a flying visit to Belfast

The 6-monthly Project Advisory Board for the multi-university EPSRC/E.ON-funded CALEBRE Project http://www.calebre.org.uk (Consumer-Appealing Low Energy technologies for Buildng REtrofitting) met at Ulster University last week. Having not been to the city for 8 years, I went a day early to re-explore the oh so friendly Belfast with oh so many cars and hardly a bike in this largely flat city.

I started by looking around Queens University which was en fete, it being graduation day in the sun; and then looked up Architecture Professor at Queens, Ruth Morrow. After a good discussion about architectural education she walked me down to O'Donnell Tuomey's beautifully detailed new Lyric Theatre overlooking the Lagan; it was really well built by Gilbert Ash who have nearly finished our sub-zero Master Film Store for the BFI.

Then I met up with John Cole, whose determination to get quality health buildings for Northern Ireland led him to devise what the RIBA later adopted as smart PFI. After supper he drove me to see Penoyre and Prasad's Knockbreda Health Centre; although it was gone 9pm by the time we got there, the Centre Manager welcomed us and showed us around with great enthusiasm - great atmosphere and brilliant views through the atrium back over the centre of Belfast.

The next morning I took the train to Ulster University's Jordanstown Campus, deserted for the summer vacation. The low ceilings and lack of views out made the seemingly endless internal street a daunting experience - not the vital social space that must have been envisioned. Out in the air again, there was the smart new Innovation Centre and the labs where the heat pump and other infernal machines were being tested.

CALEBRE is approaching its final year and so it was really good to see the very varied sub-projects beginnning to join together. The excellent monitoring being done at the Nottingham E.ON house is producing really good evidence of how we might live in lower energy homes, how difficult it is for the local construction industry to retrofit MVHR and much else besides. Then there is a fascinating piece of work identifying personae (how different people react to lower energy homes) and a sequencing tool to help people to decide in what order to retrofit aspects of their homes. I can't wait to introduce Vicky Haines to Russell Smith of Parity Projects, who has approached this problem the other way round. Of course there are other great parts to CALEBRE so watch this space.