Author Archives: martin brown

3DCamp

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Suddenly find myself with the possibility of speaking about our second life activities on the Public Works Island and International Eco Code Park at the 3DCamp in Limerick on the 24th May.

By a coincidence I will be travelling through Limerick that day. The event will be live within second life, through twitter with questions to speakers via tweets. A right old mash up !!

so what is it?

3Dcamp is a themed Barcamp which will focus on virtual worlds (Second Life, the Metaverse), mirror worlds (Google Earth and Virtual Earth), mapping mashups, GPS, Location based Services (LBSs), haptics (eg. Wiimote hacks), 3D modelling (Blender, Sketchup) and all things 3D. Essentially the internet beyond the 2D browser.

Everybody is welcome, from users to entrepreneurs, developers, interaction designers, sociologists, artists and business people. More details to follow…

When: Saturday 24th May 2008
Where: Engineering Research Building, University of Limerick
Start & Finish: 10am start, 5pm’ish finish

on the zero carbon house

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Barratt Developments has unveiled what it calls the first zero-carbon house developed by a volume housebuilder, built at the Buildings Research Establishment in Watford, packed with the latest technology, including solar panels, rainwater harvesting and an air source heat pump.

Its new kind of concrete walls and floors, combined with super insulation and triple-glazed windows, means its heat requirement will be minimal as it is airtight. Fresh air is brought into the building through a heat exchanger, which extracts the heat from outgoing stale air and puts it back into the house.

Mark Clare, chief executive of Barratt, said it would not be easy to reduce the cost of the prototype to commercial levels but he was confident it could be done. The important thing, he added, was to build houses that people would buy.

The public and builders still need to be convinced, according to the NHBC Foundation report, and it would seem todays kids – who will buy the homes – Kids dream homes – whose dream homes aren’t high on eco features.

The UK Green Building Council released a report this week defining what a zero-carbon house should be in practice. This is likely to form the basis of the legislation that the government is soon going to work on.

Housebuilders had been unhappy at the costs of going zero carbon and had wanted to be able to invest in off-site renewable energy such as wind turbines that would be cheaper for them. But the government is likely to endorse the GBC proposals that a zero-carbon house should produce almost all its energy on site or very near by in, say, a communal heat and power system.

Barratt plans rolling out its zero-carbon homes on the site of Hanham Hall hospital near Bristol. It will build 200 of them, a third of which will be affordable to lower-income buyers. All will be code level six and will completed in 2011, five years ahead of the deadline.

Source

a guide to zero carbon homes

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Zero carbon homes in 100 words.

The UK Green Building Council released a report this week defining what a zero-carbon house should be in practice. Download from here

Still to read in detail but on first read appears to be a welcomed, considered and helpful guide, with a time-line to help organisations on a route to zero.

There would however appear to be little focus on the construction process, the actual building of zero carbon homes, (an estimated 3-4 years or 11% of the total carbons in the homes life cycle). This is the one issue we desperately need to address, to get buy in from builders. Many of whom may look at this and conclude it has nothing to do with them – other than install or assemble different bits of eco kit and / or materials. For example, construction waste, construction site impacts and considerate contractors scheme – all part of the Code 6 requirements isnt mentioned within the guide. (Site waste management planning is mandatory)

Others, and I know fellow bloggers will, soon comment on the renewable energy and technology aspect of the guide… watch this space…

Finally (for now) I hope that this definition is the same in the soon to be released UK Construction Strategy for Sustainability !!

constructing excellence to restructure?

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Paul at ExtranetEvolution carries the news that Constructing Excellence is to restructure, maybe even downsize to focus on delivering value to membership.

Constructing Excellence has announced an organisational restructure to enable a sharper focus on its core business of delivering value to its membership.

Over the last two years, Constructing Excellence has moved from its original Government grant funding to the leading industry membership body devoted to industry improvement. Throughout this transition period it has also won commercially-funded work and other government commissions. Following a review of the mission and objectives of the organisation, the Board of Constructing Excellence agreed that a clearer focus on membership was needed and that the emphasis of future work must be on our core business of performance measurement and knowledge sharing.

Chairman Bob White said: “At CE, we are committed to improving industry performance through working with our members who come from the entire built environment supply chain including clients. We have become increasingly aware during our transition period that performance measurement and demonstration is the vital ingredient to further industry improvement. However, it would be fair to say that, in our transition from government grant funding, some of the diversification into commercial areas such as ad hoc commissions or consultancy has proved an obstacle to focusing on our core mission.”

Don Ward, Chief Executive of Constructing Excellence, added: “The starting point for our members is a conviction that integration and collaborative working is the foundation for industry change. Measurement and demonstration are how we best add value in this regard, and the restructure will enable us to deliver these better.”

Like Paul I have been involved with Constructing Excellence from Design Build Foundation, Movement for Innovation and BE. Circumstances (not having an employer anymore to pay my time for involvement) mean my involvement is limited to the Collaborative Working Champions group and the local Lancashire Best Practice Club.  I do sense though that the initial aims – based soundly on the Egan report, may have run their day and been lost in a now wider scope of CE, and as Don says – time to refocus on the key themes of collaboration and integration, themes that are essential to the success of all industry initiatives – including sustainability.

We will have to await what the changes will bring – but hope for a stronger CE, a CE to support the grass roots of the industry, to move forward to address the challenges of the the next ten years.

Which ties in nicely with the survey for your views on the next ten years – rethinking constructing ten years after

rethinking construction – ten years after

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From Constructing Excellence:

Reviewing change in the UK construction industry and the next ten years, your chance to shape the future of the industry by learning from the past

CE are reviewing the last ten years of improvement and its impact, kick-started by John Egan‘s landmark report – Rethinking Construction – and before that the Latham Report – Constructing the Team, llooking forward to the next ten years as well, and seek your views as an opinion former in the UK construction sector.  Looking for your views, on how the projects you work on have changed over the last decade or so and what you think the drivers for change are, or should be, for the future.

We aim to discover what has been achieved; who has benefited, and how; and what now needs to change. Our findings will form part of the basis for a major new industry report which seeks to set the agenda for the next ten years, so in completing this survey you will be helping to set the future agenda. The survey can be found at: http://www.constructingexcellence.org.uk/survey/EganPlus10.jsp

You can register at the end of the survey to receive a copy of the report, so you can see how its findings may affect you and your company in the future. Thank you in advance for your help, in enabling us to continue the process of improvement essential for the future prosperity of the UK built environment sector.

revolutionary wind turbines

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Selsam is flying wind-turbines for maximum power. It’s like a kite, only with giant spinning blades. Looks so scifi …. resembling a field of wind-swept reeds swaying on the horizon

Source: twitter from inhabitat

kits and mortars

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Fresh approach to blogging at Kits and Mortar. Follow Suw & Kevin Charman-Anderson as they learn about building an eco- and cat-friendly house. They have no land, and no budget, just a healthy obsession with building their own home… and trying to do so through blogging.

smart building technology through second life

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Oliver Goh, Business Development Manager, Implenia presented through second life on the topic of smart building management through second life.

Controlling buildings through virtual worlds – no investment required by the client or customer, Implemia use second life as a cost effective approach to managing their buildings on behalf of their customers

This has been written up previously within The Grid Works

on greening existing buildings

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Within a month of the release date for the UK Construction Sustainability Strategy ( due 11 June) we see another initiative announcement from government:

a parliamentary enquiry into the greening of existing offices, shops and warehouses, aimed at providing industry leaders and public figures the opportunity to contribute evidence that will go into the final report of the All Party Urban Development Group, which will cover what ministers, city leaders and property owners and occupiers need to do to reduce the environmental impact of commercial property.

Key issues are likely to be the lack of clear guidance over standards and the lack of information on costs and benefits of the various available schemes. It is expected that business leaders will call for clearer definitions and evidence on the financial impact of green agendas.

Attention to existing building stock – domestic and non domestic is urgently required so this enquiry is more than welcome, I just hope when the CSS arrives it joins together all the jigsaw initiative pieces.

whats wrong with this picture

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Welcome to Sherford, the Prince of Wales’s south Devon ecotown for 12,000 people, which has recently been granted planning permission. With a typical car based high street.

I read recently if you take the basic elements of a sustainable community – living, shopping, working, leisure etc and move them outside of the walk zone, then you have to stitch the community back together with the car. And once you have done that, the elements can be anywhere and everywhere, and you no longer have a sustainable community.