Elemental

These are my links for August 7th from 14:13 to 14:37:

• Wales waives planning for micro-renewables – Building – "The changes will enable householders to install certain types of domestic micro-generation equipment, including solar thermal panels, ground and water source heat pumps, and flues associated with biomass and combined heat and power systems, on or within the boundary of houses and flats, subject to certain criteria.
  The measures go further than the authorities in England by allowing standalone solar panels up to the boundaries of properties, provided they satisfy certain height and highway criteria"
• FT.com / World – Sceptic switches tack – Lomborg (much maligned anti-hero) is back and distancing himself from the climate change deniers. He's still going to cause waves though, on Copenhagen : "“Getting a deal will undoubtedly be very hard, but if we get better ideas on the table that are cheaper and more efficient [than emissions cuts for the rich] then there is a greater chance that we will succeed,” he said."

admin News climatechange, copenhagen, lomborg, microrenewables, planning, wales

These are my links for July 31st through August 4th:

• By Degrees – White Roofs Catch On as Energy Cost Cutters – Series – NYTimes.com – LEED rewards white roofs (heat island effect) and it also pops up in BREEAM Communities – but beware: "Still, the ardor of the cool-roof advocates has prompted a bit of a backlash.
  Some roofing specialists and architects argue that supporters fail to account for climate differences or the complexities of roof construction. In cooler climates, they say, reflective roofs can mean higher heating bills.
  Scientists acknowledge that the extra heating costs may outweigh the air-conditioning savings in cities like Detroit or Minneapolis.
  But for most types of construction, they say, light roofs yield significant net benefits as far north as New York or Chicago. Although those cities have cold winters, they are heat islands in the summer, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of roof surface absorbing energy."
• Five UK firms vie for Masdar standards job – Building – Masdar, the £13bn UAE project to create the greenest city on earth, has invited five UK organisations to tender for the contract to design its sustainability standard
  They are Aecom, Arup, BRE, Hyder and WSP. Cyril Sweett is advising BRE on the cost element of its bid.
  The standard will set out sustainability targets for the project. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, the developer of the 5.5 million m2 city, invited bids at the beginning of June and it is understood shortlisting is imminent.
  A source close to the bidders said the standard was intended to go beyond anything done before. He said Masdar would be likely to aim to be carbon positive, water neutral and waste neutral.
• Green Compass – Constructing Excellence in Wales (CEW) has worked with BSI to develop PAS 402 as part of its Green Compass waste programme, which gives assurance to anyone disposing of construction waste that it will be collected, checked, recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sound fashion. PAS 402 provides the framework for waste management organisations to demonstrate performance in key areas. Green Compass, managed by CEW on behalf of the Welsh Assembly, is the first scheme of its kind in the UK and is expected to make a significant contribution to minimising the levels of waste going to landfill.
• Tanya Ross on engineers and the media – Building Sustainable Design – Tanya makes some good points, but there's more to be said. Give me a minute while I go and work out the right answer to 3 decimal points ;o)
  "In a more general context, we need to keep promoting the idea of engineers as shapers of the urban landscape, as solvers of some of the problems posed by climate change. We’re clever, vital people who can help to save the planet, not a collection of wrench-wielding cowboys. Sure, it’s an enormous task, but it’s one we should relish. All engineers would benefit from increased public awareness. Whether it is not having to explain to your grandmother what exactly you do for a living or being considered suitable matrimonial material, even a modicum of greater awareness could mean improved recognition."
• Suburbs get urban makeover – USATODAY.com – An interesting take on the cultural aspects of urban design – asian influences in the US (both investors and occupants). Via @UrbanLandInst on twitter:
  "Suburbs that had not allowed development to rise too high above the single-family homes that have shaped suburbia for decades are beginning to embrace the "urban" in "suburban."
  The trend reflects the priorities of the times: saving energy, reducing traffic congestion, saving land, and promoting walking and mass transit."
• Footprint » WRAP/RIBA competition results – Designing out Waste – Interesting: "architects have yet to get to grips with waste. When it comes to sustainability, the profession focuses on reducing operational energy use and embodied carbon, but that rarely translates into preoccupation with reducing the overall waste stream from a project. WRAP launched a campaign in October 2008 to reduce waste to landfill by half by 2012. Many contractors have signed on, but so far only two architects (Ryder and White Design)."

admin News architects, CE, Energy, Engineering, growth, Housing, LEED, masdar, NYT, roof, roofs, standards, suburbs, Sustainability, urban, wales, waste, wrap

These are my links for June 16th through June 21st:

• The young generation with a new vision to build Britain | Art and design | The Observer – Fairly fluffy piece in the Observer on the new generation of iconoclast architects, more devoted to context, collaboration and sustainability than iconic buildings which celebrate individualism. Good quote from Patrick though: "Patrick Lynch is actively hostile to what he sees as the inevitable decline of modernism into what he calls the "idiot avant garde, which means that all your work ultimately looks the same, whatever the climate". He claims that younger architects are disenchanted with "the idea that technological progress equals artistic progress equals moral progress equals virtue, which leads to the kind of thinking that it's OK to go and build for a completely unpalatable regime and f**k up the planet for money, because you're working in your signature style and it's an expression of individual creativity"."
• BSRIA feature on new BREEAM In-Use measuring a building’s actual sustainability – Good overview from BSRIA: "With BREEAM In-Use the bulk of the work is carried out by the client in the form of an online self-assessment tool.
  If an organisation wants a formal certificate it can hire a BREEAM assessor who would assess the inputs into the online tool and certify the rating.
  the certificates have a limited validity. The certificates expire after three years for single asset assessments, and after just one year for portfolios and Part 3-only assessments.
  the development of BREEAM In-Use was driven by the need to assess a building within a few hours.
  BREEAM In-Use is also relatively cheap at just £100 per asset (a building).
  The plus points for the BREEAM In-Use scheme is that it links into other rating tools, which buildings are required to have anyway, such as Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates. BREEAM In-Use is also advertised as being useful to gaining and maintaining ISO 14001 accreditation."
• New Planning Policy for Wales – Although Wales are only looking for 'Very Good' score in BREEAM, the energy still needs to be 'Excellent' (and I presume needs a PCR?): "Applications received on or after 1st September 2009 for non-residential development which will either have a floorspace of 1,000sqm or more, or will be carried out on a site having an area of one hectare or more, to meet the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) ‘Very Good’ standard and achieve the mandatory credits for ‘Excellent’ under issue Ene 1 – Reduction of CO2 emissions."
• CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT GUIDE LAUNCHED: British Property Federation – Confirms my iitial thoughts on CRC: "Hermes, which runs the BT pension fund, has undertaken a modelling exercise3 across its directly managed 103 properties. It found that during the first three-year period of CRC – where the price of carbon is fixed – it may be cheaper for the landlord to simply write-off the cost of carbon allowances rather than incur the administrative and legal costs of engaging with tenants, in effect taking away any incentive for tenants to reduce carbon. Although this situation is likely to change in year four when the price of carbon is no longer capped, it does mean that the scheme could fail to reduce as much CO2 emissions as it would with the benefit of tenant engagement. The government might then fail to achieve its ambitious carbon reduction targets by 2020."
• Architecture is most exclusive profession – Building Design – I initially toyed with ideas of doing architecture when at school. I didn't have A level Art (clashed with Physics) so ended up in engineering (probably much better suited to me). No pangs of regret when I see stats like this: "documents released by the Cabinet Office’s panel for Fair Access to the Professions show it costs more to qualify as an architect — over £60,000 — than any other profession. The panel also found newly qualified architects earned just over £20,000 a year, one of the lowest starting salaries in the professions."

admin News Architecture, BPF, BREEAM, BSRIA, CRC, In_Use, starchitect, wales

These are my links for May 5th through May 11th:

• BREEAM: BREEAM Extranet – Elements of the BREEAM Extranet are now available to all with a public log-in option – loving how BREEAM are continuing to open up to all.
• Multiple monitors boost productivity by 35.5% | 18 Feb 2009 | ComputerWeekly.com – Some bias in that Fujitsu have an interest in selling more screens, but good to see some data on something I've suspected a long time (and I'm still hankering after Terry Pratchett's 6 screen set up): "Employees can perform a typical knowledge-sector job much more efficiently at a three-display workspace than at a conventional one, according to a laboratory survey by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), supported by Fujitsu.
  Fujitsu said this is particularly relevant for jobs where digital information has to be processed very frequently, as is the case for scientists, editors, engineers or insurance company employees.
  Overall, the study showed that larger screen areas increase productivity, and with the three-display workspace interconnected to form one desktop, Fraunhofer IAO scientists recorded increases in productivity of 35.5%."
• Andrew Winston – " I have a new book coming out this summer called Green Recovery. It focuses on going green in hard economic times. It lays out ways to get lean quickly, which can help companies survive today and preserves capital to invest in people and innovation. This plan can prepare companies to emerge from the downturn in a much better competitive position.
  My publisher is making a core part of the book available for free now. You can download my special report here:
  www.tinyurl.com/WinstonReport
  This pdf includes the introduction and the core chapter on getting lean. The other chapters on how the green wave is evolving, and how to get smart, get creative, and get (your people) going will be out by August in the full book."
• Andrew Winston: Is Bjorn Lomborg Dangerous or Helpful? – "Lomborg has a long habit of tilting at windmills that he mostly imagines. His most famous argument is that we shouldn't prioritize climate change over other pressing social priorities like poverty alleviation — as if they're all separate. The poorest people in the world are energy poor and don't have access to clean water — the two biggest environmental challenges of our time. He's always setting up false tradeoffs to establish his more "reaonsable" middleground…
  Lomborg's arguments are more subtle than he usually gets credit for. Probably 75% of what he says is dead on — but that's what makes him so dangerous. It's the other 25% that gets us in trouble."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Procrastiflation: Procrastination + Inflation – I'm a procrastiflator!: "The longer a task goes un-completed, the harder it is to do it.
  If you say you're going to call John Doe on Monday, and you don't, and you continue to procrastinate on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, it becomes harder and harder with each passing day to ever complete the task."
• Dave Gorman: Limescale – Hilarious post from Dave Gorman in which he fixes the economy by rerouting hard water from London to Scotland.
• Commissioning strategy to be included in revisions to Part L – Building Sustainable Design – "The proposed changes to Part L were due to come into effect in April 2010, but this target is now likely to be missed. A government spokesman said the April date “is becoming increasingly challenging and the revisions to the regulations could be put back to October 2010”."
• Wales introduces green building standard – PlanningResource – A sign of things to come for the rest of the country? "Housing developers will have to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 while non-residential buildings will need to achieve the BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard.
  The legislation will come into effect on 1 September 2009.
  Davidson said: "I am determined to use the planning system to move towards zero-carbon buildings. We need to do everything we can to make new buildings, from our homes through to our offices, as environmentally friendly as possible. The new policy will play a key role in achieving this.""
• Defra, UK – Sustainable Development – Need to write a sustainable policy? "The Stretching the Web tool was developed with the aim of helping practitioners to integrate Sustainable Development into their policy making as well as project or programme work. The web is a simple graphic that allows you to easily explore a broad range of key positive and negative impacts."
• Aecom buys Savant to boost European presence – Building – More familiar names go, as AECOM assimilates Faber Maunsell and EDAW further – now to be known as AECOM Europe. Follows the news that Whitby Bird now to be known only as Ramboll.

admin News book, BREEAM, chapyter, construction_industry, CSH, debate, DEFRA, economy, environmentalists, extranet, free, green, gtd, hard, lomborg, names, News, offices, part_L, philosophy, policy, Productivity, recession, Sustainability, wales, water, winston

These are my links for September 24th through September 26th:

• Fabric Insulation – ways of further raising performance standards for all types of building fabric: BD 2428 – Planning, building and the environment – Communities and Local Government – This report summarises building thermal performance requirements in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands and classifies them according to the approach taken (elemental unit-based approach, target U-value average heat transmission through the building envelope, heat demand calculation or integrated energy use calculation).
  The regulations are compared to each other and contrasted with United Kingdom building codes.
• Minister pledges zero-carbon homes definition consultation ’shortly’ – The Government expects to begin consultation on the final definition of zero-carbon homes shortly, planning minister Caroline Flint told the Labour Party Conference in Manchester.
  The minister confirmed that the issue of how the zero-carbon definition dealt with on and offsite green generation remained the most challenging element of the form of words which would be consulted on.
  The fringe meeting heard that Government-commissioned research into the zero-carbon target had highlighted problems over the availability of some of the key technologies and an estimate that the new standards could add between 17 and 24 per cent to the costs of a new home.
  The conference also learnt that the standard would be significantly harder to achieve in high-density, urban infill schemes compared to more large-scale non infill projects.
• How eco-towns can support living within ecological limits – Cutting-edge principles for the agencies involved in developing proposals for eco-towns have been published by BioRegional and CABE. The report, What makes an eco-town?, defines an eco-town as a place designed to make it easy for residents to reduce their ecological footprint by two thirds and their carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent below 1990 levels.
• Patrick Barkham talks to Tony Wrench about low-impact housing in … – Closure on the Welsh Hobbit house planning controversy: "After a long struggle with the authorities, Wrench got retrospective approval for his home, tucked away in a valley in south-west Wales, via an unusual planning policy experiment in Pembrokeshire. County council and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park planners agreed to allow for low-impact developments on rural land where normal houses would not be considered, as long as they met stringent environmental, economic and social criteria."
• Environment Agency – Green roof toolkit – GLA green roof toolkit.

mel starrs News bioregional, carbon, checklist, competitors, definition, design, ECOTOWNS, european, fabric, GLA, green, hobbit, house, Housing, London, pdf, performance, planning, report, roof, toolkit, u-values, wales, zero

 edit: this is a bit of an experiement yet.  As I managed to update my January posts with new tags and categories today, they got tagged too, as I installed Auto Social.  I’ll turn it off again.  Also, the descriptions are abbreviated – must learn to stick to the delicious word count. So ignore the first 10 items (unless you want last year’s news…)

What caught my eye today, January 2nd:

• They work for you – MP’s answering your questions –
• Leeds best for recycling? –
• Do you know where true south is? –
• Eco-Hobbit house in Wales –
• Intranets – 16 golden rules –
• Housekeeping –
• Learning from BedZed –
• RIBA report on Smart PFI published –
• A new year – a new sustainability checklist… –
• More RSS love… –
• Why The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Ruining Your Business – Interesting piece on how confidence and competence are inversely inter-related. The essence of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than knowledge.” Studies have shown that the most incompetent individuals are the
• Engineers without borders UK – We are a student-led charity that focuses on removing barriers to development using engineering. Our programmes provide opportunities for young engineers to learn about technology’s role in development. By taking part in our activities, and with the suppo
• Auto Social Wordpress plugin – This plugin enables you to have your posts submitted automatically to delicio.us.
• Social bookmarks – Social Bookmarks is a WordPress plugin that adds a list of XHTML compliant graphic links at the end of your posts that allow your visitors to easily submit them in a number of different social bookmarking sites (more than 50 sites are supported).
• Absolutely delicious complete tools collection – Awesome list of stuff to do with delicious. I’m hoping to clean up all the broken links and tidy up my tagging by the time I’ve worked my way through the list.
• Postalicious – I’m trying out this plug-in in an effort to publish my del.icio.us feeds on a daily basis. Hopefully it will look pretty and do everything I want it to…

mel starrs News Leeds, New Year\'s Day, United Kingdom, wales

I follow over 200 feeds (yes, way too many) and one happens to be the National Statistics Office (I am a huge geek when it comes to stats, in case no-one had noticed).  Spotted this today.

Population aged 100 years and over, as at 01 January, England and Wales

This is showing an interesting trend.  The UK may not be breeding as much, but we’re lasting longer.  Lifetime Homes takes on a whole new meaning.

In other news, it’s all kicking off in the ‘blogosphere’ with great discussions on population, Code for Sustainable Housing and lots of new bloggers popping up.  I’m trying to read and comment where possible, but my internet access is currently limited and, as I said before, I read way too many feeds and am struggling to keep on top of things.

I’m off to visit a renewable energy factory in the next week or so, so will try to report on that when I can.

mel starrs Uncategorized internet access, National Statistics Office, renewable energy factory, statistics, Sustainability, United Kingdom, wales

I’m back, from outer Mongolia (literally).  Whilst I’ve been incommunicado for the past few weeks, I gather there have been interesting developments with HIPS.  I’m off to catch up on all the industry gossip – more comment to follow no doubt.

 In the meantime, Rokia Raslan at Bartlett has a short academic survey on Part L2A software.  Pease feel free to help out and participate:

As part of a PhD project currently underway at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (University College London), I am conducting the following very short online survey based study to investigate the use of Building Energy Performance Simulation Tools, such as SBEM, IES (Virtual Environment) , TAS,CarbonChecker & Hevacomp as part of the compliance methodology (The National Calculation Methodology- NCM) for Approved Document PART L2A (England & Wales).

I would appreciate your kind assistance by participating in the survey &/or forwarding this email to any number of your employees/colleagues who would be interested in completing a short online questionnaire that should take no longer than 5 minutes of their time.

The survey can be accessed at: http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucftrmr

(Please copy & paste the link into your location bar if it does not work)

Participation is anonymous and any information you provide will, of course, be treated with the strictest confidentiality. The findings of the previous study are included on the website and findings of this survey will, of course, be shared with you. Please feel free to contact me anytime with inquiries or for further information. Thank you in advance for all your help.

Sincerely,
Rokia Raslan
PhD Student
Bartlett School of Graduate Studies
University College London
email:r.raslan@ucl.ac.uk

mel starrs Uncategorized Bartlett School of Graduate Studies University College, Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, London, Mongolia, Part L, Part L2A/NCM Software, Rokia Raslan, short online questionnaire, short online survey, simulation, United Kingdom, University College London, wales

It’s been quite a year, but Elemental is one year old today.

And to celebrate here’s some stats.

My top 5 most popular posts are:

1. What exactly is a zero carbon home then Gordon?
2. In brief: HIPS, renewables, timber and Arup
3. Is this the future for energy generation – magnets?
4. Caspar in Leeds due for demolition
5. Eco-Hobbit house in Wales

Stats for each post are taken from Google Analytics which I use for my deep or long range stats. For daily ego boost, I use MyBlogLog which gives me an overnight glimpse at what people have been looking at and where they came from the day before. I keep a track of when people link to me using Technorati .

Since I started using Google Analytics in the middle of August I’ve had over 3000 visitors with nearly 5000 pageviews. My daily average is currently around 35-45 visitors a day, with a peak of 50. Of these I have 26 loyal readers using RSS and email subscriptions (only ¼ by email – RSS is winning the battle!). I track RSS and email using Feedburner. Growth has been slow, but steady.

So half of visitors to my site in any day are strangers who have googled for something. Top search terms (excluding my name or the name of the blog) include:

1. breeam assessor
2. ferguson brown sustainability
3. theyworkforyou
4. summit skills
5. enr

The oddest way someone has stumbled upon me was someone searching for “funny rhymes about construction industry”. Let’s hope they found what they were looking for…

mel starrs Uncategorized Blogging, energy generation, Google, Leeds, search terms, wales

Came across this fantastically bonkers looking house in Wales. Tolkien eat your heart out:

Although this goes against my usual ethos of not making eco-options open to criticism from the more conventional in society (green doesn’t have to mean tree-hugging, sandal wearing, beardy weirdy hippies), I do love this. Yes, it is highly unlikely to catch on, and I doubt if we’re going to ever see eco-estates in the ‘burbs looking like this, but wouldn’t you just love to be able to say you lived there?

No information on whether the house passed conventional building regulations, although there is a philosophical debate on planning regulations on the site. With the small windows and thick heavily insulated walls, I suspect it might pass, although quite how you would go about putting it through SAP, I’m not sure…

(and if you want to see how not to build your own Hobbiton check out this example from Oregon in the states – as far as I can work out this is real!!! I think they’ve somewhat missed the mark with their McMansion Shire…)
::via Celsias

mel starrs Uncategorized eco-house, Oregon, wales