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 October 5th through October 7th:

• Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes – Partnership Publications – EEPH/CLG report: "This report presents results and findings of the joint EEPH (Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes) and Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) project to study the levels of compliance with Part L of the Building Regulations.
  Specifically, it presents the results from a study of compliance for new dwellings built since April 2006 in accordance with Approved Document L1A (2006). The results for the full sample for the 2nd Phase of the project are presented"
• The future of green building in China – ClimateChangeCorp.com – Interesting (long) article on green building in China: "Perceived high cost is another barrier. When a World Business Council for Sustainable Development survey in 2007 asked the real estate developers and building professionals worldwide how much more they thought green buildings cost than normal buildings, the Chinese respondents said they thought certified green buildings cost 28% more. They were unaware that in China the average extra cost for a LEED certified building has been 3-5% more. This figure is similar to the global average incremental cost for LEED certified buildings.
  Lewis says as long as the Chinese developers have a perception that green buildings cost a quarter more, they will surely not go for green projects."
  China’s green building targets
  * Reduce building energy use in all cities by 50% by 2010 and 65% by 2020 (base year 1980)
  * Top 1000 State Owned Enterprises Programme aims to improve energy efficiency in the largest SOEs by 2010…
• Target Zero – About Target Zero – AECOM have been commissioned by Corus and BCSA: "The aim of this project is to understand the implications of the UK Government's move towards 'zero carbon' for five steel framed non-domestic building types.
  Target Zero will research and cost options for improving operational energy consumption and reducing embodied energy and other life-cycle impacts. The fully costed solutions generated will demonstrate how to achieve the three highest BREEAM ratings and meet the anticipated changes to Part 'L' of the Building Regulations."
• Zerofootprint » Communities – Interesting competition to retrofit a post-war, pre-90's concrete building and operate at net zero for a year. Their definition of net zero is on-site NOT community level, and by my reckoning excludes biomass: "All the energy required to power household amenities, cool, heat, and light the building must be provided on a net zero basis. Possible onsite energy systems can include wind, solar, bio-fuel cells (from occupant produced organic waste), hydrogen cells, etc. Energy must be produced by devices located within the building and its nearby property, and cannot be powered by fuel brought to the building. The building can contribute excess energy to the grid and, when necessary, access an equivalent amount, but no more."
• Passivhaus Windows | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com – I've been slightly obsessed with window u-values recently. This article has a great overview of German vs. US calculations differences and some good suppliers for windows from Canada: "When I interviewed Dr. Wolfgang Feist in 2007, he told me, “The reason for the number which we now use in Europe is the comfort of the occupants. It is a functional definition. During the winter, the coldest surface temperature in the room will be the window. If you don’t have a radiator in your room, the difference between the surface temperature of the window and the mean surface temperature of the room should not be more than 3 degrees Celsius; that’s for comfort reasons.”
  The colder the climate, the more important it is to use U-0.14 or better windows in a Passivhaus building — and not just for comfort. Low U-factor windows are necessary to meet the Passivhaus maximum annual heating energy standard of 15 kWh per square meter."

admin News building, Canada, carbon, China, competition, compliance, domestic, dwellings, German, green, part_L, passivhaus, residential, targets, u-values, UK, US, windows, zero, zero_carbon

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

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."

admin News bedzed, business_models, case_study, CERT, climatechange, collaboration, ecotect, email, globalwarming, hevacomp, ies, localism, MIT, modelling, passivhaus, RDA, recession, regeneration, Software, system, tools, woobius, zero_carbon

These are my links for April 30th through May 1st:

• Women in construction get funding boost – "A successful initiative set up to support women working in the construction sector, has been granted £420,750 further funding to continue."
• Building Sector Must Change to Meet Global Energy Targets, New Study Finds – "New modeling by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) shows how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60 percent by 2050 – essential to meeting global climate change targets – but this will require immediate action to transform the building sector…
  “The market alone will not be able to make the necessary changes. Most building owners and occupants don't know enough and don't care enough about energy consumption, and inertia is reinforced by assumptions that costs are too high and savings too low…” Stigson said.
  The project took a bottom-up, market-driven approach to understanding the barriers to lower energy use, based on the most detailed view ever of the current state of energy demand in buildings… Using computer simulations, researchers were able to show the market response to various combinations of financial, technical, behavioral and policy options, identifying the optimum mix to achieve transformation for each market studied."
• How to… prepare for an economic recovery – Times Online – Great list of ten things to remember – including learning from history.
• Zero Carbon Hub releases report on zero carbon definition – Building Sustainable Design – "Complexity of ‘allowable solutions’ – Suggestions for ‘allowable solutions’ – to make low carbon buildings more efficient – were thought by some to be too complex and difficult to deliver in practice.
  The report also indicates consensus on the following issues:
  Biggest challenge is in meeting design standards on site: Achieving low air leakage rates and eliminating thermal bridges regarded as bigger challenges than high efficiency windows, highly insulated floors, walls and roofs.
  New definition and framework should be carried over to non-domestic buildings and to the energy section of the Code for Sustainable Homes
  Over 90% of delegates agreed or strongly agreed that legislation is required to ensure higher energy efficiency in homes.
  Delegates wanted to see advice on the energy efficiency targets for 2016 specified with the 2010 update of Part L of the Building Regulations."
• USGBC: LEED 2009: Technical advancements to the LEED rating system – Regionalisation has been done on a zip code by zip code basis (US only). Eg: Colorado has 650 odd permutations of priority credits (obviously many are the same). Bonus points (one per credit) are awarded if the priority credits for the building location are achieved. An interesting way of recognising regional differences – carrots rather than sticks.

admin News 2009, building, Building_Regs, construction_industry, emissions, forces, gender, global, LEED, market, recession, UK, WBCSD, women, zero_carbon, zero_carbon_hub

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

What I’ve been reading about:

• Design Builder – (Relatively) new kids on the DSM software block, 30 day free trial, uses the DOE Energy Plus engine. Anyone got any experience – good or bad?
• Task force gives housing the green light – "This is not about dumbing down or abandoning the concept of zero carbon. This is about ensuring the same high level of carbon savings, but allowing developers more flexibility" Paul King
• Definition of Zero Carbon Report – UKGBC pdf report (41 pp.) on more flexible definition of zero carbon. More on this when I get a chance to read it and others reactions…
• Feedity – Looks like Feedity has a revamp – turn any page into an RSS feed. Now have to go through the ones I did on on the old version and update. So not backwards compatible – bah!
• Smart opportunity missed – Smart metering threshold raised from 73,200 kWh per annum to 732,000 kWh reducing the number of potential businesses covered from 400,000 to 40,000.

mel starrs News Blogging, carbon, competitors, definition, domestic, dsm, EPC, Feeds, free, Housing, Metering, property, rss, service, Software, Sustainability, target, tools, UKGBC, web2.0, zero_carbon