Monthly Archives: November 2007

Terminator meets Flushed Away

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Noted on the USA Building Design + Construction Network website recently:

Governor Schwarzenegger recently signed into law Assembly Bill (AB) No. 715, supported by the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute (PMI), that encourages and provides for the gradual conversion to higher efficiency toilets and urinals in California.

Many existing toilets average 1.6 gallons per flush.  High efficiency toilets only use 1.28 gallons per flush, or less; while high efficiency urinals use one-half gallon per flush, or less.  Under the new law, plumbing manufacturers have committed to producing at least half of their toilet models sold in California to be high efficiency by 2010.  By 2014, all toilets and urinals sold in the state will be high efficiency models.  The new high efficiency toilet and urinals will use less water, helping alleviate demands on water agencies in California.

This illustrates the increasingly acute water problems in many areas of the world.

New Preston landmark office building revealed…

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 From the BD website,  (the Architects Website)

Moxon Architects has won an RIBA competition to design a £6 million landmark office building in Preston, Lancashire.

The firm beat CJ Lim’s Studio 8 Architects, Maxwan, Piercy Conner, New York-based Stephen Yablon Architects, and Hamburg’s LH Architekten in the contest.

The winning scheme, Moxon’s biggest win to date, will be four storeys high with a two-storey atrium, and will provide around 4,000sq m of office space.

Director Ben Addy said the unnamed client did not want to release design details until it had gone through pre-planning consultation, but added: “It’s quite bold, it’s got a pronounced expression to it. It’s got unusual cladding and we’re looking to use a material that retains colour as it weathers.

The contest had 50 entrants and was judged by a panel including Urban Splash’s Nick Johnson and architect Ian Simpson.

A quick surf of Moxon Architects website revealed very little about the organisation other than a hard to view portfolio. In fact the news / press section was more than a year out of date.  Something about form and function?

Now thats got Prestonians guessing who, where, what, when ?

Carbon Offsetting not possible in the UK – is this correct?

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Noticed this on the SD Commissions website today –

… However, it is not currently possible to do carbon offsetting in the UK, as this would lead to the double-counting of any reduction in emissions (as all reductions are already claimed by Government in helping to meet our international obligations)…

Is this correct?  This needs to be read in the context of the SD Commission’s view on Carbon Offsetting and Neutrality, but having read the web page a few times I assume this means that the offset projects cannot be UK based?

So planting trees in Scotland or anywhere else in the UK, to absorb/sequester carbon dioxide, or any of the other main greenhouse gases is not available to construction projects looking to offset.  Well there go a few I know off…

Anyone care to clarify or offer an explanation of this?

Construction Carbon Calculator – 3

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National fame for isite

– the isite post on the Environment Agency calculator has been picked up by Building.

Mixed Media Messages

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A mixed bag in the media over the weekend and today…

The Sunday Times launched a four week series on what promises answers to the global warming problems, which seems to be to

wait for Rogers to complete cities of the future,
capture carbons from the air,
geo-engineer solutions in the oceans,
sprinkling iron ocean surfaces , oh,
and build homes of the future that resemble Lost In Space visions of the future 1970’s style

    Meanwhile the Observer investigated 5 carbon calculators – and revealed that a personal footprint can vary from 2.3 tonnes to 28 tonnes – no surprises there!

    And then today in the Guardian – a Guardian survey shows only 48 of the top 100 companies trading on the UK stock exchange have published a plan to address and reduce their carbon emissions and a significant minority refuse even to reveal their carbon footprint. This report contains and interesting comment form Tesco’s Leahy -who predicts that by working with consumers, “we can turn the green movement into a mass movement”.

    Are we about to see a Tescos branded green movement?

    is it greener on the other side of the pond?

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    The USA “Green Buildings Research White Paper,” the fifth in a series of annual reports on green building by Building Design+Construction, provides exclusive data on how building owners, operators, facilities directors, and real estate executives view green buildings—and what they are doing to implement green building. The 60-page report covers corporate office buildings, hospitals, hotels, K-12 schools, college and university facilities, restaurants, and residential development.

    Download here (3.2 MB PDF file) the full report.

    Key findings of where respondents stand on key issues:

    ■ Respondents are still worried about possible higher initial costs for green buildings.
    ■ They’re generally sanguine about the energy savings from green buildings.
    ■ They believe that green buildings may deliver health benefits for occupants.
    ■ They appreciate the marketing and PR bonanza that green buildings often garner.
    ■ They see companies, institutions, and building owners more willing to invest in green buildings today than
    they were just a few years ago.

    Plenty of numbers and data in the report, along with signed statements from sponsors.

    I need to keep asking myself why is it so much easier to access reports like this in the States than here in the UK?

    Women in Construction Events

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    CKE have advised of their North West 2007/8 calendar of events looking at a number of topics including Creating a Positive Business Image, how to Influence Others and dealing with Difficult People

    The next event is on the 15th November 2007 dealing with Motivation and Working with Confidence

    Download the WIC Events Flyer from here

    Transforming Green Building Education

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    Greeenbuild 365 mentioned in the last post, strap line is Transforming Green Building Education

    It is through green building education, outreach, and the sharing of best practices that we will achieve our vision of a sustainable built environment within a generation.

    Greenbuild365 makes this possible by providing green building education that is accessible for all. This learning portal features a Greenbuild conference journal, interactive polling, and streaming videos of visionary speakers…with much more to come. 

    Greenbuild365 is part of the USGBC – the US Green Building Council. It would be good to see similar initiatives from the UK Green Building Council 

    (In fact it would be good to see similar  membership fees and access to both – registration is free in the US,  minimum 0f £300 in the UK, although ft students are free)

    Greenbuild 2007 … USA style

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    I note the details for the mega GreenBuild event in the States on line.  Worth a look to see the scope and scale of the green building movement there.  Take a look for example at the online conference programme

    Of interest is the fact that the  Greenbuild365 website this year that will broadcast live the plenaries and masterspeaker sessions at Greenbuild in Chicago. They will also include a blog, interactive polling and other features during the week.

    This includes opening plenary by Bill Clinton *- watch it live on Nov 7. (early evening UK time)
    * – Another name drop for isite which has name dropped, either in posts or in comments from others,  Gordon Brown, Al Gore, Prince Charles,  Helen Clarke, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair and now Bill Clinton, amongst others – the power of blogging!  Perhaps a prize for a treasure hunt through isite to find these figures and their relevance/ influence on the built environment?

    Enviroment Books – Silent Spring v Walden

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    George Monbiot in his recent Guardian article talks of  what he believes ” is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments”

    I will let you follow the link to find out what the book is, but it did make me think of what the most influential environment peices of literature are, from Silent Spring to Walden to that passage in A Sand County Almanac from Leopold.  And importantly on this ‘built environment’ blog, what have been the most influential for our sector.

    Do the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi count?

    It would be good to start a discussion here, but as blogs are not too hot on generating discussions, so, for those of you on Facebook I will start a discussion group there,  (“poke me” as they say for an invite), with maybe even the top 5 posted here?