Sustainability Talk: Passivhaus - what's the hold up?

Last week Cullinan Studio asked an expert panel to discuss Passivhaus for our monthly Sustainability Talk. The main question of the night was - what's the hold up? Why has the UK not quite embraced the system as readily as our continental cousins? Our panel argued that digging a little deeper into the issue reveals there a number of misconceptions about Passivhaus to be blamed for stalling its popularity.

Architect Justin Bere refuted the common argument that Passivhaus means a sentence to architectural banality. Bere suggested it's more useful to see Passivhaus as a tool to ensure quality and comfort rather than a stringent aesthetic style. In the face of the extra costs associated with the system, he called upon some research his practice has been involved in, which demonstrates the capacity of Passivhaus to reduce whole life costs (with the caveat of an economic context of low to middle interest rates).

Justin Bere of Bere Architects

Also addressed by Bere were common misconceptions about MVHR interfering with relative humidity. He cited performance feedback which showed MVHR to consistently enable optimum relative humidity levels of 30-60%. As for the question of whether UK builders are up to the challenges of building Passivhaus, Bere believes the architect  can go some way to help. From ensuring the detailing rigour starts at their drawings, to choosing specifications that harmonise with the system (for example specifying window fixing that required predrilled holes) and appointing an "airtightness champion" on-site.

Will South, of Passivhaus specialist consultants Cocreate, agreed, saying that the architect should be willing to teach the contractor. He also advocates Passivhaus courses for the whole team, including the client: the fact is that even well-designed Passivhaus buildings are overheating, so its as much about education as design.  He believes that Building Control represents the minimum standard - this "bottom" isn't where we want to be: longevity and quality are more readily on offer with Passivhaus. In this way, Passivhaus is as much about quality assurance as it about comfort, of course through meticulous detailing. In response to the issue raised that the airtightness values required are excessively low, South conceeded this is a case of overdesign, but doing so to allow for the building to change and grow without adversely affecting the whole system.

Will South from Cocreate

Ivan Christmas, Senior Development Manager at the London Borough of Camden, has been at the helm of what is currently the UK's largest residential Passivhaus project: Chester Balmore, in Highgate New Town. The project only began to aim for Passivhaus certification at tender when contractors Willmott Dixon were brought on board, demonstrating that the system can be designed in at a later stage. Bear in mind this change did also mean a change in architect (from competition winners Rick Mather Architects to specialists Architype) in order to achieve the redefined design goals. Both Christmas and Ben Shuster of Willmott Dixon pointed out the project's fanned bays and adherence to conservation constraints show that a real design dialogue has been allowed to take place - unaffected by Passivhaus requirements.

Chester Balmore in Camden - currently on site

It was particularly useful to have wisdom shared from the perspective of several members of the team that would be responsible for delivering a certified building - the architect, client, contractor and specialist consultant. As the evening devolved into Q&A, it was clear that although achieving the full certification may be a stretch, even with some deviation, Passivhaus is definitely a better baseline to leap from. The real hold up lies in practicing the balancing act of rigourous Passivhaus detailing and wider architectural design choices.

AJ Footprint Live conference: The Green Rethink

On Tuesday Johnny Winter and I attended the inaugural AJ Footprint Live conference, promisingly entitled ‘The Green Rethink’. Keynote speakers Sir Terry Farrell and Dr Ken Yeang began each half by offering their vision of a sustainable built environment. Farrell paired sustainability with ‘urbiculture’, placing the city at the heart of sustainable development so long as it is developed holistically and diversely, particularly encouraging an active and vibrant ground plane (citing Darwin’s ‘tangled bank’ and Jane Jacobs’ notion ‘organised complexity’). 

Yeang, a well-known purveyor of the literal greening of the built environment, underlined we must “rethink our relationship with nature”. He suggested that the next generation of green buildings must: be better integrated with nature, function as a living system, repair wider fragmented landscape and enlist natural processes for systems such as closed loop water drainage.

The Green Rethink's first panel of the day

Some of the ideas and studies presented were already well worn, and packed panels did mean several sessions were too short to fully relate enough detailed information. For example The Technical Briefing panel crammed in the upcoming Part L revisions, Soft Landings and the issue of closing the building performance gap. Although this left almost no window in which to debate how this really feeds back into improving good practice, an interesting provocation was made by Roderic Bunn of BSRIA, in the suggestion that Part L should demand certain compliance within building operation.

The tight schedule was, however, studded with moments of inspiration. Patrick Bellew’s list of top green innovations to keep an eye out for was certainly compelling: electro-chromic glass, entrepreneurial energy storage, smarter green facades and joined up systems on site (e.g. the smart use of waste for power in Gardens by the Bay).

A few interesting points were also made in the panel entitled on ‘More Homes, Better Homes’. Alison Brooks hit the nail on the head by urging a renewed focus on the suburbs, using Newhall Be as a case study. Nick Raynsford MP noted that although mass house builders have shown improvement in recent years, the only way to sustainably solve the housing crisis with the immediacy required is through increased public spending.



Alison Brooks Architects - Newhall Be

Other case studies worth picking out included Architectes Associés work, which demonstrates the large scale potential of Passivhaus with their office and mixed-use projects in Belgium. Cloud 9's Media ICT project in Barcelona, effervescently presented by Enric Ruiz-Geli, has shown the great potential of “dealing in particles” in building façade technology (case in point below: nitrogen mist turning glass to translucent walls to prevent solar gain). The fact that these sorts of projects seem to thrive better on the continent suggests the UK planning system and construction industry must play some innovation catch-up!

Cloud 9 - Media ICT, Barcelona

Happold Lecture Take 2

Friday saw Robin Nicholson reprise his CIC Ted Happold Medal Lecture for Cullinan Studio and guests during a wine and cheese evening at Cullinans' canal-side office. Speeding through the last 25 years of the construction industry, Robin's lecture hinged on his experience of various landmark construction industry reports, taskforces and forums.
 

Throughout the talk, a common theme picked out by Robin was an increasing change of bias evident in each report, shifting towards a focus on the client and end user. This goes hand-in-hand with the more socially-driven agenda that has emerged at the forefront of sustainable practice.

 

 

For Robin, the 1994 Latham Report ('Constructing the Team') signalled the first time members of the construction industry created a "public interest manifesto", rather than a self-serving industry report. Four years later, the "industry-shaking" Egan Report ('Rethinking Construction') championed the concept of demonstration projects in order to better assimilate lessons learnt throughout the construction process - another move in favour of client and user. As well as this, Robin described the Egan Report as a significant "early stumbling" into sustainability. How much these projects realistically impacted upon future good practice is up for debate, however they made clear the complexity of true change in the industry.

But Robin maintains the future should be bright. From the optimistic Paul Morrell notion that "design is free if there is a 10% building performance improvement", to the presence of think tanks such as EDGE which continue to debate industry progress and direction , to the smartening of practice through BIM, its clear that attitudes are evolving. Success and sustainability will lie in properly seeing concepts through in practice - in Robin's words "now we just need to do it!"



Further reading:

- The Carbon Tracker Initiative's report "Unburnable Carbon 2013" which few audience members had come across.

- Zero Carbon Britain 2013 report: Robin noted that the Zero Carbon Britain launch had a very poor representation from the construction industry.

- EDGE 2013 report

 

 

Nairn's London

Joining us for lunch last Friday, Gillian Darley mentioned her new book about Ian Nairn - 'author of Nairn's London, the OUTRAGE series in the AR and more - you have probably never heard of him'. If you hadn't clearly others have as you can pay £264.94 on Amazon for a copy. I picked up mine for a pound in Hitchin in 1985 and found it an eye-opening prompt to take me exploring bits of London I might have missed. The overriding message which holds as true today as in 1966 is it doesn't matter what a building is like as long as it's good. Hence his inclusion of Owen Luder's newly completed Brutalist eyesore Eros House in Catford - 'This most craggy and uncompromising of new London buildings turns out to be full of firm gentleness' - alongside The Paragon at Blackheath - 'perfect urbanity meeting perfect rurality head-on' - alongside S.S.Teulon's St Mark's Silvertown - 'an architectural imagination the size of Blake's - it must be kept'.  It was and is now the home of Brick Lane Music Hall.
Incidentally, the freehold for Eros House is up for sale for £10,000.

The Happold Lecture 2013

Last night, Robin Nicholson became the ninth recipient of the prestigious Happold Medal.

The Medal was awarded jointly by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the Happold Trust. Robin received the Medal after delivering the Happold Medal Lecture 2013, entitled 'Collective responsibility for a sustainable industry'.

The Happold Medal Lectures form an occasional series of groundbreaking lectures on a wide array of topics, with a focus on sustainable development. They are in memory of CIC's founding Chairman and visionary engineer, Sir Edmund (Ted) Happold.

The 2013 Medal was designed by Kenneth Grange.

DIY Sedum

A few years back when we were installing the huge sloping sedum roof at the International Digital Laboratory at the University of Warwick, I thought it was time to green the two modest flat roofs at home – 10 m² over the rear extension and 4m² over the ground floor loo.  The internet offered me two opportunities - a supplier in a garden centre in Kentish Town, who when I visited had stopped the previous week, and an on-line source that drove me so mad I gave up. 

International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick

So imagine my delight when, in the recent post-holiday autumn lull, I found a whole host of sites offering DIY sedum.  Three days later a van from Q Lawns of Thetford arrived with 14m² of roofing and three hours after that it was laid – a separating layer of polythene, a springy lightweight drainage layer, a heavy felt and then the sedum itself more or less attached to another layer of felt.  The sedum came in 1200mm squares so I was grateful for my son Sol’s help carrying it up the stairs and laying it.

stacked in the hall

laying the felt

It’s not necessary but it should protect the asphalt from the sun and it does need the occasional weed but it is a delight to look out of the bedroom and landing windows at our DIY sedum.

A day in Rio

When I was invited to go to Rio de Janeiro for the day I parked my 'we must stop flying' conscience and jumped at the opportunity, the only downside being that I would have only arrived in São Paulo the previous day.  Picked up at 6.00 to drive to the delightful inner city airport where you were treated like a human being. 

We had arrived the previous day in thick fog and drove into town through a dystopian traffic- jammed nightmare; but today there was not a cloud in the sky; so flying out over central São Paulo, it was difficult to believe the number of tight packed towers that have sprung up like thistles do, everywhere, as far as the eye can see with remnants of the old city left in the interstices.

By contrast, flying into the fabulous inner city airport of Rio banking left so you see the whole city centre before you shudder to a halt before tipping into the water - I know it's been done before but so exciting.  Then off to Studio X in what's left of Praça Tiradentes; that is 'Teeth-pulling' in memory of an 18th century Brazilian dentist who led an insurrection against the Portuguese who cut his head cut off and displayed it there. Dentistry is what the City Heritage team under Washington Fajardo are trying to do to save the remaining facades even though many of the buildings behind have collapsed and then encouraging rebuilding behind. 

Praça Tiradentes

Studio X  is a collaboration between the City and Colombia University and run by a great local team - two architects and one cultural producer - who have inserted a steel and timber climbing frame of connected spaces to fit the original facades.  There was a great cycling exhibition and another on 6 projects in Chile.

Pedro Riviera, Junia Santa Rosa, me, Leticia Montes, Washington Fajardo, Nanda Eskes



My job was to explain the legacy of CABE, the work of the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel and the workings of Building for Life 12 to see to what extent they may offer clues for those who want to ramp up the quality of architecture and urban design in Brazil in general and to support the massive popular housing programme My House MyLife (this is a  brief description from 2 years ago). There was a good discussion and I hope this will kick something Brazilian off.  I went on to give a similar talk to two different audiences in São Paulo.