Sustainability Talk 2: Simon Smith

On Thursday 25th March a lively debate on low carbon structures ensued at Edward Cullinan Architects (ECA). Simon Smith, a structural engineer and director at Ramboll (formerly Whitbybird), was invited to present a talk on embodied carbon in construction. The talk was the second in a series of sustainable talks being held at ECA this year.

Simon is also a TRADA (Timber Research and Development Association) board director and a design teaching fellow at Cambridge University. Simon presented some of the research on low carbon structures that Ramboll are conducting with Cambridge University. He was recently voted ‘Green Guru Engineer’ at Building Magazine’s online sustainability seminar for his team’s work in reducing the embodied carbon in structures, some 6000tCO2 over the last 5 years.

In the audience we had members of ECA, the Building Centre, Hoare Lea, Arup and Hattie Hartman, currently best known for her sustainable blog – footprint – part of the Architects’ Journal.

The talk promoted timber structures and in particular cross-laminated timber structures as performing the best in terms of carbon; currently cross-laminated timber is imported from Europe – mainly Austria – and is made of softwood glued together (water-based glues). The current negative aspects are transport, in terms of carbon, and costs because of the strength of the Euro. However, Simon’s view is that within the next 10 years Britain will be manufacturing the structural panels (importing material) ourselves and reminded us of the National Tree Planting Year slogan, “plant a tree in ‘73”, suggesting that Britain may even be able to supply the material in the future too.

ECA’s first sustainable talk was by RockTron on carbon positive concrete. The next talk entitled ‘Zero carbon development: How low can we go?’ will be by Ashley Bateson of Hoare Lea regarding recent advice to the government on how to achieve the targets set for 2016.

Lara

Gib Tor Weekend: 20th - 21st March 2010

In mid-March a group of office members along with their friends and family ventured north for a tree-planting weekend on Ted's farm, Gib Tor. The first day was spent getting to grips with technique and planting the key avenues in the midst of a thick, atmospheric fog, while the second was spent filling out the area under a cheerful springtime sun. Over 250 trees were planted by the 15 strong team; ash, rowan and birch were carefully placed to complete the future wood's grand ellipse.

Sahiba

Lambeth Community Care Centre 25th Anniversary

On February 17th, Ted Cullinan, Robin Nicholson and Kristina Roszynski took part in the 25th Anniversary event at the wonderful Lambeth Community Care Centre (LCCC), which was chaired by local MP Kate Hoey.

The Friends of LCCC are fiercely defensive of the services provided in what was a radical realignment of community care away from the large hospitals, to a place where patients are looked after by their own GP as though they were in their homes. The design of the building which was widely acclaimed has been seriously compromised by recent insensitive interventions - there were no false ceiling tiles, wobbly glass blocks or pink paint back then. Much of what made the building special as the result of intensive consultation with the highly motivated Project Team has been removed and made banal and normal. The garden remains a real asset.

Brazilian Architects visit ECA

On Tuesday a group of 18 Brazilian Architects and Engineers visited our office. Kristina, Alex and Lara presented an overview of our work and looked in detail at two case studies; the John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the new Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden.

The group had come to London on an organised architectural tour to visit Ecobuild and had heard of our work, particularly in the field of sustainable design. As such, we tailored our talks to focus on the environmental principles and systems employed in our recent projects.

It proved to be a stimulating evening; after much discussion, debate and translation between ECA and the Brazilians, we all went to the pub to discuss further architecture, our cultural differences and to introduce them to strong English Beer!