The latest report from the EA (The Environment Agency Science Report – The economic and environmental benefits of resource efficiency in construction ) calls for better resource management in construction. For this to happen, the report recommends Continue reading
SLengineer has changed its name to Grid Works with its latest issue to reflect the magazine’s goal of documenting and reporting how companies and people are using online services and tools to support and enhance their work in engineering and science related fields. Available as pdf here
in this issue:
Walking into the Map – David Rumsey shares his extensive map collection with residents of Second Life
TEEX Bridge Tour – the Texas Engineering Extension brings real life bridge maintenance training to Second Life
Cement Company LSmidth builds a virtual cement plant as an aid for real life recruitment
and how Implenia, Switzerland’s largest construction and building services provider, conceived and developed the virtual worlds communication interface (VWCI)— a tool for monitoring common building automation systems
This is an excellent communication example of how Second Life can be and is relevant to RL businesses, education and general learning / sharing improvements, and pleased that I (and isite) have been co-opted ‘on to the staff’ for future issues of the GridWorks, hopefully bringing an international, well UK view. Watch this space.
What can we learn from the fact that bidders are pulling out of the next carbon-challenge project at Peterborough? (Shortlisted bidders flee from EP flagship project)
Could it be English Partnerships are using a traditional, cost based procurement route? Even with PQQ and other ability or capability ‘gates’ selection may still be based on cost. This could lead to the all too familiar high price of low cost syndrome, but as long as cost remains the main selection paradigm we are not going to think differently about sustainability, carbon zero, social responsibility and all things green.
What an opportunity we are missing. Eco challenge projects must do the same for our industry as Building Down Barriers did for partnering, collaboration and supply chain management a decade or so ago.
Why cannot the builders, designers and others be selected on improvement criteria (- ability and solutions in reducing carbons to zero, in design and in the construction process) and of improvement in cost – yes reducing cost at the same time through waste and improvement initiatives.
The oft quoted 30% waste (time, materials, energy, value, effort) in construction could more than pay for carbon zero and sustainability improvements.
We have a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate and to learn that we can get close to zero carbon, level 6 and all that without adding costs to the overall project – if combined with basic and proven improvement approaches.
The alternative? continue with business as usual from a construction perspective, with the exception of integrating some natty designs and product solutions, and continue to moan about the costs …
school things on my radar this weekend…
In May the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club will be held at Devonshire School, Blackpool an exemplar school that is a significant step forward in the design of learning environments for young children. Details of the event and site visit will be posted on the Events pages very soon
but … Building schools for the future is far too slow …. says the the NASUWT
Almost half of all teachers work in schools where water drips from the ceilings and windows do not fit properly, a study by the NASUWT concludes. A third complained of damp and slippery corridors, while one in five said lighting was poorly maintained. Most said they had to work in excessively hot or cold conditions and 30 per cent did not have easy access to drinking water.
Source: Scandal of Britain’s Crumbling Schools
What happened when Bright Green, an innovative green recruitment organisation brought together leaders from Britain’s top construction firms, sustainability consultancies, schools think-tanks with Kit Rogers, a teacher at Priestlands Secondary School, Hampshire, to discuss sustainability issues in schools?
Source: The Green School Dinner
As I have been developing an exciting project in Second Life recently, collaborating in-world (as they say) with people across the US, in the UK, Switzerland and elsewhere – but more on that later – the emerging virtual world collaboration concepts have been rattling around my brain, emails and blogs that I read.
Whilst I bemoaned the fact that Eco-Build event had no real virtual presence, it was good to note Phils push for the virtual Sustainability Now event (now moved to 1 and 2 July).
I haven’t given enough time to the Think on line forum – it didn’t really take off for me, but I sense that may be addressed through the Think08 event (where hopefully there will be more, and parallel online content)
In what must be a classic oxymoron – the Virtual Worlds conference in New York in April would appear not to be availble online!
An email from Howard Lictman at TelepresenceOptions intrigued me with the expression ‘keeping people off planes and improving collaboration” I guess here in the UK that would translate to ‘keeping people off the roads and improving collaboration” which is always a good thing. (Telepresence is a conferencing technology where participants feel as if they are in the same physical space.)
Howards fascinating paper: ‘Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light’ can be downloaded here
Facebook is too bloated now for effective collaboration – other than shallow social fun.
Finally there is a debate within LinkedIn discussing where the best Live Community collaborations are to be found – Second Life, Facebook, or elsewhere. Maybe the answer to that is within the blogging community?
For an excellent and refreshing read of a collaborative project that is aligned to and sensitive to nature, read the the account of the new fishing store development at LL Bean (an old haunt of mine when living in New England many years back) on the Building Design and Construction website
To reinforce that we cannot address sustainability, carbon reduction and waste management from a hearts and minds, save the planet for future generations, common sense point of view and approach, JCT have started a consultation process as to which sustainability items should be made contractual within JCT forms of contract, as in legally binding commitments.
Details are on the JCT site
One of the consultation questions allows you to choose from a list of themes you would like seen as a contractual issue (see below), which gives a pretty good indication of what JCT is thinking.
Would the sustainability contract be with client and contractor, or all, as per the JCT Constructing Excellence Collaborative Contract (one would hope!). Or following a growing school of thought that that the earth should have ‘legal status’, hence with the earth itself?
Which would you like to see as a contractual clause:
| Carbon emissions associated with construction process |
| Carbon emissions associated with the end use of the ‘project’ |
| Commercial vehicle movements |
| Consumption of energy during construction process |
| Consumption of energy associated with the end use of the ‘project’ |
| Consumption of water during construction process |
| Consumption of water associated with the end use of the ‘project’ |
| Economic sustainability in construction supply chain |
| Maintenance or optimisation of biodiversity |
| Origin of construction materials |
| Waste management in construction process |
| Waste management associated with the end use of the ‘project’ |
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) recently launched “Walk the Walk,” , a multi-faceted campaign to educate, promote and encourage sustainable design among consumers, business owners and architects.
(It is a pity they don’t include builders, fm and end users in that list. Sustainability is a collaboartive approach, across all project and facilities stakeholders.)
Walk the walk is rich in resource, including:
A sustainability resource center for practitioners. The Walk the Walk Toolkit 2030 highlighting green building issues and provides samples of effective ordinance language for communities, as well as examples of what others are already doing to pursue green building programs. A 50to50 how-to resource intended to assist architects and the construction industry in moving toward the AIA’s public goal of a minimum 50 percent reduction of fossil fuel consumption in buildings by 2010 and carbon neutrality by 2030.
I found the Sustainability 2030 Green Meeting Guidelines , a resource to help reduce the environmental impact of meetings and events and the Measures of Sustainability (PDF) overview of interest.
Most of the resources seems to be available to all, for which the AIA is to be commended.
A visit to the RIBA site brings up an equal wealth of resource at Climate Change including the useful Guide to Low Carbon Standards and Assessment Methods, an overview of recommended low carbon performance standards and associated assessment methods for new and existing buildings.
Of particualr note however is the RIBA’s adoption of Contraction and Convergence, within its Climate Change Policy
(Contraction and Convergence is the science-based, global climate-policy framework, proposed to the United Nations since 1990 by the Global Commons Institute, itinvolves a globally balanced approach to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations at safe levels, consistent with the aspirations of different communities to development and quality of life.)
The RIBA has adopted Contraction and Convergence as the overarching policy to guide its targets for the reduction of GHG emissions associated with the use of energy in buildings.
So plenty of resources out there, all good stuff, but really does need that walk the walk, the changing of mindset, the rethinking and the collaboratives approach. The AIA’s Walk the Walk is a step in the right direction – we need a similar ‘outreach’ programme here. How many architects here would be aware of C and C for example and how that can be applied to everyday design.
Worldchanging suggested in a recent post a collaborative institute with classes for every city (US) to
… offer education and examples about urban design fundamentals – what makes a public (space) work, what makes a street pedestrian-friendly, what makes a neighborhood livable – to those who are actually zoning, approving, building, and planning our cities … Not only would it breed better design, but since these classes would be collaborative, it could help to reduce the ‘silo’ mentality that is still pervasive in local governments.
The proposal also suggests that only the members of the ‘institutes’ and the ‘classes’ run are shortlisted to tender for city infrastructure or facilities work.
An excellent idea, but perhaps better approached by addressing hearts and minds so that we work collaboratively anyway by nature (rather than the opposite at the moment) . This needs the principles of integration to be a key part of built environment education.
The notion of making this a prequal issue is again excellent – understanding how a particular city, town or region works is essential in delivering requirements, and would move to a more local supply base for design, construction and fm. A benefit aligned to Community Based FM (CBfM) and the Transition Towns approaches. (raised on isite before)
An approach our (UK) local authorities and councils should consider perhaps. Add in the merton rule to the equation – ie understanding the local specific onsite renewable energy requirements and opportunites – and this could be a powerful way forward.
Alex Steffen over at Worldchanging posts an interesting comment on the future usability, flexibility and appropriateness of facilities designed by ego -starchitects. Alex calls for : An open architecture, an architecture which asks a question of the future — how does our inspiration today serve your needs tomorrow?
(This question of inspirations today meeting the needs of tomorrow is being raised on many public PFI facilities at the moment, withing education and health for example. (Are we really building schools for the future)
A global, and virtual, open source architecture movement is gathering momentum within second life (wikitecture) and the open architecture network amongst other places.
And of course this all comes back to real integrated and collaborative working across the whole facilities and project players, stakeholders and end users. (see studio wikitecture concept for a nice approach to integration and collaboration)
Fairsnape 
