chairman of BAE Systems, the UK’s biggest manufacturing company.<br />
  “Britain suffers from a language problem in that the word ‘engineer’ is applied to a lot of different people who do a range of jobs,” Dick Olver told the Financial Times. “Professional engineers need to take ownership of the brand and keep it for themselves.”"
• Environment Agency – Opportunity and environmental sensitivity mapping for hydropower in England and Wales – "The map is based on a report commissioned by the Environment Agency to assess hydropower potential of our rivers and the impact of developing them on the environment.<br />
  In total over 25,000 sites were identified. These sites represent existing structures within rivers such as weirs and lochs. As well as hydropower opportunities they are barriers to fish movement and migration.<br />
  If a hydropower scheme were built on every one of these barriers they could generate one per cent of the UK’s electricity needs. In reality, only some of these sites could be exploited due to environmental sensitivities, particularly the impact on migratory fish populations such as salmon and eels, as well as practical constraints such as access to the electricity network.<br />
  However, we identified around 4,000 sites where a sensitively designed scheme incorporating a fish-pass could actually improve the local environment as well as generate electricity."
• Office for Renewable Energy Deployment (ORED) – Department of Energy and Climate Change – Note – they have three objectives – carbon reduction is only one: "Office for Renewable Energy Deployment (ORED)<br />
  ORED's mission is “To accelerate the deployment of renewable energy in order to reduce carbon emissions, increase energy security and create business opportunities in the UK”"
• Tories set out plan for local design standards – Building Design – "A Conservative government would introduce a decentralised planning system where local authorities each draw up individual architectural and design standards, the party has confirmed.<br />
  Proposals to fast track schemes that do not attract objection from local people are also included in the party’s long-awaited planning green paper, Open Source, published on Monday.<br />
  “Legislation already requires councils to promote good design, yet many are struggling” Ruth Reed<br />
  The paper dismisses the current system as “almost wholly negative and adversarial” and instead envisages a broad brushstroke national framework of planning policy, combined with more distinctive regional policies.<br />
  But RIBA president Ruth Reed — who is supportive of the paper’s emphasis on design — said “struggling” councils must be given more resources if they are to draw up and maintain local architectural standards."
• IES » » 111 ways to save energy – Interesting statistic: "Buildings in New York City account for nearly 80 PERCENT of its greenhouse gas emissions. More than buses, cars and taxis. And in a city with more than 10,000 cabs alone, the fact that buildings are the largest contributor of greenhouse gases is astounding."
• Ian McEwan: Failure at Copenhagen climate talks prompted novel rewrite | Environment | guardian.co.uk – "He said was happy to class himself as "warmer" — a term increasingly used by climate sceptics to describe those who agree with the scientific consensus that human activity drives warming. "Though I am quite tempted sometimes to be a calamatist. There is something intellectually delicious about all that super-pessimism."<br />
  McEwan added that his research on climate had forced him to reconsider opposition to nuclear power. "We just don't have anything else that can run our cities on a windless night in February." Better nuclear energy than coal, he said. "It is rare that virtue and necessity collide. Sooner or later we're going to have to find a new energy source for mankind.""
• News – dcarbon8 carbon & sustainability consultancy – Well done, and good luck to Guy: "Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has acquired dcarbon8, a leading carbon and sustainability consultancy, as it expands and evolves its environmental and sustainability consulting practice.<br />
  The deal sees Guy Battle, a founder of dcarbon8, become a Deloitte partner and its employees join Deloitte."
• Real Life LEED: FREE Unlocked LEED 2009 Checklists That Don’t Suck! – Does Real Life LEED have a day job as well (I assume so). In awe of how helpful this website is – wish I had time to do similar stuff for BREEAM): "Below you'll find links to Excel checklists for each of the five v2009 (aka v3) rating systems (…if you think I'm going to try to revamp the LEED-Homes checklist you're insane). Each prints to a single page, has an area for notes, and is COMPLETELY UNLOCKED, so if you don't like something you can edit it on your own."
• My biggest mistakes « Scott Berkun – Great advice from Scott – especially if you're in a large multi-dis consultancy: "Not staying with the same boss/group. When I was there (‘94 to ‘03), after a long stint on the IE team, I jumped around Microsoft every couple of years, putting my curiosity and passions ahead of climbing ladders. I wanted a diversity of experiences – I had four different job titles in nine years at Microsoft – but this made it harder to get promoted and, in some cases, to earn respect in the MSFT culture. The advice I give people all the time is pick your manager first. A great manager will negate most other work problems, whereas an awful manager will negate most other work pleasures. Good managers get promoted and often their best people rise with them."
• Why scientists must be the new climate sceptics – opinion – 04 March 2010 – New Scientist – At the risk of opening up a massive can of worms again, NS points out why bloggers and tweeters shouldn't have risen to Amanda's bait (key phrase being unnecessary and ultimately harmful). Good article worth registering onto the site to read: "Last November, architecture journalist Amanda Baillieu wrote a column in Building Design that questioned whether the building industry should support cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. It was tame stuff, yet it prompted a torrent of criticism, some of it offensive. That was unnecessary, and ultimately harmful to the cause Baillieu's critics were fighting for. Now Baillieu is presenting herself as a brave soul, fearlessly standing up to climate science orthodoxy – despite having presented no evidence to challenge global warming."

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I’m almost finished writing my final installment on BREEAM vs LEED, but I’ve run out of time to publish it this week.  In the meantime, you may be interested to know that CIBSE have a conference coming up on this very subject on 10th Feb 2010 in Balham. A snip at £225 for members.

Hear from Chris Twinn (Arup), Alfonso Ponce-Alvarez, (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), Ivan Rodriguez (URS Corp), Esfandiar Burman (ARCADIS), Sean Lockie (Faithful+Gould), Steven Brindle (Waterman Energy & Environment Design), Vincent Murray (IES) and Angus McIntosh (Kings Sturge).

BREEAM and LEED are the two most widely recognised environmental assessment methodologies used in the construction industry today.   Whilst the thrust of the two are similar – i.e. conserving energy and reducing carbon emissions, generally it is not straightforward to compare the two. What might be applicable in one assessment method might not be relevant in another.

How can a project team determine under which methodology their project can achieve the best rating? This conference aims to give you the necessary background and help you make an informed decision about your project.

admin Accreditation, Events Add new tag, BREEAM, LEED

This follow up post is for those who are familiar with BREEAM and have some knowledge of the credit numberings and weightings for both schemes. If you need to refer to the manuals the BREEAM manual can be found here and the LEED manual can be found here.

If you are just looking for an overview, try the first post in this series here.

I start with a brief overview of LEED 2009 scoring and prerequisites.

Then I look at the main differences and significant similarities in LEED 2009 from BREEAM 2008.

I finish with the weightings which are now within LEED – a significant change between v2 and 2009 which brings it much more in line with BREEAM.

LEED 2009

LEED 2009 replaced LEED 2.0 from 27 April 2009. All discussion which follows refers to LEED-NC (new construction). There are small differences for the other schemes.

Unlike BREEAM, LEED is a points rather than percentage system. There are 100 base points, 6 possible Innovation in Design and 4 Regional Priority points.

Prerequisites

LEED introduced prerequisites before BREEAM’s mandatory credits. Prerequisites are mandatory for all ratings.

Sustainable Sites

• SSP1 – Construction Activity Pollution Prevention

Water Efficiency

• WE1 – Water Use Reduction

Energy and Atmosphere

• EAP1 – Fundamental Commissioning of Building Energy Systems
• EAP2 – Minimum Energy Performance
• EAP3 – Fundamental Refrigerant Management

Materials and Resources

• MRP1 – Storage and Collection of Recyclables

Indoor Environmental Quality

• EQP1 – Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance
• EQP2 – Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control

Sustainable Sites

SS1 forbids development on farmland, wetlands and within 50 feet of a water body. BREEAM has no equivalent (but these may be covered elsewhere within UK legislation).

SS2 requires development density calculations which BREEAM does not. There are similarities in the types of services (bank, shops, post office, etc) which the development is rewarded for being near.

SS3 (brownfield development) is considerably easier to achieve than LE2 (contaminated land).

The transport credits in LEED are considerably less onerous than the BREEAM equivalents. For example, a 300,00ft² office building would require 95 cycle spaces under BREEAM, but only 36 under LEED. LEED rewards specific parking for LEV and FEV or for an LEV sharing scheme. There is no current equivalent under BREEAM, but there is the opportunity to propose this as an innovation credit.

SS5.2 promotes a high proportion of open space to encourage biodiversity. There is no BREEAM equivalent.

SS7.1 and 7.2 refer to heat island effect which BREEAM does not cover, although green roofs are rewarded (for different reasons) under LE 4, LE 5, LE 6 and Pol 5.

Water Efficiency

WEP1 looks at water use reduction against a baseline, rather than setting an absolute target like BREEAM.

WE1 looks at irrigation which is included as Wat 6 in some BREEAM schemes, but not currently in BREEAM Offices 2008.

WE2 relates to BREEAM credit Wat 5, recycling, which is again not included in BREEAM Offices 2008.

In BREEAM there are 3 credits which reward specific design solutions or technologies, namely water meters, sanitary supply shut-off and major leak detection. LEED tends not to dictate design solutions, focussing instead on the intention (i.e. water use reduction).

Energy & Atmosphere

EAP2 requires the building to be designed to ASHRAE 90.1. This is more onerous than designing to CIBSE standards and UK Building Regulations, and there is no BREEAM equivalent. However, by designing to this standard, there is no need to specifically require technologies or design solutions, in the same way that BREEAM does. It gives designers more discretion.

EAP3 relates to refrigeration and is covered in the EU by legislation.

EA1 is roughly equivalent to Ene 1. However there are 2 key differences – it is stated in terms of improvement over a baseline in energy, rather than a target carbon amount, and is also stated in terms of COST of energy. This is also the case for EA2 which looks at renewable and is roughly equivalent to Ene 5.

There is a total of 11.85% available for BREEAM Offices 2008 Ene 1 for a zero carbon building (which relates to Building Regulation Part L calculations). The maximum number of points available under LEED is 19 for a 48% improvement on energy performance calculated from Appendix G baseline from ASHRAE 90.1-2007. Points are very roughly equivalent to 0.9%, so a maximum 17% in LEED for a very good low energy building versus almost 12% for a zero carbon building seems better value! The calculations are more onerous for ASHRAE than for Part L.

The other main difference in LEED is that Green Power is rewarded, whereas in BREEAM contracts with green energy suppliers is not rewarded.

Materials & Resources

MRP1 relates to storage for recyclable waste. This is similar to BREEAM but the areas required are much greater – almost double at smaller floor areas and 1.5 times as large at higher floor areas.

LEED generally deals in percentage improvements rather than absolute values. This applies to the reuse of materials too. There are a number of additional credits to BREEAM where items such as rapidly renewable materials, local materials and reuse of interior elements are rewarded.

Rather than focus on an accreditation scheme and chain of paperwork (which Mat 5 in BREEAM now uses), the intentions are stated and it is up to the assessor and design teams discretion to ensure compliance is met.

There is still a focus in both schemes for rewarded recycling rather than reducing waste in the first place.

Indoor Environmental Quality

IEQP1 relates to ASHRAE 62.1. There is no BREEAM equivalent as minimum ventilation rates are covered by Building Regulations.

IEQ1, IEQ2, IEQ3 and IEQ5 are quite sophisticated and beyond any current UK requirements. BREEAM does not reward well designed mechanically ventilated systems. If a building requires mech vent, LEED may well be the better accreditation to go for.

IEQ7.1 requires ability to measure post-occupancy thermal comfort. This is far and beyond BREEAM or CIBSE, but is picked up in BSRIA’s soft landing framework.

IEQ8 covers daylight and is similar in scope but uses a different methodology to BREEAM.

Weightings

Whilst LEED does not convert points into a percentage in the same way that BREEAM does, there was a considerable change in allocation of points per credit between LEED 2.0 and LEED 2009 which means there is now an implicit weighting. As this article points out, the new credit weightings heavily favor urban projects.

Comparing the weightings per credits for LEED 2.0 vs. LEED 2009

admin Accreditation BREEAM, LEED

I promised, what seems years ago, to write some thoughts on the differences between LEED and BREEAM. Initially I had intended to pull together the highlights into one article, as I was sure I had seen a credit by credit analysis elsewhere. I can’t now find that and this post had started to get monstrously long, so this is the first of 3 articles.

I’ve been BREEAM qualified since about 2002, around half my professional career, and LEED-AP for almost a year. BREEAM in particular has been good to me over the past decade although I do have my reservations.

For new readers or those coming from the US, you might want to start with my rough guide to BREEAM 2008. And for an excellent primer on LEED 2009, I cannot recommend highly enough this post over at Real Life LEED.

BSRIA have an excellent article here from February 2009 which covers some of the differences between the two schemes:

So is the dynamic tension between two competing systems desirable? Clearly, a one-size-fits-all assessment scheme would be difficult to achieve on a global basis. For example, water efficiency is a major issue in Dubai and Australia, but not in Scotland and nor in Wales. So different issues need to be ranked differently to match regional environment and regulations.

While LEED is dominated by the American ASHRAE standards, BREEAM takes it cue from European and UK legislation. The regional versions of both schemes flow from those antecedents.

BREEAM Gulf has been adapted for the local market. Gone are the Good, Very Good, and Excellent ratings, and in comes star ratings. The weightings are changed so that water is the key issue, rather than energy as in the standard UK schemes. In addition to the CIBSE guidance being the measure for certain credits, ASHRAE and other standards are also now referenced in BREEAM Gulf.

BREEAM has long been able to adapt to local contexts. With BREEAM Bespoke, for example, the assessor can work with BRE to develop assessment criteria specially tailored to a building where it doesn’t fit neatly into one of the existing schemes.

I would interject at this point and say that this is a bit of a fallacy. Whilst BREEAM Bespoke is flexible, the core content of the credits is already set out – clients often believe they will be able to write credits from scratch if they go down the BREEAM Bespoke route and can be disappointed when they find they can’t.

LEED, however, has not been created with this level of adaptability and it is not run that way. Instead it is fixed to the ASHRAE standards and the US way of thinking (for example, credits are awarded for having enough car parking spaces, rather than minimising them as in BREEAM).

There are also differences in the way LEED calculates credits. They are generally linked to the US Dollar (especially the energy credits), which means that if the exchange rate is unfavourable, then the building’s rating could suffer.

A key change that may make LEED more exportable is the introduction of regional bonus credits. Six regional priority credits will be available based on what the US-GBC’s regional councils and chapters deem important, environmentally, in that region.

A downside is that these credits are not available for non-US projects. However, there are national versions of LEED being developed by individual national green building councils. Canada was the first, followed by India. Countries such as Brazil and Italy are looking to have their own versions soon.

The table above is courtesy of Eszter Gulacsy from MTT/Sustain. It summarises the key differences between the two schemes, which I will go into some more detail in the next post.

A further consideration, going back to my post on politics in sustainability, is that BREEAM reflects UK thinking and LEED reflects US thinking. I have mapped where I think the two schemes might fall on the Nolan Chart:

Feel free to disagree with where I have placed them, I’m sure US readers will guffaw at my thinking that LEED is libertarian – it perhaps falls more into the centrist section?

Generally BREEAM dictates specific technologies or strategies, whereas LEED states the intention of the credit and leaves it up to the designers discretion as to how to meet it. This is an important difference. It would be interesting to compare the countries which have chosen BREEAM over LEED and see if there is any correlation to prevalent political thinking.

My next post in this series will begin to look at the detail, including a credit by credit breakdown of the two schemes.

admin Accreditation BREEAM, LEED

These are my links for January 10th through January 14th:

• Why do architects earn less than other professionals? – BD Resource – Going back 50 years or so, architects used to have similar earning power to lawyers and medics, but we seem to have gradually painted ourselves out of the picture for clients. We wanted to focus on the interesting design bits. We didn’t want to “do money”, which led to the rise of the QS in advising and controlling costs for the clients. We were less interested in the management of projects, which led to the project manager becoming the client’s agent. All the so-called boring technical bits we delegated to technicians, technologists and engineers. No wonder clients now put far less value on what architects do.
• Building4Change : M&S backs A rated appliances and Code level 4 – Quite a commitment!: "High street retailer Marks and Spencer is incorporating energy efficient domestic appliances and building to level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes into its home insurance policy. If a property is damaged severely and warrants a total rebuild, properties will be rebuilt in line with the Code for Sustainable Homes level 4."
• Completion date scrapped for Masdar eco-city – Building – "Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s clean energy firm, has abandoned the final completion date of 2016 for its pioneering £13bn desert eco-city project.
  Initiated in 2006, Masdar City was billed as the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city. At the city’s groundbreaking ceremony in 2008 a completion date of 2016 was announced, but this has now been scrapped.
  The first stage of the project will be finished by 2013, with a new date of 2020 set for Masdar City to have a critical mass of residents and businesses."
• Ex-Llewelyn Davies Yeang team on move again | News | Architects Journal – Llewelyn Davies Yeang’s (LDY) former masterplanning unit has been sold on for the second time in two years
  The 13-strong team, which was offloaded by LDY in February 2008 to consulting giant the Tribal Group, has joined multi-disciplinary design and engineering outfit Scott Wilson.
• ASHRAE Standard 189.1 The Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings – "Standard 189.1P, once published, will provide a ‘total building sustainability package’ for those who strive to design, build and operate green buildings. From site location to energy use to recycling, this standard will set the foundation for green buildings through its adoption into local codes. The Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, is being developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) in conjunction with the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The standard is slated to be the first code-intended commercial green building standard in the United States when published early in 2010. It covers key topic areas similar to green building rating systems: site sustainability, water use efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and the building’s impact on the atmosphere, materials and resources."
• Green, not grand – "Environmental concerns are no longer being overlooked by many developers, who have begun to take advantage of the politically correct, socially responsible image that being "green" provides, especially to attract multinational tenants. To prove their buildings are environmentally friendly, design professionals are beginning to adopt standards from the United States for "green" buildings, such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, an internationally recognized rating system designed by the US Green Building Council. LEED certification is meant to verify that buildings are energy and water efficient, have low CO2 emissions, and utilize local resources that use smaller amounts of energy to create and transport. "

admin News 189.1, architect, ashrae, building, China, CSH, green, LDY, LEED, m&a, masdar, masterplanning, Scott_Wilson, standard

These are my links for November 27th through December 2nd:

• Smart Vendors: Biomass Supply Chain (UK) – Innovation & Cleantech – Possibly interesting (but very expensive – £150!) report on biomass (not sure how independent the authors are?): "The future evolution of the UK biomass supply chain will be significantly impacted by the opening of proposed major biomass power generation plants by firms like Drax Power and Prenergy in the next 3 years."
• Debt storm threatens Dubai’s ambitions | Last Word | MEED – The most understandable commentary on Dubai which I have come across this week: "Dubai World has gone into a form of protective bankruptcy, similar to the US’ chapter 11 arrangements. It is a situation fraught with difficulties that could damage Dubai and the UAE. And the true scale of what Dubai owes is still unknown.
  But it is Dubai World’s creditors that face the biggest immediate problem. None can expect to receive any money until Dubai World’s assets and liabilities have been fully assessed, a judgement made about how big the gap between the two is and a schedule defined for when creditors will be paid, and how much. It is tough, particularly for those who are owed money today. But it is fair."
• Regulation shapes revolution in Gulf sustainable buildings | Last Word | MEED – Interesting summary of green building accreditation throughout the Middle East. Will the Dubai ripples have an impact?:
  "Abu Dhabi’s new building code, regulations that make sustainability compulsory in all buildings and major retro-fits throughout the emirate, come into force on 1 January 2010."
• First Net-Zero Neighborhood in the US Being Built in Boulder | Inhabitat – At last, some aesthetically pleasing (to my eye at least) net zero homes in my favourite US city, Boulder. Still enormous compared to the UK – 280m² for a townhouse is 3.5 times larger than the average new build UK home (76m² according to swing a cat):
  "Located on Broadway and Poplar Ave in Northern Boulder, the 1.5 acre neighborhood is conveniently located across from a market, shops and restaurants and with easy access via bus to the rest of the city. Six townhomes border Broadway, while six single-family homes sit back behind around a communal park. All the homes will be orientated to the south and photovoltaic systems can installed on the roof, which will completely provide the homes with all the energy they need."
• Rebooting Britain: transform cities into lush jungles – Another article from Wired. This time, I have to disagree slightly – IMO London is currently the *only* UK city suitable for walking and public transport?: "Cities are at present vulnerable to the smallest interruptions in oil and gas supply. The first step in cutting this dependency should be a ban on private car ownership in metropolitan areas. Even a sprawling city like London can be comfortably navigated by walking, cycling, and use of public transport – powered, like delivery vehicles servicing businesses and homes, by batteries, biofuels, or hydrogen fuel cells. The great tidal flows of commuters could be reduced by rezoning commercial areas for residential use and introducing workshops and offices into residential areas, as in the human-scale, mixed-use street plans of medieval cities."
• Rebooting Britain: tax people back into the cities – Really looking forward to PD Smith's new book. Here a flavour from Wired UK: "To create a low-carbon economy we need to become a nation of city dwellers. We tax cigarettes to reflect the harm they do to our health: we need to tax lifestyles that are damaging the health of the planet – and that means targeting people who choose to live in the countryside. We need a Rural Living Tax. Agricultural workers and others whose jobs require them to live outside cities would be exempt. The revenue raised could be used to build new, well-planned cities and to radically upgrade the infrastructure of existing cities."
• When provided a choice, do people choose? – The Social Enterprise – Suw is spot on about adoptation of social media within companies (my experience on Yammer and Skype backs this up): "The successful implementation of social software doesn't stop with a technically successful roll-out. In fact, that's when the process begins because that's when your adoption strategy should kick in.
  Adoption is ultimately about behaviour change: persuading people that, for example,
  instead of sending an email to everyone with a new version of a document they are working on, they should put it on a wiki where it's easier to collaborate. This might seem like a small step – and for a few people it is – but for the majority that's a fundamental change to the way that they have learnt to work on documents."
• Gordon Brown’s ‘eco town’ vision quietly shelved – Times Online – "Gordon Brown’s vision of establishing distinct “eco towns” across the country has been quietly shelved, it emerged today.
  The Government tried to keep up the project’s momentum by announcing a further 14 locations where “green developments” have local council backing.
  But it became clear the new sites will not be for the self standing towns of up to 15,000 homes originally envisaged by the Prime Minister.
  Most will be developments of no more than 5,000 homes on the edge of urban areas, which will be cheaper, easier to plan and attract much less local opposition than those first proposed by the Government."
• Futerra Sustainability Communications – Conspiracies, Climate and Communication – More climategate fallout – Solitaire from Futerra defends her position (well said): "So in my own voice I want to get one thing straight; I hate climate change. I really really hate it and wish it wasn’t happening. Some of the climategate posts seem to imply we’re part of a ‘pro’ climate conspiracy. Considering how deeply and passionately I wish the darn thing wasn’t happening that accusation left me fish-mouthing in surprise. I don’t want climate change, I don’t like climate change, and I’m bloody annoyed that my best years will be spent trying to combat the darn thing.
  The horrible irony is how much I want the deniers to be right. If I had one wish it would be for climate change to be untrue, a blip, misread data, to slope off in embarrassment. If only."
  Now, can we stop being distracted by the semantics and arguments and get on with some design? Thank you.
• CRED Guide | The Psychology of Climate Change Communication – Via Joanna Yarrow, a fascinating document on communicating climate change. Niggets include: "balance information that triggers an emotional response with more analytic information to leave a mark in more than one place in the brain."
• A Climate Scientist Who Engages Skeptics – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com – Read the whole article: "In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics…
  Most scientists retreat into the ivory tower. The CRU emails reflect elements of the circling of wagons strategy. For the past 3 years, I have been trying to figure out how to engage skeptics effectively in the context of #3, … Some of the things that I’ve tried in my quest to understand skeptics and more effectively counter misinformation include posting at skeptical blogs, such as climateaudit, and inviting prominent skeptics to give seminars at Georgia Tech. I have received significant heat from some colleagues for doing this (I’ve been told that I am legitimizing the skeptics and misleading my students), but I think we need to try things like this if we are to develop effective strategies for dealing with skeptics and if we are to teach students to think critically."
• The Guardian – Poignant and depressing: "But I find I can't say this stuff anymore; not because I have stopped believing in climate change, but because I have stopped believing we can prevent it.
  Which is not to say that the End Times are here. One of the other problems with the climate change narrative is that it offers only two futures: Saving the World, or Apocalypse Now. We will probably get neither. More realistic is that we will experience what most previous human societies experienced – a painful decline after a period of over-expansion. We hear a lot about the year 2050: it is a handy date on which to hang our hopes of a "sustainable society", which has come to mean business as usual but without the carbon. It seems much more likely that by 2050 we will be mining our landfill sites for valuable metals and struggling to keep the electricity on, while we dream of the coral reefs that once flowered in the emptying oceans."

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These are my links for November 14th through November 19th:

• Welcome to amazonails – Enerything you ever needed to know about straw bale building.
• Footprint » Common carbon language – "The ‘Common Carbon Metric’ will be piloted by the leading green building rating tools and made available to anyone dedicated to promoting the understanding and development of a low-carbon built environment. The real impact of this initiative lies in the detail which has yet to be announced, but it is an indication of the growing consensus about the role the built environment can play in mitigating climate change."
• Publications – News & Publications | BioRegional: solutions for sustainability – via Hattie at AJ, I find that BioRegional are making lots of their reports free. Will be interesting to read the One Planet Communities and compare to BREEAM, LEED and Estidama. Communities (rather than buildings) will be the buzzword for 2010. Unfortunately Pooran Desai's book is not free, but can be ordered from Amazon.
• marklynas.org | Closed because of geoengineering works – Mark Lynas on geo-engineering (something I'm really not comfortable with): "Geoengineering deeply divides scientists and environmentalists. Should we really consider spraying sulphates into the stratosphere, planting artificial trees across deserts or dumping iron filings in the Pacific as legitimate options to cool down our planet? Kruger, whose preferred solution involves spreading billions of tonnes of lime in the oceans (see cquestrate.com), likens the approach to having an airbag in a car: it’s better not to crash, but also sensible to insure against the risk that the worst will happen. Plus, “the time to design an airbag is before you are skidding on ice”."
• Predicted vs. Actual: Closing the Gap – "Marcus Sheffer, chair of LEED’s Energy and Environment Technical Advisory Group (TAG), shared some ideas under consideration for the next update to the rating system slated for 2012. The group is closely looking at LEED’s energy credits so that energy simulations more accurately predict performance. For example, the TAG is looking at ways to encourage modeling earlier and more frequently in the design process. “We need to change the practice of validation modeling at the end of a project,” said Sheffer. “We need more iterative modeling.” "
  Interesting comment after the article – can we *really* predict performance?
• Three older houses to be Passivhaus retrofitted – "An architects practice is being funded by the Technology Strategy Board to undertake design and feasibity studies into a proposed scheme to retrofit three empty houses to Passivhaus standard. The Retrofit for the Future competition is designed to address the challenge laid down by the government's target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050."
• Announcing Living Building Challenge Version 2.0 — ILBI – For those unfamiliar with ILBI, think of it as uber-LEED: "Version 2.0 of the Living Building Challenge expands its focus to local food production, unrestricted access to nature, no gated communities and other equity issues."

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These are my links for September 14th through September 17th:

• When ‘the business case’ gets exciting – With BDRV we’ve pulled all of our past work – and all the other examples we can find – into a single, flexible guide. We want practically any company to be able to find a financial technique which helps them on practically any decision. We’ve done this by aligning the types of business case for sustainability with the drivers of shareholder value, so it is universally applicable.
• workinproperty News: Balfour Beatty is to buy Parsons Brinckerhoff for £380m – "The acquisition of Parsons Brinckerhoff represents the realisation of a number of key strategic objectives for Balfour Beatty. In particular, we believe it makes us one of the world's major players in professional services, substantially strengthens our US presence and puts Balfour Beatty in an excellent position to take advantage of increased infrastructure spending. It is a key step in becoming a global integrated leader in infrastructure services."
• Women forced out by long hours and sexual harassment – 07/09/2009 – Contract Journal – Damning report: "Women managers experience challenges not faced by their male counterparts because of the dominant masculinist ethos of corporate management culture that privileges men, ranks some men above others and places women on the periphery of the managerial class."
  I have some great tales, including the one where one senior manager accused our branch office of too high a proportion of admin staff (as obviously we couldn't possibly have 3 female engineers). Fun times ;o)
• The Market LEEDer | GreenerBuildings.com – Fantastic rebuttal to the anti-LEED post NYT article brigade (read the whole thing): "I mean, heaven forbid that we update the energy conversation from the '80s when it was all about operations. Depending on the building, the induced transportation energy, the embodied energy of the materials or the energy to provide and process water (which outside of the building requires almost 4 percent of the nation's TOTAL energy!), can exceed the operational energy, all of which LEED addresses directly or indirectly. Everyone agrees that LEED is not perfect and frankly it never will be because "perfect" is a relative term, not an absolute (theological discussions aside)."
• FT.com / Global Economy – France to count happiness in GDP – "The commission suggested a series of improvements to the way GDP was measured. It proposed accounting for people’s well-being and the sustainability of a country’s economy and natural resources. “The world over, citizens think we are lying to them, that the figures are wrong, that they are manipulated,” said the president. “And they have reasons to think like that. "
• EU to introduce new indicator to complement GDP – "The European Union will introduce an index in 2010 to track life qualities such as a clean environment, social cohesion and wellbeing to complement the gross domestic product (GDP) indicator in shaping policy.
  The environmental index will chart progress in areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, water use and waste generation to better reflect economic and social progress, European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on Tuesday. "
• Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network secures funding until 2012 – Good news: "The MBE-KTN is delighted to announce that it has secured a further three years of funding from the Government's Technology Strategy Board. The funding will enable the network to build on its success in stimulating increased innovation across the whole built environment supply chain for real business benefit."
• BRE :: News – Who will win in the global market of building accreditation? It's like the board game Risk – BREEAM have just taken Russia: "BRE Global has signed an agreement with the Russian Green Building Council for the adoption of BREEAM. The agreement will accelerate the development of BREEAM for the Russian market." But will LEED take Kamchatka?
• BREEAM Bespoke to become BREEAM other Buildings – Sustainability Blog – New blogger on the block, BREEAMER, outlines the changes to BREEAM Bespoke (now to be known as BREEAM Other Buildings).

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These are my links for August 31st through September 3rd:

• BBC – Open Secrets: Comparing the energy efficiency of public buildings – In case anyone missed this (over 5000 properties get a G): "until a few days ago, if you wanted to compare all the buildings on the register, you had two somewhat time-consuming and tedious options: you could visit the 28,000-plus buildings, look for the doubtless prominently displayed certificate, and note down the details; or, if you had a means of finding out their reference numbers, you could enter them, one by one, into the database and retrieve the data.
  However, new regulations came into force a fortnight ago which now allow this material to be divulged.
  In response to my request under the Environmental Information Regulations, the Department of Communities and Local Government has sent me a large spreadsheet [MS Excel, 8.14Mb] listing all the properties on the register, their energy efficiency rating and their CO2 emissions, so that it is possible to analyse this to compare all the buildings on it."
• E. O. Wilson Takes a Position – E. O. Wilson, one of the most distinguished and respected scientists in the world, has signed the position on economic growth developed by the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). The position statement points out the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection and proposes a steady state economy as a desirable alternative. A steady state economy aims for stability in population and consumption of energy and materials — it is a truly green economy that meets people's needs without undermining the life-support systems of the planet.
• Real Life LEED: SRI Values for Copper Roofing – Old vs. New – Credit interpretation rulings for SSc7.2 yielded no inquiries about materials that have a non-stable SRI value. Although this is simple conjecture, given the rapid deterioration in SRI for copper (non-compliant within a year, likely much sooner), I would suggest that this product is not in compliance with the intent of the credit which is to reduce heat islands. Clearly for the majority of the life of the copper roof will help foster heat island issues and not reduce them.
• Some Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label – NYTimes.com – Actual energy performance in use will be flavour of 2010 on both sides of the Atlantic: "But in its own study last year of 121 new buildings certified through 2006, the Green Building Council found that more than half — 53 percent — did not qualify for the Energy Star label and 15 percent scored below 30 in that program, meaning they used more energy per square foot than at least 70 percent of comparable buildings in the existing national stock."

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These are my links for August 21st through August 25th:

• Welcome to Green Building Index – via IES: "GBI is developed by Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) and the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM). It is a profession driven initiative to lead the Malaysian property industry towards becoming more environment-friendly. From its inception GBI has received the full support of Malaysia’s building and property players. It is intended to promote sustainability in the built environment and raise awareness among Developers, Architects, Engineers, Planners, Designers, Contractors and the Public about environmental issues. The rating system will provide opportunity for developers to design and construct green, sustainable buildings that can provide energy savings, water savings, a healthier indoor environment, better connectivity to public transport and the adoption of recycling and greenery for their projects…Malaysia’s Green Building Index or GBI will be the only rating tool for the tropical zones other than Singapore Government’s GREENMARK."
• BREEAM points for energy efficiency – 11/06/2008 – Contract Journal – This is an oldie but worth stating:
  "If people are a few points short, it could encourage them to step back and think innovatively about the project."
  Um, sorry, nope. At least I hope not. Embedding sustainability into a design, this is not.
  The point of innovation credits was to reward forward thinking which BREEAM has not yet covered, not a chance to tag on stuff at the end when you realise you're not going to get enough points.
• UK Government CO2e Targets & Seeing Through the Eco-hype – "Key to acquiring the in-depth knowledge that will be needed to prosper in the world of low carbon building will be an understanding the political drivers for policy. Policy that experience has shown us is almost always re-active. Therefore, by gaining an understanding of the political pressures exerted by the challenges of climate change it should be possible to see where policy might be going next and how to address the necessary measures. This will give businesses a significant commercial advantage over competitors who will inevitably be playing catch up."
• Putting Urban Planning In the Hands of the People | GOOD – “Many planning meetings are boring, contentious, and fail to stir people’s creative energy,” says Rojas. Even though planners consistently work closely with groups of constituents, they’re stuck with the kinds of tools they like to use: maps, words and pictures. Well, not everyone can understand a complex map. Other people are uncomfortable writing. And even the physical tools—Post-It notes, simple blocks, whiteboards—that planners use during charrettes do nothing to get the imagination pumping.
  “My process gives the public the power to create,” says Rojas. ”Giving people small interesting objects sparks their interest. Creating a 3-dimensional world with 3-dimensional forms breaks down the planning process into simple terms and helps participants translate conceptual planning ideas into physical forms.” Additionally, Rojas gives power to groups that might be disenfranchised by the typical neighborhood council meeting.
• Leeds on frontline of local climate response | Sustainable Cities – ‘At the moment in all major cities outside London our fate is not in our own hands, we don’t have the financial wherewithal to do what the Victorians did. What I would very much like is the same sort of autonomy that London has with its mayor. If the city region had a mayor with the same powers, that would be a considerable leap forward because it would give you much more of a focus and much more chance to raise money. Please devolve power to us – trust us – is the message.’
  So what would he do with that power? One simple idea would be to introduce a London-style Oyster card for buses, trains and taxis in the city region. ‘The buses would then move much quicker and they’d be more attractive because at every stop at the moment they’re fiddling with change. It’s no surprise that London has a far better public transport system than Leeds. If we had something that was half as good it would be an improvement on what we’ve got now.’
• Business case made for sustainable design | Sustainable Cities – "‘Our tenants are asking for things like more daylight, lower running costs and quantifiable carbon emissions and they are starting to embed sustainability in to their design and delivery process. The landlord tenant relationship is critical In order to achieve a high level of sustainability within a project. For the tenant space to be able to be sustainable, they need the base building to work with them. Everyone is noticing that landlords and tenants are starting to talk to each other more about delivering sustainable outcomes.’
  … In 2007 the company introduced a ‘green lease’ to provide a clear legal structure for increasing environmental accountability and to create a shared commitment to greater energy, water and waste efficiency. More than 360 green leases have now been signed in the UK for both offices and retail and another eight have followed in France. The success is due to the lease promoting collaboration and partnership and not being too prescriptive."

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