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(Spotted by Mel at Elemental) Cyril Sweett have published their research into the potential for improving energy performance of existing building stock. The importance of greening existing buildings is brought home by two facts:
- 44% of all CO2 emissions in the UK comes from energy use in buildings
- According to one of the report’s authors, in 2050 60% of Britain’s buildings will still pre-date the 2006 revisions to Part L
So we can look forward to the carbon reductions required by Part L being ratcheted up in future, but the overall effect will be modest, even in the long term. If we want to save carbon NOW then energy consumption in existing buildings is too important to ignore.
Predictably, the report’s top recommendation is for “brave decisions” by the government. But in a political climate where politicians would rather engage in creative accounting than be decisive on climate change, it’s hard to be hopeful.
What’s going on?
There’s been a fierce debate among energy bods this summer over the environmental effectiveness of combined heat and power (CHP) and CHP with cooling (CCHP) – a debate closely tied to assumptions about the carbon emissions associated with grid electricity in the UK.
What happened?
As noted in this blog in May, Arup associate director James Thonger opened up with a broadside aimed at the GLA policy of requiring CHP and CCHP on new developments. In particular he refuted LCCA claims that gas CHP saves 54% of carbon relative to grid electricity. The LCCA is headed up by Allan Jones, former green god of Woking and now darling of the London Mayor, who didn’t take the criticism lightly.
Following our recent blog conversation about the energy consumption of Portcullis House, Phil at the Sustainability Blog has pointed out the recently published consumption figures for another Hopkins scheme – this time the Gibbs Building owned by the Wellcome Trust. Like Portcullis House, it’s an office building kitted out with plenty of green gear. And like its cousin, the Gibbs Building is consuming more energy than predicted at design stage. So is the green office building just a myth?
Lately the rate of new posts on this blog has dropped off – only two in the last two weeks. For some reason, I have very little to say (and so here I am writing about having nothing to write about – how post modern). I think it might be London: having lived here for seven years I’m not curious about the place anymore and don’t have the urge to explore it. Sure there’s plenty you could explore in London but I don’t feel there’s anything new, whereas in Le Marche I feel like I’m breaking new ground all the time.
I’m not unhappy here. In fact, everything is comfortable and easy at Tessa’s parents’ place and working part time means the commute is doable. But there’s no thrill in it.
Alright, enough bitching. Random antipodean barman, mine’s a Guinness.
Back in the London office for the first time in over six months, this week I had both of my semi-annual reviews in one hit. At one point during the wide-ranging session, my boss pulled out an org chart showing the proposed new team structure. Before my review I’d been having niggling doubts about my status in the company and now I had them confirmed for me on a full-colour sheet of A3: in my absence I’d slipped a few rungs down the ladder.
Last autumn I was confident that a directorship was in the post – a few more months of hard work and it would be mine. Nevertheless we chose to drop everything and move to Italy to look for a better quality of life. When we decided to move we weren’t just choosing a new location, we were also stepping off the career path - an easy enough move if you’re near retirement but a riskier thing altogether if you’re 33 and one third of a young family.
Via zerochampion, the Guardian’s architecture commentator suggests that buildings
…should only really be offered prizes 20 years after their completion. While we can comment on the merit of the design, look and feel of a particular building when new, and celebrate the intentions of its designers, there is no guarantee that it might not prove to be a failure.
I know we ought to be happy that architecture is being discussed on TV at all. Having said that, if I were in charge of the Stirling Prize I’d consider actual measured energy use and give occupants a vote on whether they think the building is a success.
Henry’s nursery has closed and tomorrow Henry and I follow Tess to London where we’ll stay until our Italian childcare services are back online. As I hadn’t seen Marco for at least a couple of weeks I rang him up this afternoon and invited him out for an aperitivo at Taverna Loro.
Everyone was snacking except me, I was ready to eat anything they brought. I wasn’t so much hungry as aware that this was the last good Italian food I was likely to get for a month, and I wanted to make the most of it. And Gian Paolo, sympathetic to the situation, didn’t let me down.
Smoked duck breast (smoked by Gian Poalo) with dried fruit and balsamic vinegar, baked ricotta and spinach, cold bean soup with crispy pancetta, smoked prosciutto from the man in Visso, barley risotto with homemade pesto, it just kept coming. Because it was a slow night, between plates we all stood around outside in the cool air. Gian Paolo repeated his invitation to the early morning fish auction at Civitanova in September and I repeated my whole hearted acceptance.
Coffee, chatting, digestivi, and then the ride home. Now I have to finish packing and get up early to catch the flight. And I just don’t want to go. If Tess wasn’t already there, I wouldn’t go at all.
Client (on seeing the staircase dominating his hall): But I didn’t want a black marble staircase, I wanted an oak one!
Lutyens: What a pity.
This is driving me nuts. There’s now a huge emphasis on sustainability in architecture but some architects still don’t get it. Aflame with good intentions at the start of projects, they enthusiastically buy into sustainability concepts. But later in the design when there’s a perceived conflict between the energy performance and the architecture, the energy performance is chucked out the window.
Next year we reach a milestone unprecedented in history when more than half of all people will live in cities. This comes from the UN’s new State of the World Population report, which strikes an interesting tone. The authors acknowledge the huge risks of increasing rates of urbanisation, particularly for the poor, but also maintain that if we get our urban planning and public administration right, we can design out the worst of our environmental and social problems. And anyway, urbanisation is inevitable because you can’t have economic growth without it.
You could argue that here in the developed world, we’ve got enough urban planning experience under our belts to allow us to meet the challenge. Except that the developed world is not where the real expansion is set to take place. Most of the shift will occur in Asia and Africa where “the accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation.” So to describe the pace of expansion as breakneck is putting it mildly.
Just heard from the folks at the Carbon Trust who are doing the micro-CHP field trials. The release date for the next interim report has been pushed back to the end of August with the methodology to follow some time after. Advise not holding breath.
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