UK Designs on Hollywood

Be First have submitted plans to Barking and Dagenham Council’s regeneration organisation to transform a redundant factory site into a UK film study to rival Hollywood. The designs for the Dageham Studios are expected to be considered by the town hall’s planning committee chiefs in July.

Cllr Darren Rodwell, leader of the local authority, said: “This is a crucial stage in our ambition to make Dagenham London’s Hollywood. Our dream of making the area as famous for films as it was for Fords is very much on track.

“The new studios will be a game-changer in bringing thousands of jobs to Dagenham.

“Dagenham is already becoming known as a new hotspot for digital and knowledge-based industries with a huge data centre under construction and the UCL PEARL research centre set to be built just a stone’s throw away from the studios’ site. It’s another sign that Dagenham’s star is rising.”

The plans feature six, large sound stages equivalent to 140,000 sq ft, 85,200 sq ft of offices, and 174,500 sq ft of workshops. The designs have been hailed by Be First as being of a high environmental standard.

Pat Hayes, Be First managing director, said: “Our consultancy team has worked hard to submit exciting plans for what will be the most modern and largest studios to be built in the capital in the last 25 years.

“Given the high demand for studio space in the UK, I am confident that ambitious movie makers, production companies and studio operators will be very attracted by these proposals.”

 

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Adrian Wootton OBE, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, said: “The UK screen industries are enjoying an exceptional boom time and it is crucial that we capitalise on this by continuing to develop our world-class infrastructure and provide access to as much purpose built studio space as we possibly can.

“I am therefore delighted to see the Dagenham studios proposals moving forward so positively with such ambitious and cutting-edge designs that will further bolster London’s studio offer.”

Chris Berry of Lampton Smith Hampton, who have been working with Be First on the film studios project, said the planning application is another step forward in an exciting project, demonstrating the council’s commitment to the sector.

“We are delighted to be associated with it,” he said.

The studios would be built on the former Sanofi site off Rainham Road South.

 

Source: Bexley Times

 

 

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CLIMATE – MATERIAL CHANGES

For decades, as anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and corresponding atmospheric carbon concentrations have risen at an alarming rate, scientists have investigated the capacity of forests, soils, and oceans to act as carbon sinks, vast ecological systems that might absorb, store, and offset the enormous release of carbon dioxide associated with the combustion of fossil fuels. Some scientists have raised concerns about the future durability of such natural carbon sinks given that climate change itself has caused such significant disturbance to those ecosystems.

The creation of human-made carbon sinks has only recently emerged as a potential supplement to natural carbon uptake and storage domains. Although there have been technological proposals and experiments in the field of carbon capture—giant machines designed to draw CO2 from the atmosphere—costs for both the hardware and the durable disposal of the solidified carbon that results from these processes remain prohibitively high relative to the current market value of carbon offsets.

The growth and urbanization of global populations anticipated over the next several decades will create an enormous demand for buildings and infrastructure. As cities expand in size and density, the manufacturing of materials required for constructing mid and high-rise urban buildings will create a significant spike in greenhouse gas emissions, a discharge that takes place at the beginning of each building life cycle. This production stage carbon debt could take precious decades to offset through operational energy efficiencies alone.

Steel and reinforced concrete, the conventional structural materials of the mid- and high-rise cityscape have high production stage emissions and little or no capacity to store carbon.Their inherent advantages of strength and stiffness come at a significant environmental cost. New and emerging material technologies and building assemblies in engineered timber combine significant structural performance with carbon storage capacity and have been adopted by various national building codes. These adaptations have enabled so-called “mass timber” to challenge the dominance of mineral based structural materials in the construction of larger and taller urban buildings.

 

Lapse time video of construction of tall wood building in British Columbia  

A small international and interdisciplinary team of architects, forest and industrial ecologists, social scientists and climate change researchers gathered to consider the possibility of exploiting an anticipated global building boom as a means to mitigate rather than exacerbate climate change. Could the use of bio-based, carbon-storing materials such as timber, bamboo, and other forms of plant cellulose to construct dense urban building landscapes serve as a technique to offset most of the production stage emissions produced by the extraction and manufacture of building components? Could the very material that gives form and structure to those new cityscapes, which we will have to build for 2.3 billion people by 2050, also act as a storage bank for photosynthesized carbon? How much wood would the world need to harvest to meet that demand and what would be the impact to the health of forest ecosystems around the world?

As a consensus among the authors grew, they focused on concerns about the feasibility of sustainable forest harvest at the global scale and weighed a variety of potential mechanisms for the transfer of woody plant material into urban building structures; no options were ignored. (One scientist suggested that building log houses with very low manufacturing CO2 emissions might serve to produce the fewest impacts and the greatest material efficiencies, a proposition quickly vetoed by the architects who argued that log-building would fail to meet both the performance requirements and the construction practicalities of contemporary mid-rise urban building, not to mention that it was unlikely to have cultural appeal for today’s city dwellers.) Debates ebbed and flowed. After months of robust conversation and the exchange of dozens of drafts, the team arrived at the design of a study that would assess—succinctly but as comprehensively as possible within the limits of a single technical paper—the relative potential of major structural materials to either accelerate or mitigate climate change, an approach described in a newly published Nature Sustainability “Perspective”.

The broad-based substitution of engineered timber for steel and concrete in mid-rise urban building offers the opportunity to transform cityscapes from their current status as net sources of greenhouse gas emissions into large scale, human-made carbon sinks. The sheer volume of urban buildings projected for the remainder of the first half of the 21st century suggests that such a scenario could become a powerful tool to mitigate climate change. Construction of timber buildings for more than two billion new urban dwellers from 2020 to 2050 could store 0.01 – 0.68 GtC per year depending on the scenario and the average floor area per capita. Over a period of thirty years, wood-based construction can accumulate 0.25-20 GtC and reduce cumulative emissions of carbon from 4 (7-20) GtC to 2 (0.3-10) GtC.

 

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Such a transition to bio-based building materials, implemented through the adoption of engineered structural timber products and assemblies by the urban building sector, will succeed as a climate mitigation strategy only under two conditions. First, designated “working” forests must be managed and harvested sustainably using techniques appropriate to each forest at the stand level in order to avoid scenarios of forest degradation and soil depletion. Second, the wood from existing and future buildings (the latter specifically designed for ease of disassembly) must be recovered and reused as a raw material resource for consumer product manufacture or the next generation of buildings. In this way, the city and the forest, historically antagonistic landscapes, may begin to work in synergy to help stabilize a climate in crisis.

Galina Churkina, Scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

 

Source: Nature Research

 

 

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Winds of Change

After being relegated to the sea, where we put everything we don’t like, the UK government is reneging on its arrangement to keep the landscape free of giant windmills and is welcoming them back with open arms.

While everyone is on board with the idea of onshore wind farms thanks to the cheap electricity they provide, that support tends to die out when it’s their back garden that they’re being built in. Local campaigners’ protests have meant that onshore wind farm projects have been blocked, but concerns over them being eyesores, or too noisy, are being dismissed to pave the way for more giant windmills.

Apparently, locals’ opinions will still be considered, but to what degree is unknown. Is it better to keep untouched swathe of land that way and build the wind farms in places that are already built up? Or should they be spread about the countryside to avoid contributing to the bristling mass of towers, poles, and buildings that have sprung up around towns and cities?

“After years of campaigning we can finally celebrate the UK’s cheapest new energy source being brought in from the cold,” says pressure group Possible. Environmental groups have been in favour of on shore windfarms, and criticised the government for bowing to campaigners with the opposite viewpoint.

Scottish Power is already jumping on the bandwagon, and is planning to build solar, wind farms and batteries on a single site, to minimised their impact.

 

Source: Gizmodo UK

 

Buildingspecifier comment: The recent evidence of climate change, which seems to get stronger with every passing season, demonstrates the necessity for increasing non fossil fuel production is increasingly urgent.

Would those members of the public who hold the view that the visibility and noise factor of the turbines is aesthetically unacceptable, if forced to choose, prefer HS2 running across their countryside or a wind turbine?

 

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MCALPINE – ZERO EMISSIONS IN FIVE YEARS

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Building and civil engineering company, Sir Robert McAlpine, has set a path to achieving net zero carbon emissions within the next five years.

The commitment came as the company launched a new sustainability strategy for 2020-2024. McAlpine has also targeted realising year on year increases on social value delivered across its operations.

The sustainability strategy aims to have a measurably positive impact on local communities and the environment. Working hand in hand with the supply chain, it tackles the challenge to deliver sustainable construction, operate ethically and address issues known to be underlying causes of climate change.

“As individuals, we are passionate about the work that we do and delivering quality projects for our clients, yet the impact that our industry has on the environment and society cannot be ignored.”

 

 

 

 

–Simon Richards

Head of Sustainability, Sir Robert McAlpine

 

Collective responsibility

“It is collectively our responsibility to address this” continued Richards. “This strategy gives our people and projects a framework to do so proactively and collaboratively with our supply chain partners and the wider construction industry.”

Environmental contractor of the year

The strategy builds on the previous sustainability roadmap, which earned Sir Robert McAlpine the title of “Environmental Contractor of the Year” in 2018. The strategy incorporates lessons learned from employees, projects and supply chain partners. The result is a sustainability framework with the flexibility to allow for targets that are specific and adapted to each project.

The strategy will focus on four key areas:

Becoming net zero carbon – Sir Robert McAlpine is focusing on reducing emissions through carbon reduction initiatives implemented across the business and industry collaborations, resulting in year on year reduction in carbon emissions and achieving net zero carbon emissions within five years. The Carbon Trust will provide third party certification to validate the claims

  • Resource efficiency – year on year reduction of construction waste, maximising resource efficiency and applying circular economy principles in the delivery of projects. Achieved through the implementation of modern methods of construction, modularisation, offsite construction, as well as collaboration across the industry
  • Ethical procurement – increasing the transparency of supply chains to ensure services are ethically sourced, and improving the responsible sourcing of building materials to minimise impact on the environment
  • Social value – year on year increase of social value delivered across the company’s operations. A partnership with the Social Profit Calculator allows the business to set targets, forecast, monitor and improve the social value delivered by each project.

“We all have a role to play. Our strategy emphasises our skills and expertise to take up the challenge and lead on embedding change, making a meaningful, lasting difference.”

 

Source: ThisWeekinFM.com

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BUILD ON FLOOD PLANES? YES BUT…

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The UK’s house building target is often blighted by where to build, as a result a lot of recent housing projects have been developed on or very near to potential flood sites. As the evidence of climate change is being demonstrated more by the actual weather than the experts, flooding will become a far greater problem in the future than the one the UK is currently facing.

We have many villages and cities that have a long heritage with their footings going back centuries. It may well be that in the distant past of their beginnings when roads were nothing more than lanes, the land they laid their cornerstones on was well clear of the flood planes of the river ways that gave them commercial service. However as many of the Scandinavian countries know, the land is not fixed, over centuries it can be viewed as slow motion fluid and what was once out of reach of potential flood waters is now dangerously near.

So are we foolish to continue to build on potential flood planes. The answer would seem to be no and yes. No, if we continue to use the same old tried and tested specification that expects what is considered normal rainfall for the UK, because realistically that normal is quickly changing making our ‘normal’ quick build housing totally unable to cope with even minor flooding, but ‘Yes’ if we adapt to natures wrath and think more of not where we build but what we build.

Wuhan city in China has been in the news recently for reasons that I am sure no one needs reminding of, but in 1931 it headlined for a very different reason. Considered to be one of the worst floods in history, the effects of flooding in Wuhan in wreaked dreadful devastation and took the lives of more than 300,000.

 

The problems began in the spring as river water began pouring into the streets and mingled with effluent disgorged from overflowing sewers. Soon the whole city was permeated by a horrific stench, which only grew worse under the heat of the sun. Rickshaw pullers and other menial workers had to wade through filthy water to earn a living, while customers perched precariously on the awnings. This was one of many inequalities to define experiences of the disaster.

In late July, the dykes that encircled Wuhan collapsed. The water that had been held back now cascaded into the city at terrifying speed. Flood waves scoured whole neighbourhoods from the landscape. Thousands of people living in houses constructed from timber and earth drowned or were buried alive. Those who survived salvaged what they could – a little food, religious artefacts, anything buoyant – and began their search for refuge.

Chinadialogue.net

 

A grim picture indeed, as the century unfolded Wuhan continued to suffer with the rainy season almost guaranteed to produce flooding but in 2015 a project was begun to make 16 Chinese cities, ‘Sponge’ cities and one of them is Wuhan.

“A sponge city is one that can hold, clean, and drain water in a natural way using an ecological approach,” says Kongjian Yu, the dean of Peking University’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, who is helping to coordinate the national project.

Traditionally, Chinese cities handled water well, Yu notes. “But in modern China, we have destroyed those natural systems of ponds, rivers, and wetlands, and replaced them with dams, levees, and tunnels, and now we are suffering from floods.”

Reverse-engineering a city to make it more spongey requires a mental rather than physical shift, he argues. “It’s a whole new philosophy of dealing with water. It is about how we plan and design our cities in an ecological way. Not about piecemeal, manmade engineering projects.

The idea of a sponge city is simple – rather than using concrete to channel away rainwater, you work with nature to absorb, clean and use the water.

“Floods are not enemies,” explains Yu. “We can make friends with floods. We can make friends with water.”

During the dry season, the terrace is a park for residents to enjoy. But during the rainy season it can flood, protecting the city without the need for grey infrastructure like flood walls or dykes.

Not only does this safeguard the city by working with nature, but the water is clean, vegetation can grow and a habitat is created for wildlife.

It’s not just wetlands and restored riverbanks, though. Sponge cities also include green walls and roofs, permeable pavements and green buildings.

CLICK HERE FOR KONGJIAN YU’S VIDEO

 

Many other countries through out the world have experienced flooding to a much greater degree than the UK for a far longer duration, in 2016 writing for The Earthbound Report, Jeremy Williams sited 5 construction resolves that could help to hold back the potential destruction and havoc that water, out of control can deliver.

 

Elevation


This is the oldest and most obvious way to build a flood proof house. If you must build near a river or the sea, just make sure you lift your building above the likely height of the flood waters. There are a number of ways to do that. You can build a house on stilts, a traditional form in many places. You can build it on a raised platform like a beach house, or on a bank of earth or concrete. Larger office buildings might put a sacrificial car park underneath. A treehouse could also fall into this category. Here’s a an elevated house from Thailand and one from New Orleans.

 

 

Floodwalls

Rather than raise your home above the waters, a second common technique is to protect your home or property from the water by building a sturdy and waterproof wall. This can be done to protect whole towns and villages, but there’s no reason why it can’t be done on individual dwellings. Perimeter walls with watertight gates are one approach. You can also incorporate berms and walls into the landscaping, keeping the water out of a whole property or allowing the garden to flood while protecting the house. That’s what engineer Carl Canty did, below left, so his garden can be under three feet of water and his house is still dry. The example on the right is less subtle, but still effective.

 

 

 

Dry floodproofing


If you’re going to let the flood waters reach the walls of your house itself, you might want to make them watertight. This can be done with sealant, or building in a waterproof membrane. Doors and windows will need to be flood proof. Airbricks and utilities entry points can be raised or sealed. Essentially, dry waterproofing is all about keeping the water out of the building. Germany’s Hafencity, which I wrote about recently, uses this approach for properties on the waterfront. Those are some Hafencity storm doors on the right below, and a house in Grand Rapids demonstrating the principle on the left.

 

 

Wet floodproofing

Rather than keeping the water out of a building, an alternative approach is to let it in but minimise the damage it can do: fit a solid floor rather than wood, move power outlets up the wall and ensure that any unmovable furniture is made of a material that can safely take a soaking. Wet floodproofing is often used to retrofit flood-prone properties that the owners can’t sell, which is making the best of a bad situation. Houses built for it are much better, such as the house on the left below which is built to withstand a tsunami, or this waterfront hospital in Boston. Planned with climate change in mind, its lower floor has a swimming pool and non-essential services so that the whole thing can flood without interrupting patient care.

 

 

Floating homes


Second-guessing how far future floodwaters might rise is a dangerous game in an age of climate change. If your house can float, it’s guaranteed to always be above the water. One way to do it is to build on pontoons and have a building that’s always floating. Below is an ice-bound floating development in the Netherlands, which has many examples of waterborne architecture. Amphibious houses are slightly different. They’re on land and only float when there’s a flood.

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UNIONS CLASH WITH CONSTRUCTION TRAINING BOARD

Union leaders have warned that a deal to sell a West Norfolk-based construction training operation could see some of its work shifted out of the borough altogether.

Unite officials have demanded urgent talks with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and West Suffolk College after they announced a deal for the National Construction College (NCC) at Bircham Newton on Friday.

But the CITB has rejected the claim, while council chiefs say they welcome the sale and want to work with the new operator.

The future of the Bircham Newton site has been in doubt ever since the CITB announced plans to move its headquarters to Peterborough in November 2017.

In December, it was revealed that a task group set up to consider future use of the site had not met for 10 months and was not due to do so until around now.

The CITB says it is entering a period of “due diligence” with West Suffolk College over the NCC sale,

They claim the move will ensure that training provision remains in West Norfolk

But Mark Robinson, Unite’s regional co-ordinating officer, said it was unclear whether the deal would protect existing courses or if some of the work currently done at Bircham Newton would be moved to West Suffolk College’s base in Bury St Edmunds.

He said: “This is far from the end of this long running saga and a lot more detail is required before Unite is able to say whether the planned deal is good news for our members.

“It also needs to be established if West Suffolk College will purchase the site or rent it, and, if the latter, for how long such an arrangement will last.

“Our members need to be given a proper timetable of how quickly a sale and transfer will proceed.

“Their lives have been put on hold for two and half years while this sorry saga has rolled along and they deserve closure and certainty about their future.

“Unite will now be seeking urgent meetings with both the CITB and West Suffolk College to get the answers our members deserve.”

West Suffolk College said it was unable to comment on the union’s statement.

But Braden Connolly, CITB director of products and services, said it was envisaged that the college would be tenants of the West Norfolk site.

He said: “Our commitment has always been to preserve the quality and quantity of training provided for the construction industry.

“With West Suffolk College we have found a partner who shares this ambition and hopes to increase the provision at Bircham Newton.

“CITB is treating the ownership of the land as a secondary issue to securing the future of training and employment.”

Vicar, the Rev Peter Cook, who led a local campaign for the CITB’s headquarters to remain at Bircham Newton said he hoped the NCC deal would keep work at Bircham Newton, but echoed the union’s concern about staff being “kept in the dark.”

He said: “There shouldn’t be any reason why they can’t maintain the site. Without it , we’ll lose an awful lot of employment in the area.”

But West Norfolk Council leader Brian Long welcomed the sale announcement.

He said: “We are delighted that CITB are proceeding with more detailed discussions with an approved bidder for taking over the NCC (East) Bircham Newton.

“We hope this will retain an important training facility in West Norfolk along with jobs and potentially ancilliary support workers, which will be very important to the local area.”

“The task group will continue to receive updates while CITB go through their due diligence, and if all goes ahead, we are looking forward to working with the new providers.”

 

Source: Lynn News

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Future Scottish Construction Skills

Meeting the current and future skills needs of employers was the focus of the first Skills Investment Plan for Scotland’s Construction Sector, published four years ago.

In the first of a series of articles highlighting work resulting from the Skills Investment Plan, Emma Dickson of the Construction Scotland Industry Leadership Group offers her perspective on the skills needs of the industry.

From infrastructure to housing to schools and hospitals, the construction sector has a fundamentally important role to play in all of Scotland’s communities.

Our capacity to create the society we want depends in part on our ability to put the building blocks in place, whether that’s the roads and bridges that help drive our economy or the homes that are needed to sustain our cities, towns and villages.

As Chair of the Construction Scotland Industry Leadership Group’s Skills Working Group, I’m aware that skills are a vital component of a healthy and innovative construction sector in Scotland.

It has now been four years since the industry worked in partnership with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to create a Skills Investment Plan for Scotland’s Construction Sector, and since I became Chair of this group I have been impressed at the breadth and variety of work that the plan encompasses.

Many of the themes of the plan speak to my own experiences throughout my career. Attracting future talent must always be a key consideration for employers of all sizes, and I’m reminded of my own experience as a school pupil attending a Women in Engineering course in Aberdeen, which piqued my interest and set me on an exciting career path.

I chose construction because you can play a part in building something. You can see it, you can touch it and you know it’s real. It’s not a desk job – it offers variety, opportunity and travel – and I think that’s what still attracts people today.

However, there is always more to be done to ensure young people have a better understanding of the jobs available – and the sector itself must also work hard on identifying the skills it needs for future growth – another of the Skills Investment Plan’s key themes.

In my workplace, we’ve taken on Foundation Apprentices, offering senior school pupils the chance to gain a qualification through a mixture of valuable work experience and time at college. It’s a great way of helping young people engage with the industry and helps employers by introducing them to young people with different skill sets who will be their workforce of the future.

Modernising training has also been a key theme of the Skills Investment Plan, with the process of designing apprenticeships evolving to ensure that the industry is providing the right level of input and effectively shaping how future generations of new entrants are trained.

In the coming weeks, you’ll see more evidence of how the industry and its partners have taken a joined-up, strategic approach to delivering on the ambition set out in the Skills Investment Plan.

However, as an Industry we cannot be complacent, and there is a lot more to do to attract a more diverse workforce and ensure we develop the skills needed to make the industry efficient and fit for the future.

 

Source: Scottish Construction Now

 

 

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Topped off and sold out with Rapidres Fastrack from Creagh

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It’s a double celebration for SevenCapital this week as the developer, alongside construction partners Colmore Tang and Creagh Concrete, marks the topping out of its St Martin’s Place development – and announces it is now sold out one year ahead of expected completion.

With 228 new one, two and three- bedroom apartments across four blocks of between six and 17 storeys, the development will feature exclusive private residents’ amenities, including cinema room, WiFi lounge and a gym.

 

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The building envelope is now complete, with floors laid across the development and windows fitted to all levels. M&E has been integrated into panels off-site.  The build utlised a total of 3000 precast pieces, manufactured by Creagh at their head office facilities in County Antrim (NI), benefitting the project with six months build betterment against traditional construction methods.
Seamus McKeague Chief Executive of Creagh Concrete added: “This is a proud moment for Creagh. In recent years we have moved from being just a concrete and materials supplier to a specialist subcontractor, which has opened up new opportunities. We are seeing strong interest in our Rapidres Fastrack Build System because developers now understand the true value of slashing programme times. Investors not only benefit from revenue gained by the early occupation of units but, also, from the mobility of their capital resource. Quite simply, shorter build times mean developers can complete more projects with the same pot of finance.”

www.creaghconcrete.co.uk

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The human cost of rapidly rising energy costs

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Life got a little harder for many last year when the last of” the big six” energy firms hiked prices to the maximum (SSE) – hitting customers with an average 10.3% price rise. This has increased the gap between the cost of energy and what people can realistically afford by 9%, worsening the ongoing national issue of inadequately heated homes. Joe Bradbury of buildingspecifier.com discusses the human cost:

 

Back in 2018, annual energy bills for five million vulnerable households increased by up to £47 after the UK industry regulator raised the cap on prices for the second time that year on the back of higher wholesale costs. The rise saw the level of the safeguard tariff rise to £1,136 a year for a typical customer using both electricity and gas. Suppliers cannot currently charge more than the cap but are expected to increase their tariffs to the maximum.

This was the second rise in energy costs in 2018, with all of the big six energy suppliers (and many of the newer challenger firms) raising their prices earlier this year and blaming it on an increase in wholesale costs.

 

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Prior to the second rise, Ofgem naturally attempted to add a positive spin to the increase, saying that the new limit will save UK consumers around £1bn per year. However, the reality is that there are around 4.5 million fuel poor homes in the UK. There are also a further 21 million UK households suffering with poor energy efficiency – below B and C on an Energy Performance Certificate.

Flash forward to the present and see that SSE have become the last of the big six energy firms to hike prices to the maximum allowed under the new cap on standard variable tariffs (SVTs) – hitting customers with an average 10.3% price rise.

These changes make things even harder for those people already struggling to pay bills and push new people into the bracket of fuel poverty, further exacerbating a problem that is currently out of control in Britain today.

What is a fuel poor household?

 

A fuel poor household is roughly defined as one which needs to spend more than 10% of its income on all fuel use and to heat its home to an adequate standard of warmth (21°C in the living room and 18°C in other occupied rooms).

Fuel poverty is a perpetual annual cycle of misery for those affected. In a bid to try and struggle through the winter many tenants resort to either using their central heating sporadically, or using small space heaters instead.

Unfortunately, this often leads to high levels of condensation within a household, where small sections of the house are warm and the surrounding rooms are cold. Where cold air meets warm surfaces is the perfect environment for mould and damp to flourish, leaving poor health implications and damaged property in its wake.

Make no bones about it – fuel poverty is a tragic crisis.

 

How sustainable heating and ventilation solutions can help

 

The only tangible long-term sustainable solution for alleviating fuel poverty would be to establish a properly funded programme to insulate all affected homes and ensure an efficient and up-to-date heating system is installed. Of course, guaranteeing this outcome would require significant investment – estimated at about £1.7 billion per annum over 15 years.

Although such significant investment seems unfeasible, one must consider how fuel poverty can severely affect people’s health because homes are often under-heated.

 

The human cost

 

Fuel poverty puts enormous pressure on hospitals and doctors surgeries across the country. This is not only because of the physical and mental impact of living in a cold home, but also because it can actually extend the period of time a vulnerable patient is kept in hospital, with some actually not being discharged until their home is renovated to habitable state once again.

The impact is estimated to burden the NHS with costs of £1.36 billion per annum.

According to the ‘End Fuel Poverty Coalition,’ there are around 4.5 million fuel poor homes in the UK today. There are also a further 21 million UK households suffering with poor energy efficiency – below B and C on an Energy Performance Certificate.

Evaluations undertaken by both ‘Warm Front’ and ‘the Scottish CHP’ indicated that residents with bedroom temperatures at 21°C are 50% less likely to suffer depression and anxiety than those with temperatures of 15°C.

According to the NHS, keeping warm over the winter months can help prevent colds, flu or more serious health conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia and depression.

Fuel poverty is often thought of as a financial problem, but at best poses several health and wellbeing issues for an affected tenant and at worst claims lives.

According to e3g, England has the second worst record on cold weather-related deaths out of 30 European countries. Figures reveal a staggering 32,000 excess winter deaths in the UK over the last 5 years – with 9,700 each year estimated to be linked to living in cold homes.

It is also a known contributor to the 25,000 excess winter deaths per year in England and Wales. As the ageing population increases, with diminishing pensions so will the health risks and related cost.

Renewable heating systems such as air source heat pumps can immediately help alleviate fuel poverty.

 

In summary

 

The price cap keeps getting bigger, along with the gap between action to deliver warm homes and the apparent ambition to do. Whilst the price hike makes financial sense for energy supplies it has to be a step in the wrong direction for society. Everybody has the right to a warm home and we have the technology at our disposal to provide that. Let’s get to work removing the financial and political constraints that are currently keeping people in the cold… and let’s do it quick because it’s still cold out!

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Trump says no more to Brutalist Architecture, Perhaps Imperialist Rome is more his style

Projects by HOK, Arquitectonica and Morphosis have been singled out for criticism in president Trump’s draft executive order for federal buildings, which would outlaw brutalist and deconstructivist styles if it becomes law.

The draft of the Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again executive order highlights three federal buildings completed in the last 20 years as examples of those with “little aesthetic appeal”.

They are the San Francisco Federal Building completed in 2007 by architecture firm Morphosis, Downtown Miami’s Wilkie D Ferguson Courthouse by Arquitectonica and HOK completed in 2007, and the Austin US Courthouse completed by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in 2012.

The document states that “serious consideration” should be given to redesigning buildings that don’t meet with requirements, where it would be “feasible and not uneconomical”. It alleges that “the federal government has largely stopped building beautiful buildings that the American people want to look at or work in”.

 

Some of the modernist architecture to come under fire in the report:

San Francisco Federal  Building                           Arquitectonica’s Wilkie D Ferguson                      Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Building

by Morphosis                                                          Courthouse in Miami                                               Architects’ Austin Federal

                                                                                                                                                                       Courthouse

None of the firms mentioned in the order has so far responded to Dezeen’s requests for comment.

Arquitectonica’s Wilkie D Ferguson Courthouse in Miami is also scrutinised in the draft executive order. Photo by Robin Hill

Revealed last week, Trump’s plans for the executive order calls for all federal buildings to be completed in the “classical architectural style”, whether newly built or renovations of existing structures.

The draft states that more recent structures are considered “uninspiring… and even just plain ugly” by the public and forbids those that take cues from the style of two key modern architectural movements, brutalism and deconstructivism.

Brutalist and deconstructivist styles “fail to satisfy” requirements

“Architectural designs in the Brutalist and Deconstructivist styles, and the styles derived from them, fail to satisfy these requirements and shall not be used,” the document states.

Brutalism, one of the 20th century’s most controversial architectural styles, is recognisable by its modular and monolithic forms and concrete structures.

The style was used by well-known 20th-century architects, like Marcel Breuer and Le Corbusier, and has become celebrated recently. A number of brutalist projects have been granted protected status, while others, like Boston City Hall, have been preserved and renovated.

Deconstructivism grew in the late 1980s out of postmodernism. The work of architects like Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind is often described as influenced by the style.

Draft order calls for classical architecture

The draft order states that the style is known for “fragmentation, disorder, discontinuity, distortion, skewed geometry, and the appearance of instability”.

Trump’s Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again order instead calls for classical architecture to be “the preferred and default style”. As defined in the draft, this is architecture derived from the forms and principles of classical Greek and Roman architecture.

“Architectural styles – with special regard for the classical architectural style – that value beauty, respect, regional architecture heritage, and command admiration by the public are the preferred styles for applicable Federal buildings,” the order states.

Trump’s document also mentions Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects’ Austin Federal Courthouse in Texas. Photo by Billy Hathorn

Approved examples are mostly located in Washington DC and date back to the mid-1800s, such as the neoclassical Treasury Department and Eisenhower Executive Office Building with its French Second Empire architectural style.

Tuscaloosa Federal Courthouse in Alabama, built in 2010 by Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Architects, and the Lincoln Memorial from 1922 are also highlighted in the order as beautiful buildings.

1962 Guiding Principles would be nullified

“The Founding Fathers attached great importance to Federal architecture,” the draft states.  “President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modelled the most important buildings in Washington DC on the classical architecture of democratic Athens and republican Rome.”

“They wanted America’s public buildings to physically symbolise our then-new nation’s self-governing ideals,” it continues. “Washington and Jefferson, both amateur architects, personally oversaw the competitions to design the Capitol Building and the White House.”

If issued, Trump’s order would nullify the 1962 Guiding Principles bill currently applied to federal buildings. These guidelines, written by New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan for president John F Kennedy, calls for the “finest contemporary American architectural thought”.

“The Guiding Principles implicitly discouraged classical and other designs known for their beauty, and declared that design must flow from the architectural profession’s reigning orthodoxy to the Federal government,” the draft order states.

American Institute of Architects opposes the proposal

The news of the order has triggered an outcry within the architecture profession, with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) creating an online petition to oppose the plan.

British journalist Phineas Harper, who is the deputy director of the Architecture Foundation, warned that it was the latest example of traditional architecture being used to disguise racist agendas in an opinion column for Dezeen.

The revised Guiding Principles is still in draft form and has not yet been signed by Trump to bring it into effect.

The title of the executive order is a riff off Trump’s campaign slogan Make America Great Again (MAGA) popularised during the 2016 presidential election.

If issued, a committee called the Committee for the Re-Beautification of Federal Architecture would be created to implement the new guidelines.

 

Source: Dezeen

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