Elemental

These are my links for June 18th through June 21st:

• HAT Projects blog – Hana adds more to Charles' PQQ rant: "The big firms have clients – and particularly the weak public sector ones, who are bound by procurement guidelines – over the proverbial barrel. Not only is it then incredibly hard to promote less mainstream talent, but the big firms can then churn out standardised product that often doesn't really meet the brief, and their 'competitive' fees get boosted by the myriad services that weren't included in the original contract but that are actually essential, and chargeable by the hour. There is rarely an incentive for the consultancy to meet deadlines or budgets. That's not to say there aren't some good large firms, or good individuals within large firms, but the assumption that the service you get from a large firm is less risky than that you might get from a small one, is illogical."
• Net Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny – NYTimes.com – "Biomass proponents say it is a simple and proved renewable technology based on natural cycles. They acknowledge that burning wood and other organic matter releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere just as coal does, but point out that trees and plants also absorb the gas. If done carefully, and without overharvesting, they say, the damage to the climate can be offset. But opponents say achieving that sort of balance is almost impossible, and carbon-absorbing forests will ultimately be destroyed to feed a voracious biomass industry fueled inappropriately by clean-energy subsidies. They also argue that, like any incinerating operation, biomass plants generate all sorts of other pollution, including particulate matter. State and federal regulators are now puzzling over these arguments."
• The Original Green By Steve Mouzon: A Must-Read If You Care About Sustainable Design : TreeHugger – "In the current world of green and sustainable design, so much weight is put on technology; the adding of solar power, high tech glass, qualifying for LEED. It is all about ADDING things. The lesson one learns from Mouzon, and from many heritage buildings, walkable communities and dense cities, is how well one can do with less, by taking stuff away, without any diminishment of comfort. Everyone is complaining lately about how much LEED costs and how poorly LEED buildings are performing, but they are complex things that have new and fancy equipment. But Mouzon points out old technologies are easy to maintain and adjust."
• Architect Frank Gehry talks LEED and the future of green building | Need to Know | PBS – More from Gehry on LEED. The role of government versus voluntary is discussed, but to no satisfactory conclusion. I'm sure he's wishing he never said anything to begin with. A throw away comment has caused a storm of attention on something he's obviously not that passionate one way or the other about.
• Unlocking the Potential of Empty Homes: Building Houses on Old Kent Road – "For years we’ve been told not to worry about the thousands of vacant flats and houses that are in regeneration schemes. “They’re all the process of development,” we were told. But they’re not now. The process and the development have both stopped. Somehow we have to find a way to turn these places back into homes."
• Fantastic Journal: A Short Post About Risk – "Vast amounts of time and effort go into answering these questions but it's a fruitless and largely pointless process. The PPQ limits the likelihood of any form of innovation as it is explicitly designed to stop practices getting jobs in areas where they aren't already working. They also disempower clients, removing from them any chance to exercise judgement or knowledge in selecting an architect. They denude any form of expertise and create a vast raft of bureaucracy and management bullsh*t in its place."
• A special report on water: For want of a drink | The Economist – Good high level article on global water supplies: "The problems caused by inexact terminology do not end here. Concepts like efficiency, productivity and saving attract woolly thinking. Chris Perry, an irrigation economist widely considered the high priest of water accounting, points out that “efficient” domestic systems involve virtually no escape of water through evaporation or irrecoverable seepage. “Efficient” irrigation, though, is often used to describe systems that result in 85% of the water disappearing in vapour. Similarly, water is not saved by merely using less of it for a purpose such as washing or irrigation; it is saved only if less is rendered irrecoverable."
• SOLUTIONS – Sustainability of Land Use and Transport in Outer Neighbourhoods – "The options represent generic Urban Patterns combined with appropriate transport policies. Currently outer-city areas (which includes suburbs, urban fringes, out-of-town developments and satellite settlements) have generally received less attention in spatial planning and urban design research. However, these areas are where most people live and where most new development is taking place. A unique feature of SOLUTIONS research is that it aims to understand the extent to which the sustainability of the design of cities at the Strategic Design scale and the Local Design (neighbourhood) scale are interdependent. This is achieved by carrying out the research within the frame work of strategic land use – transport computer models, and the development of equivalent 'Microsimulation' models at the local scale."
• ULI – Land Use and Driving – "Land Use and Driving summarizes the land use and climate change conclusions of three recent studies, Moving Cooler, Growing Cooler (both published by ULI) and Driving and the Built Environment, published by the Transportation Research Board at the National Academy of Sciences. On a national basis, the three studies show reductions in VMT and energy consumption of between 8 and 18 percent when compact development makes up 60 percent or more of all future development between now and 2050."

admin News biomass, cars, compact, development, driving, Gehry, LEED, PQQ, Procurement, regeneration, transport, urban, water

These are my links for April 9th through April 13th:

• Building4Change : Bring disciplines together and get out more, Lovelock warns scientists – POE vs. DSM – similar case in point: "Lovelock also warned that scientists should not regard computer modelling as a substitute for traditional research methods in measuring and tackling climate change. He added: "It is difficult to get the scientific community to go out and measure. They model instead, and sometimes they even look it up on Google. It is utterly necessary to go out and measure.""
• Morrell champions retrofit over eco-towns | News | Architects Journal – [AJ paywall] Morrell on fine form as usual: "Morrell also criticised the government’s eco-town plans: ‘There were nine or 10 [eco-towns] and now there are two,’ he said. ‘That’s Darwin at work and God bless him.’<br />
  Touching on the aims of the government’s feed-in tariff, commissioned last week, Morrell said: ‘We’ve made a big mistake with on-site renewables. I suspect they became a depredation of site value without any massive benefit, and I wonder whether what we’re doing is incentivising the same mistake in a new shape.’"
• Howls of indignation from every corner – The Regeneration Blog – I'm in serious danger of becoming a total Jackie Sadek fangirl: "While I am all for people being able to give their views, comprehensively, both in private and in open forum (and, more importantly, understand they'll be listened to) I do not expect my community in South Kilburn – or anywhere else come to that – to be able to make informed decisions as amateurs, posing as planners (four years training) or architects (seven years training) or what have you, let alone be able to do sufficient NPV calculations to underpin funding proposals or development appraisals.<br />
  Why should they? They're far too busy, doing their own jobs and bringing up their children."
• Building Star Legislation Promises Funding for Retrofits – BuildingGreen.com – Not yet passed through Congress, but interesting: "The two-part bill creates rebates for products and services as well as a package of tax incentives, grants, and low-interest loans for building owners. Rebates would cover insulation, equipment, and lighting as well as services such as energy audits and building commissioning (see table). The bill would also increase the Energy-Efficient Commercial Buildings Tax Deduction from $1.80/ft2 to $3.00/ft2 ($19–$32/m2). Other incentives would be available for variable-speed drives for motors and chillers and Energy Star (reflective) roofs; building owners could take the incentive or the rebate for these products, but not both. Finally, the bill creates a loan program to cover those portions of a retrofit not covered by the rebate program."
• New SEED Standard Introduced – Green Standards, Green Building, Economics – residentialarchitect Magazine – "…a group of architects, designers, activists, and community leaders unveiled a new standard called SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design). …SEED will provide guidance, evaluation, and certification for the social, economic, and environmental relevance of design projects.<br />
  He [Bryan Bell] and a group of collaborators have put five years of work into developing SEED and the SEED Evaluator, an online tool that helps users through the process of creating a socially, economically, and environmentally sensible building or community. The Evaluator addresses issues such as public safety, job creation, and sanitation, to name just a few. And it requires strong evidence of community participation and input for a project to be eligible for SEED certification.<br />
  A group of third-party certifiers will review submitted projects to determine whether they satisfy the SEED criteria."
• Tax, tax, tax and more tax – a rallying cry for construction | Brickonomics – So is there anyone who thinks a carbon tax would be a bad thing?: "The central point is: why generate elaborate policies if they ignoring the blindingly obvious that energy is absurdly cheap if it is doing the damage we think it is to the planet?<br />
  There is of course one clinching argument for taking the simple taxation route to carbon reduction – it should reduce the amount of pious preaching we have to endure from senior executives and politicians who, in all probability, have produced in their lifetime yeti-sized carbon footprints."

admin News carbon, ecotomwns, FiT, funding, Lovelock, refurbishment, regeneration, renewables, retrofit, SEED, tax

These are my links for March 19th through March 25th:

• Climate science: Spin, science and climate change | The Economist – "…the ambiguities of science sit uncomfortably with the demands of politics. Politicians, and the voters who elect them, are more comfortable with certainty. So “six months to save the planet” is more likely to garner support than “there is a high probability—though not by any means a certainty—that serious climate change could damage the biosphere, depending on levels of economic growth, population growth and innovation.” Politics, like journalism, tends to simplify and exaggerate. Hence the advertisements that the British government has been running, using nursery rhymes…<br />
  Such an approach may, in the short term, have encouraged some voters to support measures to combat climate change. But implying that Britain’s children face some sort of Saharan future is wrong, and dangerous. This week Britain’s ASA slapped the government for its infantile advertisements. <br />
  Where there is plainly an urgent need for change is the way in which governments use science to make their case."
• Neighbors Oppose Green Label for the Software Mogul Mitch Kapor’s Big House – NYTimes.com – When the house won planning approval earlier this year, many neighbors were surprised — not so much by the size of the house, or by its sleek design, but by the fact that, under Berkeley regulations, the house will qualify as “green.” In Berkeley, building proposals are evaluated on a “green point” scale, earning credit for such eco-conscious features as low-flow shower heads and insulation. A house with more than 60 points is labeled green, regardless of its size.
• News : NDS – Business Minister, Ian Lucas, said “London will be a world-leading centre for energy efficient buildings, specialising in retrofitting activity. The variety of buildings across London means that there will be a wide range of highly exportable skills. This position of global leadership will help create wealth for London and the UK economy by providing market opportunities for businesses and inward investors, and jobs for Londoners. “The opportunity to develop and demonstrate solutions for the refurbishment of homes and commercial buildings will help the construction sector to innovate in order to retain, as well as expand, its current market position.” Initially, the programme will include a range of projects aligning nearly £90million funding already committed by the RDAs involved: the London Development Agency (LDA) will lead the LCEA programme, working in collaboration with the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) and the East of England Development Agency (EEDA).
• Sustainability is a RESULT (not a reason) | Simcoe Consulting – 2. Results (like sustainability) can be measured, reasons cannot. I can measure the results of a recycling program, I cannot measure the reasons I had a veggie burger for lunch. Reasons, on the other hand, mainly appeal to your psyche and the the outside influences on you. People will say you the reason you should make your lighting energy-efficient is sustainability. Wrong. The reason you should do it is that it will save you money.
• Emerging Findings | Policies | BIS – Worth reading – easily digestible. "On 17 March the Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team, chaired by Chief Construction Adviser, Paul Morrell, published its Emerging Findings (PDF, 1.7 Mb)."
• The overpopulation myth « Prospect Magazine – "Let’s look at carbon dioxide emissions: the biggest current concern because of climate change. The world’s richest half billion people—that’s about 7 per cent of the global population—are responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent of the population are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions. Virtually all of the extra 2bn or so people expected on this planet in the coming 30 or 40 years will be in this poor half of the world. Stopping that, even if it were possible, would have only a minimal effect on global emissions, or other global threats."
• Challenges for energy and buildings research: objectives, methods and funding mechanisms – Building Research & Information – "This commentary reflects on a series of strategic questions facing the energy and buildings research community and research funding bodies in the UK. These include the problems of research capacity and funding, the need to find a new balance between competition and cooperation between research groups, and a need for a renewed focus on the empirical performance of buildings. The authors argue that conventional distinctions between research, development and the deployment of technologies are inappropriate for the built environment. A wider range of approaches to research is needed to enable researchers to engage more effectively with stakeholders throughout the research, development, and deployment process, to reduce the distinction between research and knowledge transfer, and to reduce the length of learning cycles. "
• Report suggests behavioural changes cancel out green refits – Behavioural economics finally hits UK building research: "The framing of the problem of energy demand and CO2 emissions is crucial to its eventual success. The way in which technical interventions in buildings, such as higher insulation standards, improved boiler efficiencies or integrated renewable energy technologies, can directly affect carbon emissions is in principle relatively well understood. Yet it is an unavoidable fact that, despite many technical improvements to the UK building stock, CO2 levels continue to rise. There are many reasons for this. As well as consumers turning up the heat, some increases in emissions can be ascribed to economic growth, which leads to more or larger dwellings, which tend, over time, to contain more electrical items, and items that are also more energy intensive. There are a number of entangled and interacting economic, technical, social and behavioural factors at play."
• Building4Change : Morrell says industry faces biggest change since Victorian times – "The review of the low carbon construction innovation and growth team (IGT) aims to identify how construction can best deliver the future carbon reduction commitments for 2020 and beyond. It will publish its final report later in the year, including recommendations to government to help inform policy development.<br />
  Issues affecting non-domestic buildings are:<br />
  the specific challenges of addressing the existing stock, and particularly the problem of frequently separate ownership and occupation<br />
  the need to stimulate market demand for products and works (new build and retrofit) designed for carbon reduction<br />
  a linked need for innovative means of financing the transition to low carbon<br />
  adoption of project level decision-making on the basis of appraisals founded on a whole life approach."
• All Party Urban Development Group|Home – The All Party Urban Development Group’s new report "Next Steps: A Regeneration Agenda for the Next Government" has been released. It sets out four important measures which a new government needs to implement if it is to safeguard regeneration over the next 10 years.<br />
  Based on research, the report recommends that:<br />
  1. Public sector investment should be focused on the areas that need it most.<br />
  2. Business rates should be localised and tax increment financing (TIF) should be introduced.<br />
  3. Planning reform should be limited after the first year of the next government and planning performance agreements (PPAs) should be used more.<br />
  4. There should be a focus on increasing the housing supply and adjusting stamp duty to encourage greater investment in the private rented sector.
• Socialreporter | Green Valleys show the way to Mass Localism – NESTA's guide to Mass Localism:<br />
  # Establish and promote a clear, measurable outcome<br />
  # Presume a community capacity to innovate<br />
  # In the early stages, challenge and advice is more valuable than cash<br />
  # Identify existing barriers to participation and then remove them<br />
  # Don’t reward activity, reward outcomes

admin News behaviour, building, climate, consumption, Economist, environment, footprint, funding, future, growth, IGT, labelling, LCEA, LEED, localism, Morrell, overpopulation, planning, politics, population, regeneration, research, science, statistics, Sustainability, UK

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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These are my links for January 3rd through January 7th:

• She Just Walks Around With It: What I Would Tell Any Recent College Graduate – Wise words from Kristy: "That is NOT the same as liking what a company does, seeing a company that has lots of potential and potentially cool jobs, and just not liking some aspects of your current job there. Every job — especially in the beginning, good lord — comes with some "sh*t work": dumb things that just have to get done, and that you just have to do.
  Oh, I could write a manual about Success in the Workplace at the Entry-to-Mid Level.
  My point, really, is that every corporate job is going to suck to some degree. If it sucks and you totally can't see any reason to stay except for the paycheck, look for something else. If aspects of it suck but the long-term (1-3 year) potential is evident, don't screw up a good thing by focusing on the stupid."
• House 2.0: On Housing Benefit – Mark's B&W view of housing: "The problem is essentially that we have created a two-tier housing market. There is the private sector, which is expensive and insecure (esp. for renters), and the social/council sector which is cheap and very secure. And subsidised to the tune of £20billion a year…. It doesn’t strike at the root of the problem, which is that there are two different markets operating and cheap and secure housing is always going to be preferable to expensive and insecure, even more so now as windfall profits from owning private housing have been put on hold.
  A more logical solution would be to have just one housing market. To do that, you have two options. One would be to privatise the social/council house sector, and remove all housing benefit, instead supporting the poor by some other method – for instance, giving them money and letting them decide how to spend it. Alternatively, you could nationalise all housing and have it all rented out by the state."
• The enduring influence of architect Christopher Alexander, author of A Pattern Language. – By Witold Rybczynski – Slate Magazine – Most people discover Alexander through his classic, A Pattern Language, which appeared in 1977. Small and fat (more than 1,000 pages), printed on fine paper, and bound in a plain maroon cover embossed with a gold escutcheon, it resembles a Latin breviary. Its author's ambitious goal was nothing less than to catalog the entire built environment—from towns to bedrooms—as a collection of discrete "patterns," 253 of them. Each pattern was explained, supported by research, and illustrated by sketches and photographs. The patterns were linked to one another, showing which ones worked well together, and arranged hierarchically from large to small. "Neighborhood Boundaries," for example, suggests that strong neighborhoods require clear edges and restricted access. At the other end of the scale, "Ceiling Height Variety" observes that buildings with uniform ceilings are uncomfortable and recommends varying ceiling heights between large and small rooms to create different degrees of intimacy.
• CIBSE > About Building Services > Ken Dale Travel Bursary – The Ken Dale Travel Bursary makes awards available of between £1,500 and £4,000 to CIBSE members in the developmental stage of their career who wish to spend three to four weeks outside their own country researching aspects connected to their field of work and which will benefit CIBSE, their employer, their clients and the profession. CIBSE is especially keen to encourage applicants to take-up the award for research that articulates CIBSE's concern for the environment.

  The Bursary also offers the candidate the opportunity to experience technical, economic, environmental, social and political conditions in another country and to examine how these factors impact the practice of building services engineering.

• David Barrie: A New Deal for urban regeneration – Via Phil Clark on twitter, a great new blog find and a great post too: "Economic productivity today is increasingly linked with social welfare – and there's an ever-increasing recognition of a feedback loop between welfare, natural resources and economic development.
  In other words, sustainability is slowly but surely coming to mean not just environmental justice and intergenerational value but intra-generational value and equity"
• Blog | Yudelson Associates | Australian Efficient Building Scheme Allows Buildings to Trade Carbon Reductions – “An Efficient Building Scheme is identical to an emissions trading scheme except that it recognizes energy efficiency improvements in non-residential buildings, rather than emissions avoided. Simply put, it treats one ton of greenhouse gas emissions that is not emitted because energy is not used, in the same way that a conventional Emissions Trading Scheme treats one ton of CO2 that is not emitted due to a change in energy generation methods.” In other words, it’s far better to reduce demand than to fiddle with what the power plant has to emit to meet the (higher) demand of a building that wasn’t upgraded in terms of energy requirements.
• Anna Minton’s blog: Boris’ ‘Manifesto’ to keep public space public – "Surprised and pleased to see Boris Johnson call for public space to remain genuinely public. In his ‘Manifesto for Public Space’, which goes under the heading, ‘London’s Great Outdoors’, Boris writes that “there is a growing trend towards the private management of publicly accessible space” and that where this “corporatisation” occurs, “Londoners can feel themselves excluded from parts of their own city”. But he makes clear “this need not be the case” pointing to the Kings Cross development where it has been agreed that the local authority will retain control of the streets and public areas – ‘adopt’ the streets to use the jargon. He explicitly states: “This has established an important principle which should be negotiated in all similar schemes.”"
• BBC News – No central heating in new homes – Reading this, it screams of Passivhaus, yet isn't mentioned at all?: "The properties will be made air-tight and will be fitted with triple-glazed windows.
  They will also contain a "whole house ventilation" system which will recover at least 80% of the heat from stale air in the home and redistribute it into a supply of fresh filtered air.
  The executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Northern Ireland, Peter Farquharson, said the ambitious plan would "fundamentally change how people view new homes" and have a "far-reaching impact for the community and the sector"."
• Future Friendly Homes » The Passive House Solution | Certified Passive House Consultant | How Passive House works and why it matters – Passivhaus taking over the world? A good overview from an accredited practicioner stateside: "It is now available in the US. Consultants, projects or building components that have obtained the right to carry the logo have committed themselves to design excellence and the Passive House energy performance criteria. I am a Certified Passive House Consultant, one of 200 in the US and the first in the state of CT to provide this service."

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

• Is global warming unstoppable? – Another nutty theory or not?: "Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."
  That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says….
  "Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor.""
• Kevin McCloud is a Big Hit at TGR/RIBA Conference – "The challenge of combining sustainability and conservation issues were thoroughly debated at the conference with input from conservation officers, architects and engineers. Some questioned the need to debate this issue when there are ‘only’ 380,000 historic buildings in the UK – perhaps we should be concentrating on the many thousands of non-historic buildings that are below current standards of sustainability.
  Others wanted to discuss what should be tackled first and what makes most carbon sense. The contrast between the photovoltaic panels at the nearby Heelis project costing £450,000 and only contributing 10-15% of the building’s electrical needs and Kevin McCloud’s modest but effective eco-refurb of a terraced house in Manchester reducing carbon emissions by over 30% but only costing just over £2,000 could not have been sharper."
• ‘Sustainability’ is a dangerous mirage – Building Design – Owen's on top form: "It’s the very term “sustainability”, which has enabled even Dubai to present itself as if it is touching lightly upon the earth, that is at fault. What exactly is it that we want to “sustain”? Humanity? Nature? Capitalism? As a slogan it’s as awful as “save the planet”. The planet is safe, it’s we who are in danger.
  The problem with the rhetoric of sustainability is that, as a buzzword, it serves to fill the ethical void in the apocalyptic capitalism of the last 30 years. So, we get sustainable supermarkets, green-roofed car parks, carbon neutral desert cities, all of which are a kind of architectural offsetting as moronic as its economic equivalent. A hundred new industrial towns can have the mirage of Dongtan projected onto them. The recent demise of the British “eco-towns” is the pettier version of the same failure."
• Controlling dew point – 2009-11-19 10:00:00 | Consulting-Specifying Engineer – Excellent article (ASHRAE/US bias) which explains the principles of designing to dew point rather than relative humidity: "Not so long ago, HVAC designers did not have to be especially concerned with humidity. With plenty of cheap energy, the industry could afford to wallop the air with heavy-duty cooling to dry it, then fry it with reheat to keep it from freezing the occupants."
• Building4Change : European research gives blueprint for social sustainability – "Tools, instruments and metrics to foster sustainable communities are biased towards environmental sustainability, a European research project has found. The research, carried out by Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, provides a blueprint for policymakers on incorporating social sustainability into European urban redevelopment initiatives.
  The report recommends greater integration of socially responsible investment and local authority indicators, alongside increased investment in data gathering to improve understanding of social sustainability. It highlights valuable monitoring systems such as the FootprintR sustainable investment policy, created by developer Igloo"
• Abu Dhabi to set school building eco standard – Building – "A new sustainable building standard is being developed for Abu Dhabi's schools.
  The system is being drawn up by Estidama, the organisation behind the emirate's local sustainability code for the the Abu Dhabi Education Council."
• Futerra Sustainability Communications – leading thinking – Another great guide to communicating sustainable futures from Futerra: "In this guide we argue that climate change is no longer a scientist's problem, it's now a salesman's problem. We call upon government spokespeople, climate campaigners and business advertisers to stop selling visions of hell. Instead we must all create and sell a new vision of a' low carbon heaven'.
  This guide is a new approach for us. Most of our previous thought leadership has been very practical – this is stronger, more opinioned and more controversial. There's still a lot of guidance and original research. But we're not pulling our punches."
  From the report: "Dates, percentages and figures come in action plans, not visions. A 20% cut by 2020 isn’t a vision, it’s a target. Put all the targets together and imagine what the world would be like if we met and exceeded them: that’s a vision."
• Land Securities chief executive accuses Government of lacking courage on sustainability – Modern Building Services – "On the need to dramatically improve the poor energy efficiency of the UK’s existing building stock, he said, ‘Unlike in the USA, the UK always seems to have a reluctance to use carrots and sticks in the tax system to drive behaviour and redirect capital investment. There is good evidence that tax allowances change investment decisions — and these allowances can be temporary.
  ‘I would certainly advocate a much higher level of Enhanced Capital Allowances for investment in energy-saving plant and building adaptations. However, I think the simplest route may be to use the property rates system to reward those who occupy energy-efficient buildings .’"
• Leeds given more power over regeneration – Building – "Rosie Winterton, minister for local government, has signed a programme to give Leeds and its regions more power over housing, planning and regeneration.
  The Leeds City Partnership pilot programme brings together 11 councils, regional partners and central government to create a devolved housing and regeneration board."
• Building4Change : New plant produces energy by mixing fresh water and sea water – "World's first osmotic plant opens, but commercial version will not be available for several years.
  European renewable energy producer Statkraft this month opened the world's first power plant generating energy by mixing fresh water and sea water in Norway.
  The energy is based on the natural phenomenon of osmosis, the transport of water through a semi-permeable membrane. When fresh water meets salt water, substantial amounts of energy are released, which can be used to generate power.
  At the osmotic power plant, fresh water and salt water are guided into separate chambers, divided by an artificial membrane. The salt molecules in the sea water pull the fresh water through the membrane, increasing the pressure on the sea water side. The pressure equals a 120 metre water column, or a significant waterfall, and can be used in a power generating turbine."
• Design Activism: Coming across chemicals: in plastics and in schools – "the main problem with the chemicals is that not enough of them have been properly tested for health effects, and the result is that we only regulate chemicals that we know about. A classic example is BPA, a chemical additive found in bottled water containers, baby bottles and the like. Last year mounting evidence about adverse health effects from BPA caused it to be withdrawn from the market.
  The long term solution to this problem is hatching in the Green Chemistry movement, which is aiming to put the burden of proof of safe chemicals on the manufacturers. Currently a chemical is innocent until proven guilty, however, there are simply too many chemicals and, based on the evidence we do have, no reason to assume their innocence. Proposed green chemistry policies also recognize that health problems might arise for interactive, multiple exposures."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: 10 Easily Implementable Life Problem-Solving Strategies – Some great thoughts on procrastination from Ben: ""Can I fail at this?" It's like Raymond Chandler said: there is no success without the possibility of failure. Therefore, something I can't fail at is also something I can't succeed at. I can fail at conducting an interview, writing an essay or making a video. I can't fail at meandering around the internet in search of "neat stuff to read." In a recent tweet, I defined procrastination "the temporary displacement of tasks at which it is possible to fail with tasks at which it is not possible to fail." I suspect I'm less far off the mark than ever, especially regarding why procrastination is not a productive tendency."
• ippr – Institute for Public Policy Research – Left foot forward – "Increased birth rates and an ageing population, coupled with a fall in net immigration into the UK means that natural change, births and deaths – is now responsible for a greater component of the UK’s population increase, rather than immigration.
  But what should a progressive UK population policy look like? It will have to deal with issues such as family size, retirement age, population distribution across the UK, as well as immigration control.
  Attempts to restrict immigration to a zero net immigration level… will have major economic consequences. At present younger immigrants make a greater fiscal contribution than do the older UK-born population. Big restrictions on labour immigration would result in higher taxes, among other outcomes. Fiscal deficits could be alleviated if everyone worked longer… Family impacts on population size, but how would British adults react to being told to stop at two children? What incentives could be offered to families who stop at two?"

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These are my links for July 2nd through July 8th:

• Woobius Scribbles — Bottom-up collaboration in the construction industry – Excellent post on collaborative working by Woobius and the curse of email:"You know that feeling. You’ve just set up the best collaboration system ever. You have all the processes documented and approved. Everyone’s agreed to use the system. Things couldn’t be better. Then, the project kicks off and there comes that sinking feeling when you realise that everyone is bypassing your carefully tuned system.
  Everyone is sending emails instead."
• If zero carbon is the answer then just what was the question? « isite – Martin has an excellent rant and takes on Passivhaus amongst other issues pertaining to zero carbon: "Passivhaus is emerging as the aspirational darling or solution. But what is the true embodied energy of passivhaus, in particular the massive amounts of insulation, sheeting and duct tape? Passivhaus will reduce energy requirements and costs. Excellent. But I would love to see the payback time on the total and higher than normal embodied energies and waste."
• Tellytubby land: BedZed revisited – Building – Fantastic review of BedZed 7 years on. I was fully aware of the situation with the CHP, but less so with the allotments and car use issues. A long article, but very worthwhile reading.
• Climate change odds much worse than thought – MIT News Office – More doom, but presented in pretty roulette wheels. I ought to stop reading all this doom, but am strangely compelled to keep checking for confirming evidence. Behavioural economists, make of this what you will.: "The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well – such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries."
• The orders figures and public spending fears point to industry chaos ahead – need it be so? (Brickonomics) – I'm in broad agreement with Brian on this:"What firms should be doing now is assessing what they are good at and what they are not good at, what makes them profit, what costs them time and resources unprofitably.
  They should focus on quality of earnings not volume of earnings.
  They should focus effort on what they are good at and judiciously shed the operations that are weak….
  That however does not alter the reality that this recession will be cruel and that the industry has no choice but to retreat. Turnover overall must fall. Competition does need to be taken out of the market.
  It is better that firms recognise their weaknesses and retreat from them than seek to bid unrealistically against those better placed.
  The worst of all outcomes would be to lose good firms because of the woeful bidding by weak operations desperate to win work at any price."
• We don’t know what is coming next – so get ready – The Regeneration Blog – Jackie's advice on getting ready for a potential change in administration: "But in the meantime, my current advice is this: you know not what is coming next, so get as ready as you can. Have a total clear out (in every sense), trim down, strip back everything and establish your priorities.
  Swot up on localism and reconnect with your bottom-up roots. If you are able to deliver decent outputs (notably jobs or homes) you will be safe even if – or perhaps especially if – as we suspect, the RDA's get wiped away and their responsibilities are given to County Councils and the like. "
• Sustainable Design Tools Exhibited at AIA 2009: AECbytes Feature Article – Excellent review of the latest 'sustainable design' software tools available on the market, including Ecotect (aligned with Autodesk and therefore AutoCAD – very popular with architects), IES (my favourite) and TAS and Hevacomp (which are now both owned by Bentley (the home of AutoCAD rival Microstation). Whatever happened to Cymap? Seem to have been left behind…
• PlanningBlog: When did everyone get so cynical? « – "Regeneration is quite often seen as big business riding roughshod over local people’s wishes. It’s eyed with suspicion and written off as ‘ a waste of taxpayers money’ before it’s even come out of the ground.
  This all ties in with the wider anti-politician backlash currently sweeping the country. Politicians and anyone in authority are seen as ‘out to line their own pockets’ and anything they propose or champion is therefore, by association, a bad thing.
  Of course we should question authority and challenge things we don’t agree with but whatever happened to taking something at face value? A much needed regeneration of an area might actually be just that, not a conspiracy or an attempt to get one over on the general public.
  I’m not sure what the answer is to this. … Perhaps the problem is with the politicians themselves and only political reform can ‘reconnect’ and re-build trust between the people and those in authority."
• Government ends energy bulbs scheme – The IET – Some sensible news: "Power companies will no longer be able to mail out millions of energy-saving light bulbs to meet their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes.
  The Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has announced changes to the Government scheme requiring energy suppliers to cut emissions from homes, including an end to the direct mail out of low-energy light bulbs by January 1, 2010."

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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.

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