Elemental

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It was a funny old week, last week.

First we have the Clive James kerfuffle, subsequent to his essay “In praise of scepticism“. There was some dissent against James on Twitter (which I am increasingly becoming disillusioned with as a tool for proper discourse and debate – 140 characters is not enough space to make points properly unless you are phenomenally eloquent). Many were equating sceptiscism with denialism, which was overegging James’ views somewhat. But I didn’t make too much of a deal about it and trundled on.

Then we had the Tim Nicholson vs. Grainger case on Tuesday, which I will say no more about, but appears to have been one of the catalysts for what happened next.

On Wednesday night, Amanda Baillieu dared to voice dissent with regards to climate change on Twitter. Her initial tweet was:

I am becoming increasingly irritated by the green lobby and the idea that its to be treated like a religion http://is.gd/4N8sH

Followed by:

Basically believing in man made climate change is a bit like hoping that fairies live at the bottom of the garden.

There followed a fair amount of toing and froing with various parties, as I gawped from the sidelines. I pondered whether Amanda was negating low carbon design and resource efficiency along with this scepticism? Luckily she redefined how she felt in her editorial for BD on Friday. And this is when the “where is the evidence you refer to?” attacks really began to gain traction.

Now, I may disagree with Amanda (I’ve covered my Pascal’s Wager here), but like I said in that post, I tend to keep out of global warming debates – in a way, I don’t really care. In fact, if I had to embark on a global warming debate with a client every time we wanted to build anything, I’d still be staring at a blank sheet of paper. And despite currently coming down on the side of the climate change scientists, I’ve actually read a fair bit of Lomborg and Crichton, to act as a counterfoil to Monbiot and Stern (an important discipline as I outlined in my how to read non-fiction post). I suspect there may be those who have attacked Amanda’s article without reading any literature on the topic at all. Not good enough.

What many of the commenter’s fail to pick up, is that despite Amanda’s agnosticism (after all, she admits to scepticism, which whilst it might be cynical, is certainly not denial-ism) on climate change science, she still supports ‘green’ design:

“…there’s no argument that natural resources such as water need to be conserved and low-energy buildings make sense…”

So did Amanda really deserve the criticism she got in return? One of the most outraged was Justin Bere who managed to write two posts, one outlining the events on Twitter blow by blow (which is handy as now I don’t have to) and another in which he addresses the “evidence” argument. There are many others who exprssed outrage in the comments to the article (although with some showing support). But what really matters here is our actions, not the beliefs that are behind them. To quote John Stuart Mills’ “On Liberty“:

…the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise.

In other words, one should have the freedom to think as one wishes, and to feel as one does. This includes the freedom to opinion, and includes the freedom to publish opinions (aka freedom of speech). Mills also argued that censorship harms society, not only by limiting freedom, but because a banned opinion may be true or contain some truth, or will challenge the accepted one and prevent it becoming a mere dogma.

I shouldn’t have to point out that I’m a fan of freedom of speech – and I do think contrarians have a useful role in society. Even when we have reached a consensus opinion, we should continue to scrutinize and debate. As I’ve said before:

“…perhaps there is an opportunity to use antagonists such as Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg and even Tim Worstall to check our thinking. Without doing so, we run the risk of heading down cul-de-sacs unquestioningly. Question everything.”

An argument often bandied around is that websites and forums are not the proper channel to hold debates such as these. This episode highlights the drawbacks of such technology, especially twitter. But, it’s better to have some debate than to gag anyone whose opinions don’t match our own. I’ll add Amanda to my list of ‘useful contrarians’ and hope a few more people potter off to read up on Mills.

admin Opinion Amanda Baillieu, Climate Change, Clive James, global warming, John Stuart Mill, Liberty, Michael Crichton, twitter

It’s that time of year again. Time for me to do a clear out of half drafted posts and round up the scraps of paper I’ve been scribbling on, and attempt to write a blog post every day for the next month. I’m cheating, as no-one ever reads this blog on a weekend (some people have things called ‘lives’ where they don’t feel the need to google ‘breeam 2008′ on a Sunday morning – that makes me happy), and only commit to 21 posts, Monday to Friday. And as I already have a regular Friday round-up post of my links on a Friday, I’m really only adding 17 posts. But that’s a fair number more than I’ve written recently (I’ve been doing exciting domestic things instead, like moving house, as anyone who has been following me on Twitter with be painfully aware of). Topics I intend to cover in the next few weeks:

• critique of Passivhaus
• BREEAM AP
• BREEAM vs. LEED
• window u-values
• energy masterplanning

Anything else you want to see tackled? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll try my best (I might need inspiration by post 6!)

admin Housekeeping blog, Google, nablowrimo, twitter

These are my links for September 18th through September 24th:

• The Architect’s Newspaper – Incredibly honest article from Adajye: "My sense of setting up a practice was about working, not business, and about expediting projects, basically out of my bedroom, that came my way, and the opportunities born out of a series of private commissions in the domestic realm.".
• B******s to Architecture: 261 : Fair Trade? – B2A with one of the best OFT summaries this week, worth clicking through and reading the entire piece: "I reckon that the real reason all these reputable contractors got together and arranged cover-price deals was simply to ensure that the lowest tender was at a price that enabled the successful contractor to make just enough profit to stay in business and not get screwed-down to a price that was completely unrealistic. Look at it this way – is any contractor going to willingly let a rival get away with a hugely-inflated tender price which they know they could beat and still make a handsome profit? No, of course they aren't. Cover-pricing is just a way of ensuring that the successful contractor gets the job for a fair price and the others don't lose a fortune in the tendering process."
• The new serendipity? « Scott Berkun – Every piece of software can be turned off. Every email deleted. Every mailing list can be abandoned. The choice to feel committed to things people send you is an insane thought, as you might as well religiously read every piece of junk mail that arrives at your door or spend hours talking to telemarketers. If you feel obligated to do anything you didn’t promise, whose responsible? It’s not the technology’s fault, it’s yours.
• The true costs of congestion « – According to the University of Zurich’s Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, a commuter who travels one hour one way would have to earn 40 per cent more salary to be as fully satisfied with life as a non-commuter.
• Regeneration & Renewal blog: Off target? – "The Government’s target of making all new homes conform to zero-carbon standards by 2016 is effectively unattainable. This is the view of the Audit Commission’s chair, Michael Higgins, who told this magazine that it will be “all but impossible” to meet the goal. His comments came in the wake of a report published by the public services watchdog on housing, in which it largely blames the absence of an agreed definition of "zero-carbon"."
• Global aviation emissions must be capped to tackle climate change – 9 September 2009 – Enough? :"The CCC’s Chief Executive David Kennedy said: “It is vital that an agreement capping global aviation emissions is part of a Copenhagen deal. We are calling for a cap that would not require people to fly less than today, but would constrain aviation emissions growth going forward. Such a cap together with deep emissions cuts in other sectors would limit the risk of dangerous climate change and the very damaging consequences for people here and in other countries that this would have”."
• Statistics and industry information – The Concrete Centre – Looking for information on the sustainability of concrete?: "The following links will provide you with an insight into the sustainability performance of the different industries and materials that make up concrete."
• Top 100 2009: full table unveiled – 08/09/2009 – Contract Journal – More doom: "Based on industry forecasts, the chances are, put crudely, that there will be about 25% to 30% drop in the cash coming into the industry as a result of the combination of reduced workloads and reduced prices. If that is so, on average construction firms will have to cut output by about 25%.
  But it will not happen that way. The pain will not be spread evenly. Many firms will go bust and a few will grow, if only as a result of consolidation."
• Which comes first; the social media strategy, or the social media tactics? – The Viral Garden – "Once you know what your strategy is, then you can talk tactics. Because each tool works in a slightly different way, and as such, makes it more or less likely to work for your particular strategy. If you want to connect with your customers quickly, as in a crisis situation, or to provide customer service, a tool that facilitates more real-time communication, like Twitter, would probably work well. If you want to establish your expertise within your industry, maybe a blog would be your best bet."

admin News aviation, blogs, carbon, commuting, concrete, contractors, cover-pricing, emissions, flying, materials, media, OFT, recession, Social, tendering, travel, twitter, zero_carbon

This post is inspired by a conversation I had on Twitter on Sunday afternoon with @dbourbon, @SuButcher and @Revit3D. Yes, I know I bang on about Twitter far too often, but seriously. LOVE it. Revit3D wrote a blog post which I have tried to follow up here.

The conversation started along the lines of debating why some practices (both architectural and engineering) were failing to use 3D software. Is it fear of the unknown? Is it the pain of learning something new?

I have a theory based on my own experience of the timeline of engineering software over the past 10-20 years.

• Firstly, I believe 2D CAD was a red herring of sorts. 2D CAD was not a design tool (architects might argue that it is, but I define a design tool as something with some kind of calculation engine in there somewhere). It was (and is) a drafting tool. Engineers and architects who were used to the old skool way of drafting a sketch to be worked up on paper by draughtspersons, used the same way of working when 2D CAD was introduced. An experienced engineer’s time was too valuable to be wasted learning new IT skills, and so , in general, they didn’t.
• Those who were young and inexperienced were sometimes given the time to experiment with CAD (my brain is still hard wired to AutoCAD LT 98 – I get very frustrated when Google SketchUp doesn’t have the same buttons in the same places). But still, was not a design tool.
• Some engineering tools, such as Hevacomp and Cymap, started to introduce 2D design tools – the ability to draw a line on screen, define for instance, air volumes, and come up with ductwork sizing and fan sizing calculations. A fantastic time saver, especially if there are a number of redesigns. However, many steered away from this and still used good old paper and pen mark-up with a ductulator to hand. Because, if you had to mark up the sketch anyway to give to the CAD technician, what was the point of doing it on screen? (are you beginning to see what happened here?)
• About the same time (early nineties) we had the last recesssion. Many of the Gen X engineers who might otherwise have become IT savvy dropped out and the hole can still be seen in the data.
• The next iteration was IES and TAS. But a strange thing happened. Who was supposed to use these tools? They were first and foremost design tools, but they looked a bit like CAD. So, the young (cheap) inexperienced engineers were encouraged to go off and teach themselves how to use the software. Nothing wrong with this, persay.

However, in effect I would argue we ended up with one group who could drive the software, but didn’t know what the destination was supposed to look like, and another group who saw a black box of tricks which spewed out the wrong answers (their experience often trumped the output from the software, which inadvertently was suffering from ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’ syndrome as the ‘drivers’ didn’t always understand where they supposed to be going).

Now this is a massive generalisation, and there were some practices who embraced the technology head-on. However, I also still know some practices who swear by ductulators, paper and pen, so not everyone is moving at the same speed here.

As Gen Y move into the industry, their expectations are for 3D tools which do everything from the one ‘box’. It’s a natural expectation and indeed the way that BIM is moving.It’s a little like the leapfrog effect one sometimes sees in technologies in the developing world, where for example, the mass ownership of landlines is eclipsed by the use of mobile phones.

But how do we deal with the gap between those who “get” BIM and those who, either consciously or unconsciously, have got left behind? I don’t know the answer to that one, although I do believe in leading by example.

Any thoughts – please leave a comment either here or over at Revit3D’s blog.

mel starrs Opinion architect, AutoCAD, Building Information Modeling, Computer-aided design, Engineering, twitter

It’s been quiet on here and likely to continue for the next few weeks, partly due to the fact that I am studying madly for my LEED-AP exam. I’m also considering finally getting my ASHRAE membership sorted out, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.  The two go hand in hand, as ASHRAE members get a discount on key LEED documents like User Guide 90.1 (which is also the key energy standard referenced in Estidama and many other international building rating systems).

In lieu of me blogging, have a wander over to 2 new kids on our block.

Su (aka @SuButcher on Twitter) has started blogging over at Just Practising. Having followed Su on Twitter, I’m looking forward to posts longer than 140 characters!

And Liz Male (who many of you will know) has started a blog AND a Twitter feed. Find Liz at Footings or @LizMale.

Welcome to both, and they and others can be found on my blogroll under bloggers.

And if you’re reading this asking yourself what on earth Twitter is, perhaps you need to read Pam’s excellent guide to social media (pdf – warning – LARGE file size).

I’m off to memorize a 400 page manual – see you on the other side…

mel starrs Geekery American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Social Networking, twitter

Ten years later, and still not everyone gets all of this. However, things are changing. Facebook has a lot to answer for. When my brother (a chef, so not often “connected” to the internet except by SMS) gets a twitter account, then I’ll know I can stop banging on about this stuff.

In the meantime, revisit the message of Cluetrain, brainchild of Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger and Rick Levine via Michael Specht:

mel starrs Diversions Cluetrain Manifesto, Facebook, Marketing, Micro-blogging, social media, social network, twitter, Web 2.0

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

Is is really two years?

Almost 360 posts, over 70 regular subscribers, almost 8000 hits in the past year*, including over 250 to BREEAM is a means to an end post.

*Over 20% of visitors use Firefox as their browser, most of the rest use IE.  Only 0.5% use Mac although one visitor found me using their Playstation 3, two with their iPhone. The two favourite screen sizes are 1024×768 (39%) and 1280×1024 (24%). 28% of readers are in London.

Guess I’m going to keep this up for the forseeable future then.

Some thoughts about the blog and where I see it going:

• I love using del.icio.us as a mini-blogging tool – 255 characters is usually enough space to comment on a news item and leaves me a lot more time to write “proper” posts
• Twitter is looking like a good way of micro-blogging but I’m not quite ready to add it into my main feed yet
• I still have a stupid number of drafts sitting around cluttering my mind, especially some book reviews I promised to publish over a year ago.  Mental clutter = distraction.  Will finish these in May once I get back to the physical copies of the books.
• The past year has been a whirlwind of scattered thinking.  I’m hoping to focus on topics in a more structured fashion for the next
• A bloggers to-do list is never finished.  The minute I get one thing done, I find another gadget or widget to play with or see some other niggle I want to fix.  All this on top of posting.  I must learn to accept this and realise things will never be complete.  Live with it.

Thanks to everyone who has read, commented or sent me emails in the past year, especially those who let me know when when my awesome web skills have broken the site.

mel starrs Geekery Blogging, Housekeeping, London, mini-blogging tool, statistics, twitter