Elemental

These are my links for January 29th through February 3rd:

• Inbuilt gains official status to approve Passivhaus buildings – Inbuilt has been awarded the highly-prized status of Certifying Body for Passivhaus buildings. Passivhaus is a design methodology for ultra low-energy buildings, promoted by the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany. There are about 12,500 Passivhaus buildings worldwide, the vast majority of them in Germany and Austria, and the approach is rapidly growing in popularity in the UK as developers and designers consider their options to meet the Government's zero carbon targets.
  Inbuilt is now one of a tiny handful of organisations in the UK, and just 20 worldwide, who are accredited by the Passivhaus Institut to offer certification services. Certification provides a robust assessment of a building’s predicted energy use and allows an architect or builder to claim the 'Passivhaus' tag for a building and to market it as meeting the scheme's very precise performance standards. In the UK, only three individual buildings have been formally certificated so far.
• NGS GreenSpec – Opinion – Quality Assured PassivHaus Buildings – Part 1 – Excellent piece on Passivhaus by Mark Siddall of Devereux Architects (despite the mandatory slightly shrill rant against CSH/BREEAM which detracts from the piece, IMO). Covers the quality assurance aspects very well and explains why PHPP needs to be used. First of two articles – read both.
• Factor 4 efficiency illustrated by contemporary economic statistics 20100117_wf – Interesting analysis from Wolfgang Feist on CO2 vs. GNI and life expectancy.
• Zero carbon definition offers a new practical approach – EC Harris comment on zero carbon definition: "The revised cost of complying with the new zero carbon definition will depend on the value attributed to the ‘Allowable Solution’ and also the renewable strategy adopted to deliver the 45-50% renewables.
  However, the fabric efficiencies have been reported as adding between £2,000 -£6,500 per unit and the renewables requirement is likely to add around £15,000 per unit. This results in an additional build cost of £20,000 per unit but represents half the previous £40,000 estimate to deliver the full Code Level 6 definition.
  Astute house builders will therefore see opportunity in the new definition, with commercial advantage gained by selecting sites and design solutions which allow on site renewable costs to be minimised either through connection with district heating or large scale wind coupled with the use of an ESCO. Renewable availability of a site must now be considered in land acquisition and existing land banks reviewed."
• News analysis – Is aid without climate adaptation a waste of time? – The Ecologist – However, some NGOs have been amending an existing emergency relief strategy, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), to integrate climate science into their work. DRR uses past events to help the community become more resilient to them in the future. Integrating climate science in DRR plans involves taking account of future predictions for a given area, such as flooding or sea level rises. ‘DRR enables humanitarian agencies to extend the time horizon and to mitigate rather than just respond,' says Dr. Mike Edwards, climate change programme development officer CAFOD.

admin News adaptation, aid, change, climate, co2, CSH, GNI, passivhaus, statistics, zero_carbon

These are my links for July 1st from 08:46 to 13:54:

• Quarterly Energy Prices – BIS – "Quarterly Energy Prices is DECC's publication covering energy prices. It includes data formerly included in ‘Energy Trends’ (Tables 26 to 30) and the ‘Digest of UK Energy Statistics’ (Chapter 9).
  It contains tables, charts and commentary on industrial, domestic and international prices. "
• ASHRAE Unveils Design of New Building Energy Label – CoStar Group – ASHRAE unveil details of BEQ (Building Energy Quotient), very similar to DEC's: "as many expected, the prototype borrows heavily from the U.K.’s Display Energy Certificate, an energy label that is required for some buildings in England and Wales. Unveiled Saturday by Harrison, it grades energy efficiency on a color-coded letter scale from “A+” to “F”, with the highest grade reserved for net-zero energy buildings."
• BRE :: News – Convergance in standards continues: "These developments will be in line with the work on common metrics which is being undertaken by BRE Global, CSTB and other major organizations such as DGnB, VTT, NIST, ITC-CNR and FCAV within the SB Alliance, as well as the common carbon measurement to be established between BREEAM, LEED, and Green-Star currently being led by BRE Global."

admin News ashrae, beq, BREEAM, DEC, DGnB, Energy, HQE, LEED, prices, statistics, UK

I have a new geek-crush. For those who have not yet come across the inimitable Hans Rosling, I urge you all to head over to the awesome Gapminder website, whose strapline is “Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view”.  An incredibly clear way of illustrating facts and figures.

Today, I’m going to look at Hans’ talk on Human Rights and Democracy Statistics. Watch it if you have time (9 mins 51 secs).

If you don’t, the central premise is that there is a weak statistical link between life expectancy, income and democracy. As Hans goes on to explain, this does not mean that human rights should not be pursued, but as a means to an end perhaps they are weak. Fascinating stuff (go on, watch it – he explains it much better than me).

This was interesting to me for a number of reasons. I read Fared Zakaria’s book The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad about 18 months ago, and in it he poses a direct relationship between GDP per capita income and the emergence of democracy. Using the year 2000 as a base, when income >$6000 democracy is highly resilient and for those countries below that threshold he has some rules of thumb as to when democracy is likely to appear. Zakaria makes some important points between the differences in liberty and democracy (the two are not dependent on each other). Another book which offers similar threshold’s is Kenichi Ohmae’s The Borderless World which I read not long after Zakaria. He posits that (using a 1990 base) around GNP$5000 per capita, givernments still have control of information and the ability to mislead poeple. As GNP rises, the power of governments and religions fall and by $26,000 (i.e. Japan in his example) people have access to information and make choices on value and quality (cheapest and best).

Both of these observations have an effect on framing sustainability in different contexts, especially at a global level. In a  strategic, scenario planning sense, it is essential to consider social and economic factors – a technological solution which works in one country make not work in another, and not for purely technical reasons.

The second reason I’m intrigued by Hans’ work is that I’ve been cooking up a theory for a  couple of years now, which would compare a country’s sustainability credentials to it’s ‘cultural dimensions’ as defined by Hofstede (primarily the female/male aspect). I’m sure someone must have done a thesis on this – if anyone knows of a study, please let me know. I can’t find the Hofstede data in Gapminder, but as it isn’t (yet) a time series, I didn’t really expect to see it.

I’ve had so much fun playing with the graphs and animations, I’m sure I’ll come back to Gapminder another day. Enjoy!

admin Economics democracy, Economics, statistics

Well, slightly belated as 11 April 2009 was the 3rd birthday of this blog, but I figure people have better things to do with their bank holidays than read this blog.

Last year I jotted down some stats, so for this following along at home, I’ll give some quick updates.

My hits have increased almost 50% from almost 8000 last year to nearly 12,000. Which is incredible, really. I once heard a rule of thumb, that it took 3 years for a blog to become established. Seems that’s held up for me at least. So for anyone else who is struggling, and wondering if it’s worth it, keep going, it all comes together eventually.

By far, my most popular post has been June’s Rough Guide to BREEAM 2008, which to date has been viewed a staggering 1,482 times. I’m stunned.

I’m in the process of clearing up links, categories and tags, reviewing old posts, clearing out old drafts and general spring cleaning. I’m hoping to follow up on some of my old posts and tie up some loose ends in the next few months. But no promises. Looking over old posts, I have a very poor habit of promising to write something and then not following it up, as the next, more exciting, shiny thing comes my way. So, if I do it, I do it. If I don’t, c’est la vie!

Again, thanks to everyone who has read, commented, twittered or sent me emails in the past year, especially those who let me know when when my site was broken (which it was for a considerable chunk during the winter).

admin Housekeeping analytics, birthday, Blogging, statistics

These are my links for March 11th through March 15th:

• The Building Futures Game – Building Futures – The Building Futures Game is the outcome of 3 years research and development work carried out by the Building Futures team, CABE and architectural practice AOC. The toolkit emerged through a shared desire as to how one might enable communities to think about the future of their neighbourhood, while providing stakeholders with an interactive and alternative way of consulting with a wide variety of groups on their concerns and aspirations.
• Disney Aims for Zero Carbon Emissions, Zero Waste in New Environmental Goals | GreenerBuildings – "The corporate responsibility report lays out seven long-term environmental goals for the company:
  • Zero waste.
  • Zero net direct greenhouse gas emissions from fuels.
  • Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption.
  • Net positive impact on ecosystems.
  • Minimize water use.
  • Minimize product footprint.
  • Inform, empower and activate positive action for the environment"
• T-Zero – "T-ZERO is a free internet tool that provides independent sustainable refurbishment advice to users, with the option of linking directly to the suppliers, manufacturers, and installers of any measures you choose. It is designed for those refurbishing their own homes, homes they manage, or the homes of clients, taking you through a series of simple steps."
• How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air – TED 2009 « GreenSpaces Blog – More 'healthy' plants (I'm slightly obsessed with the original NASA study – spider plants are *good*). Mother in Law's tongue for bedroom, and Areca Palm for living room.
• Welcome to YouCanPlan – via Be2Camp and then EcoBuild: "Our idea is based on the concept of ‘enabled self procurement’ or ESP to help build new sustainable communities. ESP is a process where future residents of communities are supported as the developers of their own homes, combining the choice of self build with the efficiency of speculative development."
• Green for go: sustainability in the JCT contract – Building – "Following an industry-wide consultation, it published Building a Sustainable Future Together, a guidance note which is principally concerned with how sustainability in design and construction is provided for in contract documents. It also includes new contract clauses that extend those currently in JCT contracts, such as the Framework Agreement. The two principal new clauses are:
  1) The contractor is encouraged to suggest economically viable amendments to the employer's requirements which, if instructed as
  a variation, may result in improvement in environmental performance in the carrying out of the works or of the completed works
  2) The contractor shall provide to the employer all the information that he reasonably requests regarding the environmental impact of the supply and use of materials and goods which the contractor selects."
• A second look at solar power on roofspace « lightbucket – Lightbucket doesn't blog often, but when he (she?) does, they're worth reading.
  "Averaged over the year, rooftop PV can exactly match England’s electricity sales, but there is a huge seasonal variation. During the summer, PV output is higher than the full-year average, but electricity demand is lower, so PV can supply more than twice the total demand. The situation reverses in midwinter. In December, the month of lowest insolation, rooftop solar PV can meet only 20% of electricity demand. Additional capacity will be needed to meet winter demand. Energy storage technologies can smooth out variations in output over a 24-hour timecale, and maybe longer, but certainly not over 6 months.
  If we had solar photovoltaics on all roofspace in England, we could comfortably meet England’s summertime electricity use, but only a fifth of wintertime electricity use."
• Ten things to manage in a recession: 4 – executive costs « pwcom 2.0 – Paul illustrates Charles Handy's 'Hollywood' model perfectly: "… some AEC professionals have already opted to work as freelances or as independent consultants, undertaking a succession of contracts of their own choice instead of working for an employer. Particularly in the consultancy sector, just as small firms might combine with others with complementary skills and/or resources, so experienced individual professionals could combine with other independent practitioners to compete for work and then form part of the multi-disciplinary team appointed to undertake the project. …. Being formed of a group of independent ‘e-lances’ or ‘tech-nomads’, the operational overheads of such a multi-disciplinary consortium are also likely to be lower, making their services more cost-effective – an advantage likely to be underlined if the team also uses low-cost collaboration technology to manage and share its data."
• You are the weakest link, goodbye – Joan has a list of funny/tragic redundancy stories.
• cityofsound: Work and The City, Frank Duffy (2008) – Good review of Duffy's book: "In particular, Work and the City convincingly details how this has led to a grossly inefficient under-utilisation of resources with damaging effects on individuals, corporations, and almost all aspects of urban ecosystem."
• Sustainability Consulting: What is it, and am I qualified? Part I « Bright Green Talent Musings (www.brightgreentalent.com) – And I count myself amongst those who say sustainability is NOT a discipline: "As individuals from all kinds of backgrounds and industries push into the field of sustainability consulting, it can become murky as to what that work even entails. This is especially true when considering the different perspectives and methodologies that are employed and adding even more complexity is the variability among clients and their needs. Thus, this quote sums up for me what sustainability consultants are trying to do – they help businesses address and redress the way in which they operate so that they will be better positioned for the market of the future a la decreasing their negative impact on the natural environment. Some argue that like the trends of international business and e-commerce, sustainability will at some point cease to be its own discipline and assume its rightful place within all of business practices."
• » Perpetual beta SuDoBE — Sustainable Design of the Built Environment – Chris makes a great point: "What would happen if we treated buildings as being in perpetual beta state? How would this change things in the construction industry? Perhaps developers and the design team would make a long term commitment to upgrading the building in line with occupants’ (and others’) experiences after the building’s initial release.
  Of course buildings, like most artefacts are in perpetual beta. There are always ‘bugs’ to iron out and features that don’t work. Many of our new low and zero carbon buildings will fail either from the outset or a few months or years down the line. It would be a real step forward if we could admit that now and put in place the mechanisms that will allow us to decide whether they are working as intended, to fix them when they aren’t and to pass on what we have learned to Carbon 2.0. Would the industry allow us to do that? Do we need to ask?"
• Robinson Low Francis to slash staff pay 12.5% – Building – I'm sure this is just the same as cutting salaries by 20-40% – surely they'll just end up doing a similar amount of work, in fewer (probably longer) days (was my experience of working part-time, anyway): "At engineer Scott Wilson, some senior staff have agreed to work three- or four-day weeks, according to Jerome Monro-Lafon, its UK managing director."
• Survey confirms building control officers enforce regs – Building – "The LABC’s survey looked at 2000 projects to see how many potential contraventions would have occurred if a building control officer hadn’t stepped in and enforced the regulations. It found Part A attracted the most enforcement action with building control officers asking for remedial action in 18% of projects followed by Part L at just over 16% and Part B at just under 16%. Part G which deals with hygiene attracted enforcement action in just 1.5% of the surveyed projects."
• Natural lighting and sustainability | Sustainable Building Blog – Building Sustainable Design – "The tightening regulatory allowances placed on artificial lighting are already beginning to push the limits of what lighting technology can deliver. Our regulatory framework must not become unworkable or breed dull, unhealthy and uninteresting visual environments. The lighting community must steer regulation through better government lobbying, but we should not forget the place natural light has in avoiding the need for regulation in the first place."
• Pursuing the Elusive Goal Of a Carbon-Neutral Building by Richard Conniff: Yale Environment 360 – "But Kroon is also a reminder of what even some of the best hearts and minds in the sustainable design movement cannot yet achieve. For a “green premium” unofficially estimated at about 5.7 percent of construction cost, the Kroon design team managed to reduce projected energy use and emissions by 61 percent below the levels for a comparable building of conventional design. The biggest savings came not from sexy new technologies but from figuring out how to make the design function like an old-fashioned cathedral, with a slender profile for maximum daylighting, an east-west orientation for greater solar gain on the long southern exposure, careful use of shading, and plenty of stone and concrete to store thermal energy. A solar photovoltaic array and geothermal wells will supply much of the remaining energy load. “We got damned close to carbon neutral,” boasted a construction manager…"
• Sustainable Cities – The most useful output I've seen from CABE – sustainable cities website. A feast of information and examples: "This website gives expert advice on planning, designing and managing a sustainable place. It cuts through the complexity with clear priorities for action. And it shows which places are getting it right."
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Reverting to type (by Don Ward) – Don Ward has a great post: "The industry loves lowest price tendering – it invented it, and back in 1963 codified it in the NJCC’s code of practice for single stage tendering. Large parts of the industry have since conspired with clients over the years to continue with lowest price tendering – it is easy, and it means you don’t have to work too hard to deliver on value. But let’s face it, it usually knowingly sets the project up to fail. It’s a bizarre process – as a questioner said at a conference the other day put on by the Universities of Reading, Loughbrough and Salford, construction must be the only industry that competes to deliver the same thing for the client rather than something different? And is it the only industry that thinks it’s clever to make its money by screwing the client and/or the supply chain?"

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These are my links for February 7th through February 27th:

• Why and how I blog « Robert Kyriakides’s Weblog – Great post from Robert explaining how he manages to blog so prolifically.
• Expedition’s blog » Think Up Mondays – Chris Wise et al are trying to create something useful out of the recession: "For one year, the employees of Expedition will be dedicating their Monday’s to thinking. Thinking about thinking, thinking about what we do, thinking about how we do it, and why. Think Up, the impetus behind this year of Mondays, is an educational company formed within the auspices of the Useful Simple Trust. The remit is large, but so is the ambition: to use the opportunity that the economic downturn has presented us with to think up a new raison d’etre, and modus operandi as engineers, and to train ourselves into shape."
• Study shows 30% above ASHRAE energy efficiency difficult to reach in buidlings, 50% unreachable- 2/24/2009 12:16:00 PM – Building Design & Construction – "Findings show that although significant energy efficiencies can be achieved (varying by climate zone), reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback. The study concluded that achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable. "
• buildoffsite – An industry-wide campaigning organisation that promotes greater uptake of offsite techniques by UK construction.
  Buildoffsite is an alliance of clients, developers, designers, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, government, advisors and researchers.
  Goal – A ten-fold step-change by 2020 achieving a 100% increase by 2010
• Summary — ManuBuild – "The ManuBuild vision is of a future where customers will be able to purchase high quality, manufactured buildings having a high degree of design flexibility and at low cost compared to today. For the first time, inspirational unconstrained building design will be combined with highly efficient industrialised production.
  ManuBuild targets a radical breakthrough from the current "craft and resource-based construction" to "Open Building Manufacturing", combining ultra-efficient (ambient) manufacturing in factories and on sites with an open system for products and components offering diversity of supply in the market. "
• Passive design primer for offices – Building Sustainable Design – Excellent article from an ex-colleague, Doug King: "Finally, I’d like to introduce the idea of “passive survivability”. This is a concept that will become far more important as we start to feel the pinch of declining fossil fuel resources and over-stretched utility infrastructure. One of the first effects of energy demand exceeding supply will be rolling power cuts, as happened in London’s West End during July 2006. While some businesses may be able to operate with emergency generators, for many the impact could be catastrophic as deep plan buildings will be uninhabitable without artificial lighting and ventilation. Some buildings may have to shut down during the power cuts and for a business, having sent staff home, a whole day’s production may be lost. Passive buildings, on the other hand, should continue to be habitable, albeit with reduced comfort levels, and the backup power supply will only be required to maintain the office equipment."
• Le Corbusier – creator of the modern world – Times Online – Great article – I have an aversion to Le Corb after my history of architecture lectures at Leeds Uni, but I'll be pottering off to the Barbican with every other architect and engineer in the UK in the next few months…
• BREEAM: In USE – The successor to the old BREEAM M&O assessment (management and operation) – In Use, has been announced. No sight of the manual yet, so can't really comment. Looks like it will tie up with DEC's…
• What if Jane Jacobs had directed "Slumdog"? | Congress for the New Urbanism – "Despite their appearance of mess and squalor (and struggles with sewage and public health), the world's major ghettoes are in some ways quite green. Residents often live where they work, rolling up sleeping mats each morning and dispensing with petroleum-fueled commutes. Even garbage is picked clean of all reparable items or tradable commodities, making places like Dharavi the world's ultimate recyclers."
• Architecture: Stephen Bayley discerns the shape of things to come | Art and design | The Observer – "The UK's first Passive House, designed by Bere Architects, is now being built in Camden, North London. It will, perhaps, be a little bit like living on the Northern Line: what fresh air there may be is pre-heated through subterranean channels. Other problems? Ecological perfection will demand a quality of detailing hitherto unknown to our native builders. And there will be no flinging open the windows to greet the new green dawn. That way you squander your patiently retained heat."
• Wind turbines on Bahrain WTC start turning – "The BWTC's turbines are predicted to provide 11-15% of the power needed to operate the offices of the 50 storey twin towers."
• 5 Emerging trends from the recession | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist – "Generation X is the first generation in the US ever that will earn less than their parents. And Generation Y has an incredible amount of debt due to baby boomers pushing up college costs and housing costs while real wages went down."
• Meteonorm – Global Solar Radiation Database – What is it? – METEONORM 6.1 (Edition 2009) is a comprehensive meteorological reference, incorporating a catalogue of meteorological data and calculation procedures for solar applications and system design at any desired location in the world. It is based on over 23 years of experience in the development of meteorological databases for energy applications.
  METEONORM addresses engineers, architects, teachers, planners and anyone interested in solar energy and climatology.
• Imagine – "‘Imagine’ is a database which captures school design best practice from around the world.
  Architects and researchers from the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield [BDR] have conducted a critical analysis of over 150 schools, highlighting excellence in design according to different themes. It considers integrated ICT, environmental design and flexibility for space and learning.
  This resource is aimed at providing inspiration for creating innovative teaching and learning environments called for by the Government’s Building Schools for the Future initiative. Research for this database is sponsored by Balfour Beatty Education and Partnerships for Schools. New research is conducted every three months to ensure the database is kept up-to-date and topical."
• Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC) – JBED: Journal of Building Enclosure Design – Free pdf's of back issues of this US/Canadian publication are available here. In Winter 2007 issue there is a good article on the UK experience of air tightness from Nigel Potter of BSRIA. Lots of good data scattered throughout the issues.
• Unversity funding will be linked to their carbon performance | Education | The Guardian – via lagavulin: "From 2011, Hefce will link the money it doles out for capital projects to universities' carbon performance. The smaller the reduction in carbon, the less funding they will get."

mel starrs News air, ashrae, Blogging, BREEAM, cities, construction_industry, consultants, data, database, design, efficiency, Engineering, gen_X, gen_Y, Jane_Jacobs, Le_Corbusier, manufacturing, MMC, offsite, passive, passive_survivability, passivhaus, payback, recession, renewables, Schools, slums, statistics, tightness, UK, weather, wind

What I’ve been reading about:

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

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

These are my links for August 26th through August 28th:

• Sending recycling to China ‘better than binning it’ – "This study sought to answer the specific question of whether the CO2 emissions from the transport outweighed the benefits of the recycling. It quantifies the CO2 emissions from transporting one tonne of recovered mixed paper or recovered plastic (PET/HDPE) bottles to China. It assumes that the carbon savings of recycling in China are similar to those identified in other countries, including the UK. "
• Soft Landings – "Welcome to Soft Landings, a joint initiative between BSRIA, the Usable Buildings Trust and the Darwin Consultancy, that enables a graduated handover for new and refurbished buildings. The Soft Landings project will result in a set of procedures and worksteps for project teams to stay engaged with buildings after practical completion."
• National Statistics Online – Product – Construction Statistics Annual – 266 page pdf – "Responsibility for producing the Construction Statistics Annual, starting with the 2008 edition, has been transferred from BERR to the ONS.
  Brings together under one cover a wide range of statistics that are currently available on the construction industry. It gives a broad perspective of statistical trends in the construction industry in Great Britain through the last decade together with some international comparisons and features on leading initiatives that may influence the future.
  Contains construction output and new orders, tender price, output price and cost indices, data on building materials, floorspace statistics, local and central government expenditure, lottery funded projects, international comparisons, employment statistics, workload of professionals, planning applications,…"
• Puffbox.com » Archive » Another reason to use Twitter – Good advice from Simon on how businesses could be using Twitter.
• Inhabitat » ZIGGURAT: Dubai Carbon Neutral Pyramid will House 1 Million – Another grand plan for Dubai – this time a Ziggurat. Apparently they'll be able to grow food (in greenhouses???). Would love to know more about this – for instance how will they get daylight deep into the middle of the base of the pyramid? And who are these 1 million inhabitants? It really does look like something from Star Trek, which sadly quite excites me, despite my inner cynic screaming that it can't possibly be sustainable. Quite happy to be proven wrong…

mel starrs News built_environment, China, construction_industry, Dubai, handover, POE, recycling, seo, statistics, Sustainability, twitter, waste

These are my links for August 10th through August 15th:

• Blogs – RIBApedia – RIBApedia opens it's doors. Under the blogs page: "Blogs (or webblogs) are diaries written and disseminated on the web." Tempted to log-in and start tweaking stuff but the rules of engagement aren't clear? Do you have to be an architect to participate?
• Wright’s Palmer House Put on the Market | News | Architectural Record – Cheap at half the price:"The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Palmer House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, acclaimed by historians as one of the architect’s best residential projects, has been put up for sale by the family of the original owners. The asking price is $1.5 million."
• Making Energy-Saving Buildings – Forbes.com – …the vision behind a new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) "net-zero energy" commercial building initiative launched Tuesday. The program's goal, set forth in a section of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, is to get net-zero energy commercial buildings of all types up and running in the U.S. by 2025. At the moment, however, this is not economically feasible. "You could build a building that's net-zero energy-efficient today, but the utility savings are not sufficient to pay back that investment over the life cycle of the building," says David Rodgers, the DOE's deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency.
• AIA Deconstructs Green-Building Standards| News | Architectural Record – While officially neutral on green-building rating systems, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) recently parsed three of them in an effort to evaluate how well they align with the association’s sustainability goals. In its report, which was released in May, it carefully avoided picking a favorite of the three systems: t he U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED NC 2.2, the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes, and The International Initiative for a Sustainable Environment’s SBTool 07.
• Castlemore’s Waverley Gate project awarded EPC – Building Services Journal – The fun that can be had with statistics. For example:"Castlemore’s Waverley Gate development in Edinburgh has been awarded an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), placing it in the top 11% of sustainable commercial buildings in the UK.". No mention of where the 11% came from. Which list of sustainable commercial buildings are they talking about? The building gets a C by the way.

mel starrs News architects, DOE, EPC, FLW, Green_Globes, house, LEED, RIBA, social_media, statistics, US, wiki, zero_carbon

It’s that time of year again – the government’s Sustainable Indicators in your pocket 2008 is out.

Those long time readers will know I’m a sucker for stats and pretty graphs – and this document does not fail to satisfy. Some of the headlines for me (and there’s a wealth of stuff I don’t touch on below – if you have an interest in crime and poverty, download the pdf) I’ve picked out below.

To start – a definition:

the goal of sustainable development as enabling all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life, without compromising the quality of life of future generations

A nice global outlook to begin with, which is picked up elsewhere in the statistics, such as the introduction of a measure which estimates the level of carbon dioxide emissions associated with goods and services consumed by the UK.

In 2006 the UK government contributed 0.52% of GNI (gross national income), an increase from 0.27% in 1990, to official development assistance internationally.

The report does not try to give an overall indicator of progress as, “it is not practicable or meaningful to combine all 126 disparate indicator measures into a single index of sustainable development”.

Carbon Dioxide and Transport
The report clearly shows that aviation remains the bad guy in the UK mix of CO2. Although between 1990 and 2006 CO2 fell by 6%, business and residential users account for 14% and 5% each. Those associated with transport have risen by 12%. Between 1990 and 2006 emissions from aviation fuel use more than doubled to 36 million tonnes (carbon dioxide equivalent).

Consumption

One thing the report makes abundantly clear is that our consumption is on the way up. So whilst we get more efficient at using the stuff we use (resources) and emit relatively less, it’s a smaller proportion of a bigger pie.

For instance, although we are now recycling 31% of waste, overall waste has increased by 2.4% since 1990, with each person generating half a tonne on average.

In addition, whilst the economy (GDP) has grown (48% since 1990) without an associated increase in UK resources, the UK is still consuming the same amount of the world’s resources every year as it did in 1993.

Renewables

Between 1990 and 2006 generation from non-hydro sources (wind, wave, solar and biofuels) increased from being 10% of all renewable energy to 75%. Renewables now account for 4.6% of electricity compared to 1.8% in 1990.

Water

Households consumed an average of 148 litres per person each day in 2006.

Land Use

In 2006, land use in the UK broke down as follows:

• 52% grass or rough grazing
• 18% crops or bare fallow
• 3% other agriculture
• 12% forest and woodland
• 14% urban
• 1% inland water

Health

Only 42% of women and 36% of men in the highest income group ate 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day and just 22% of adults exercised for 30 minutes 3 times a week.

There was also a definition of fuel poverty, which I should have known but didn’t (much like the definition of recession which I only just learned) – the need to spend more than 10% of income, excluding housing benefit, on fuel to maintain an adequate standard of heating.

mel starrs Uncategorized statistics, sustainable development, UK