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Get Sust! Issue 24
Wednesday 13 December 2006
Season's greetings - Architectural Press Christmas Offer for Get Sust readers
Save 10 per cent and get free postage this Christmas on all Architectural Press sustainability books, including the brand new Green Studio Handbook.
Click here. Offer expires 31 December 2006.
Teaming up with CIBSE
Whether you loath it or love it, ‘tis the season when people who’ve worked together all year take an hour or so (or three, or four...) to attend the work’s Christmas “do”. This can be a great time for managers or team leaders to acknowledge the achievements of the team over the past 12 months.
Teamworking is something that the construction industry doesn’t always do as well as it might, but when it comes to sustainability, working as a team - right from the start of a project - is as essential to the final outcome as a tight building envelope and appropriate controls for building services.
That’s why Get Sust is delighted to announce that we are working with our sponsor - CIBSE Patrons - to promote its Fifth Annual Teamwork Award, which is set up to recognise outstanding examples of teamworking.
The Teamwork Award is aimed at all types of teams working across the building services sector. Entries are encouraged from the following:
- teams working within CIBSE Patron member organisations;
- teams comprising Patrons and their clients;
- teams where at least one member is a registered Get Sust! subscriber.
Teams may comprise, for example:
- a team from different organisations who have been working together on a project;
- an in-house company team;
- an inter or cross-company team;
- a team of students working on a particular academic or commercial project.
So, as well as sharing a glass or two with your colleagues this week, why not celebrate your achievements by submitting an entry to the CIBSE Patrons Teamwork Award?
For full details of how to apply, and an outline of last year’s winning team, scroll down to Careers and Competitions. The closing date for entries is Friday 9 February 2007.
- And finally, don’t forget we’re always keen to hear your news and views - tell us about your projects, techniques and strategies, or let us know if you’d like to write a book review. Contact editor@get-sust.com.
- Please make a small donation to help cover our costs - it’s easy using PayPal Donate; just click here.
| © Melanie Thompson 2006 |  |
Commercial buildings get sust too
There’s been a huge emphasis on sustainable homes recently, and high-profile “green” city offices find it easy to grab the lime-light, but there are plenty of other buildings that need to raise their game too. Scottish architectural practice, Reid Architecture, have taken up the challenge of creating high-quality sustainable business units, with pleasing results.
The Alba Campus is a 2,100-sqm business incubation centre, developed for Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian. The scheme, which is pleasing to the eye, and kind to the environment, provides a variety of office accommodation over two levels for new and small businesses.
Instead of a conventional steel frame, the design team opted for a glulam timber frame, which consumes about one tenth of the energy in its manufacture as would a traditional steel frame.
“This is not only a “greener” solution but the escalating price of steel has made it an economic solution,” says Reid’s Justin Farmer. “It also gives opportunities for the visual warmth of timber to be exposed throughout the accommodation.
“Throughout the project there was been a drive to employ offsite/prefabricated solutions in conjunction with the almost total elimination of wet trades to reduce excessive on-site waste. We opted for TGI joist technology for the first floor with plywood sheeting, which is commonly used in residential development, because it’s an eco-friendly alternative to concrete planks or poured slab.”
Scottish-grown larch cladding is used on the approach elevation with a distinctive timber “eyebrow” to the entrance. These timber clad areas are fixed to an inner leaf of prefabricated insulated timber panels. Elsewhere the elevation is clad in a metal and non-ozone depleting mineral fibre wool composite panel that is normally found in the industrial sector. This requires no secondary structure and, at 150mm, offers benefits on net to gross measurements and speedier erection.
The offices are accessed along corridor spaces filtered with light coming through an open grid ceiling, concealing the services above. The office/meeting rooms windows offer framed views across open fields to the west and to the tree belt bound edge to the east.
“The windows have been sized to avoid cutting of the panels to reduce on-site waste and are designed to maximise air movement, support the natural ventilation strategy and allow light deeper into the plan,” says Farmer.
Learn more:
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• | Contact Justin Farmer, Group Communications Manager, Reid Architecture. Email: Justin.farmer@ra-lond.com |
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• | Photos of the scheme are at: www.reidarchitecture.com. |
| © Melanie Thompson 2006 | |
NEWSFLASH - Sustanability's coming home
This morning (Wednesday 13 December) the government has at last unveiled the Code for Sustainable Homes.
The official announcement follows Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget statement last week, that flagged the government’s intention to encourage the market for brand new zero-carbon homes by exempting them from stamp duty. Under this scheme, the broad definition of zero-carbon is that the building must use less energy than it generates over a set period of time.
The Code for Sustainable Homes introduces a green "star rating" for homes, with the maximum of six stars going to those that are considered to be zero-carbon. There will also be a new requirement for planners to design low-emission communities; a major tightening in building regulations to enforce energy efficiency; and consultation on reducing water wastage in new homes.
Launching the Code this morning, Communities and Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly said that the star ratings are designed to “...act as a strong incentive for developers and buyers, who for the first time will have the information necessary to make ethical choices alongside knowing when fuel bills will be cheaper."
Learn more:
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• | All of the documents issued today can be found on the Communities website at: www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1505140 |
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• | See also “Building a Greener Future - Consultation Document” at www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1505157 and “Mandating Water Efficiency in New Buildings” www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1505175. |
| © Melanie Thompson 2006 | |
DECoRuM scoops RIBA award
Congratulations to Dr Rajat Gupta of Oxford Brookes University, who was recently awarded the RIBA President’s Research award for 2006: outstanding PhD.
The judges praised Rajat’s PhD research, which describes the development and validation of a domestic energy, carbon-counting and carbon-reduction model (DECoRuM) for urban scale assessments of the cost-benefits of a wide range of energy efficient and renewable energy options.
They said: “The novelty of the approach lies in the ability to reliably aggregate results for individual houses up to an urban scale. This is an extremely impressive study both in terms of its scope and detail. It is also very timely, and should be taken up by local authorities and housing agencies around the country. This is an issue of widespread importance and interest to many architects, and one which the RIBA champions.”Learn more:
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• | See “DECoRuM goes on-line” Get Sust no. 23. |
| © Melanie Thompson 2006 | |
Sustainable village for Bradford students
An international search has been launched to find capable of The University of Bradford is inviting architects and developers to help it create a £22-million sustainable student village in the city.
The university is keen to explore a wide range of sustainable construction technologies, including renewable energy generation, triple glazing, super insulation and natural ventilation, and preference will be given to natural, reclaimed, recycled and pollution-free materials and furnishings.
Alongside this, the university’s estates department is looking for a new concept in student accommodation - modelled on traditional terraced housing, with shared outdoor spaces to encourage a sense of community.
Clive Wilson, director of estates at the University of Bradford, said: “Our vision is to have small numbers of students taking ownership of a whole house and allowing them the opportunity to be responsible for all of it - including its energy consumption, waste recycling and the neighbourhood as a whole.”
Learn more:
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• | Visit www.brad.ac.uk/ecoversity. |
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Delicate objects need special lighting treatment
Lighting delicate ancient objects or precious paintings is an art in itself - doing it using natural daylighting or energy efficient systems requires even more skill. The International Journal of Sustainable Energy is currently running a special issue on “Energy and Environmental Quality of Museums”. Most of the papers report on an EU-funded demonstration project ‘Energy efficiency and sustainability in retrofitted and new museum buildings’. For example, Mike Wilson of London Metropolitan University reviews the design principles for lighting in museum design, concentrating mainly on daylight, as well as reporting on the outcome of lighting schemes installed during the EU project.
Learn more:
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• | For full contents list of the Special Issue, see International Journal of Sustainable Energy Volume 25, Number 3-4, September-December 2006 |
| © Melanie Thompson 2006 | |
Imminent changes to timber strength grading standards
The standards governing structural timber design in the UK will change in 2007, when the European Harmonised Standard for structural timbers, (published in this country as BS EN 14081: 2005 “Timber structures - Strength graded structural timber with rectangular cross section”) supersedes the standards currently in force.
BS EN 14081 will run in parallel with the current strength grading standards (BS EN 518 and BS EN 519) until they are withdrawn in September 2007.
TRADA has published a new Wood Information Sheet “Timber strength grading and strength classes”, that explains the system. It also explains reminds specifiers that moisture content is a vital factor in designing and specifying timber for structural use, because it has a direct effect on strength, dimensions and durability.Learn more:
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• | “Timber strength grading and strength classes”, priced £6 (free to TRADA members) is available from the TRADA website. |
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Architectural Press Christmas Offer for Get Sust readers
Save 10 per cent and get free postage this Christmas on all Architectural Press sustainable books, including the brand new Green Studio Handbook.
Green Studio Handbook presents practical guidelines for applying environmental strategies during the schematic design of green buildings. For each strategy, it provides: brief descriptions of principles and concepts, step-by-step approaches for integrating technologies into the early stages of design, annotated tables and charts to assist with preliminary design sizing, key issues to be aware of when implementing a given strategy, and references to the most recent international standards and rating systems, guidelines, and internet resources.
Learn more:
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• | Order online http://books.elsevier.com/architecturalpress |
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• | Teaching this subject? Inspection copies of Green Studio Handbook are available on request at: www.textbooks.elsevier.com/0750680229 |
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• | Save money on all Architectural Press sustainable books including Ecohouse 2, Eco-Refurbishment and many others at www.architecturalpress.com/sustainable |
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• | Offer expires 31 December 2006. Tel: 01865 314594. |
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Building Ventilation: The State of the Art
edited by Mat Santamouris and Peter Wouters
Review by Graham Horne
Energy use in the building sector accounts for more than 40% of Europe’s CO2 emissions (EURIMA, 2006). A significant proportion of this CO2 is produced by the energy intensive methods we use to heat and, more recently, cool our building spaces. There is clearly a large contribution therefore, that can be made towards reducing our CO2 emissions by fully considering the building ventilation strategy in the design of new energy efficient buildings.
This book offers a comprehensive resource of up-to-date research and knowledge of building ventilation, split into clear sections presenting each of the key issues. The topics range from the challenges of natural ventilation in the urban environment to building airtightness, heat recovery systems, hybrid ventilation and the effect of ventilation on human health.
“Each section is clearly written and frank about the advantages and disadvantages of the systems discussed,” writes Graham Horne. “The use of case studies in the hybrid ventilation section provides useful examples of how the technology has already been incorporated into flagship buildings. Selecting an appropriate building ventilation system is, however, very complex and it would certainly help to have at least a working knowledge of building ventilation and the underlying principles to get the most out of this book.
“Mat Santamouris suggests that extended monitoring has shown naturally ventilated buildings typically use less than 50% of the corresponding energy consumption of air-conditioned buildings. With the progressive tightening of the Part L Building Regulations it is clear that the knowledge presented in this book will be essential to building ventilation professionals and university researchers alike.”
Learn more:
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• | “Building ventilation: the state of the art”, edited by Mat Santamouris and Peter Wouters, is published by Earthscan, hb, price £80 (ISBN 1844071308), or £72 if you follow this link: http://shop.earthscan.co.uk/. |
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• | Graham Horne, MEng, is a Graduate Civil and Structural Engineer with three years’ experience in the construction industry. He is currently employed by Faber Maunsell working as part of the Sustainable Development Group out of the Altrincham office. Faber Maunsell work with design teams, developers, clients and the government to find practical, cost-effective ways of improving the environmental performance of developments and individual buildings. |
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CIBSE Knowledge
The CIBSE Knowledge Series offers concise, user-friendly solutions covering a range of topical issues. Currently priced at £15 for members and £30 for non-members, these prices will increase from February 2007 to £20 for members and £40 for non-members. So don't delay - secure your copies now and get one free if you order three or more.
Learn more:
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• | Order via www.cibse.org |
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Sustainability from all angles
The Third International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability covers every possible aspect of sustainability - from eco-footprints and sustainable agriculture, through renewable energy technologies and environmental assessments, to research issues such as the role of media and government, and teaching sustainability at all levels.
This event is at the University of Madras, India, from Thursday 4 to Saturday 7 January, 2007, which makes it rather inaccessible to most Get Sust readers, but it is supported by a detailed website, newsletters and a journal, all of which are worth investigating.
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Energy use and comfort in public buildings
This event is the joint UK meeting of the UK Solar Energy Society and the Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings (NCEUB).
Chaired by Prof Michael Hutchins, at London Metropolitan University on Wednesday 17 January 2007, it features a presentation of the EC “Intelligent Energy” (EULEB) project which studied 25 European public buildings, and keynote speakers include Adrian Leaman, who will discuss “Are building users more tolerant of ‘green’ buildings?” and Max Fordham, who will ask: “Office Buildings- Are they getting more energy efficient?”
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• | For details, contact NCEUB Administrator Janet Rudge. E-mail: j.rudge@londonmet.ac.uk. |
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• | Visit www.nceub.org.uk |
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CIBSE Patrons Teamwork Award 2007
Entry Criteria
The CIBSE Patrons Teamwork Award is aimed at CIBSE Patrons members and at Get Sust! subscribers. Teams may comprise, for example:
- a team from different organisations who have been working together on a project;
- an in-house company team;
- an inter or cross-company team;
- a team of students working on a particular academic or commercial project.
Entrants are asked to demonstrate the benefits gained from working collaboratively as one team, through the open communication, trust, respect, honesty, drive and commitment of every team member who is involved.
The judges will be looking for submissions that indicate:
- a cohesive team that can demonstrate best practice and improvements that they have made by teamworking, with evidence of any key areas that the team have excelled in.
- evidence of what the team achieved, how the team has developed and what they have learnt, and how they intend to carry forward their experiences for the future; also how the team have benchmarked themselves and what their targets and results were, clearly demonstrating how they monitor(ed) their performance.
- evidence of how the team has (or plans to) spread best practice to others. The judges would also like to know what, if anything, the team would do differently and how they implement continuous improvement.
The judges will be particularly interested in projects that demonstrate a sustainability element. Time and again, projects that have scored highly on sustainability have demonstrated that teamworking is an essential factor in success. The CIBSE Patrons are keen to promote the wide-ranging benefits of teamworking.
Judging
The judging panel is likely to comprise the CIBSE Chief Executive, the CIBSE Patrons Chairman, and the editor of Get Sust!
Depending on the number of entries submitted, teams shortlisted for the award will be invited to present to the judging panel during late February or March 2007.
The winners of the Award, plus two runners-up, will be announced at the CIBSE Patrons annual luncheon to be held at the House of Lords in April 2007.
Last year’s winner
The 2006 Teamwork Award winner was M&E Contractor, Powerminster, and its client Bradford Community Housing Trust, a Registered Social Landlord.
The team had worked together under several different arrangements for about 10 years. By 2003, with a range of economic, social and governmental changes impacting upon the relationship, both parties agreed to move away from contractual obligations and devise a flexible partnering-style arrangement to better meet tenant’s needs.
Powerminster made numerous changes to its working practices to accommodate the needs of BCHT’s elderly and vulnerable tenants, including setting up a regional office to better service the contract, while in return BCHT returned the support by rearranging its pay schedule to help Powerminster maintain cash flow.
Submit your entry
Please submit your entry electronically, in Word format. When printed-out, the entry should take-up no more than 4 sides of A4 paper, with all supporting evidence contained within the submission. At the end of your submission, please include full contact information.
NB. No further information or documentation will be considered.
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• | Entries should be emailed to Chris Brown, the CIBSE Patrons co-ordinator, to cbrown@cibse.org
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• | The closing date for entries is Friday 9 February 2007. |
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PhD Studentship at Oxford Brookes - applications still open
There is still time to apply for the full-time EPSRC Case PhD studentship at Oxford Brookes University's School of the Built Environment.
The successful candidate will assess the potential of heat pumps to reduce carbon emissions from UK housing. The studentship is in collaboration with an industrial partner, Ice Energy, which is a distributor of ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems. (Further details about the company are available at: www.iceenergy.co.uk.) This studentship will involve research to assess the potential for heat pumps for different UK house types in a changing climate, and to assess the contribution from heat pumps in meeting both annual domestic heating and cooling demands. The studentship will be supervised by Dr Rajat Gupta, and will be attached to the Architecture Unit in the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD).
This opportunity provides tuition fees and living costs for three and a half years (full-time) for eligible candidates, and the student can register for an MPhil/PhD.
In addition, there is a contribution of £3,000 a year from the industrial sponsor towards travel and training costs of the student.
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• | Discuss the project with contact Dr Rajat Gupta, Email: rgupta@brookes.ac.uk. Tel: 01865 484049. |
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• | Application forms from: Bethanie Cunnick, Research and Postgraduate Administrator. Email: bcunnick@brookes.ac.uk |
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Environmental and sustainability consultants
Arup’s Environmental Consultancy Business is looking for experienced environmental and sustainability consultants to join its London. Post-holders will work on high-profile projects at the corporate level and for design and construction projects.
Applicants should have experience of managing and undertaking sustainability appraisals of projects at the building or masterplan level, and working in multi- disciplinary teams with architects, engineers, property and other professionals on environmental issues. You should also have a good honours degree in a related topic and a relevant qualification to MSc level, and at least associate membership of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment or equivalent.
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• | Visit www.arup.com/europe/careers.cfm for details (job ref: E4669). To apply, send your CV to recruitment@arup.com. Closing date: 22 December 2006. (Please mention Get Sust.) |
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