New Bee-ginnings

Last night our new office entered hospitality mode once again with the launch of the Angel Honey Club, becoming Cullinan Studio’s first Sustainability Event of the year.

Did you know that the average honey bee produces just 1/12^th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime? This was the first of many thought-provoking facts presented to us by the young ‘Generators’ of The Honey Club - the eco-enterprise and vision of Global Generation, Urban Bees and Wolff Olins – whose aim is to build the biggest bee-friendly network in the world, by starting with the local community’. They currently have 100,000 bees in their living roof garden, and are looking for more premises on which to expand.

Fuelled with another of Global Generation’s locally grown and very tasty cooking, the evening brought together the people behind the project, along with architects, enthusiasts and others interested from the Islington area.

We were treated to a series of brief talks from founders and volunteers alike, who all emphasised the significance of the honey-bee and the vital role which they play, as well as the positive effect on the community and the importance of teaching the younger generation about caring for our world. It was truly inspiring to hear from enthusiastic young minds who rejoice in the knowledge and skills they have acquired, and to learn of The Honey Club’s mission.

A big thank you to the team at Global Generation for the wonderful food and the fascinating evening, with further thanks to the Generators as well as those from Urban Bees, Wolff Olins, the Guardian and Central St Martin’s who came to share their experiences.

To learn more please visit the Honey Club website, and watch this space for further upcoming Cullinan Studio sustainability events!

NHBC marches on

I have been privileged to sit on the Board of the National House Building Council www.nhbc.co.uk for some 5 years, as well as sitting on various committees and chairing NHBC Services Ltd.  Some architects may think of the NHBC as that body that says “no, you cannot do that!” but it really is an astonishing organisation.

Founded in 1936 to raise the standards of house-building, it is an independent non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee with no shareholders to feed; it provides 10-year warranties for new homes and invests in research and standards for the benefit of householders and the industry.  It is an FSA-regulated company providing insurance cover for 80% of new homes backed with accumulated assets of over £1.5bn. 

There is no doubt that standards have improved dramatically as has ‘customer satisfaction’ but for me the biggest challenge is how to gather the new knowledge to meet our carbon emission targets and translate that for and transmit that to the industry.  Targets are constantly changing but the work of the Zero Carbon Hub  www.zerocarbonhub.org, largely funded by NHBC, and the downloadable publications of the NHBC Foundation www.nhbcfoundation.org are a huge benefit – do read them.

We Non-Executive Board Members (NEDs) are a wide-ranging group with insurers and actuaries, the chief executive of one major house builder and the energetic Executive Chairman of the House Builders Federation, the Chairman of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a consumer champion, a former Permanent Secretary and me the architect – and 4 of the ten are women.  The new Chair Isabel Hudson and very new Chief Executive Mike Quinton are encouraging us to consider the urgent challenges of the moment:

·         How to respond to the huge shortfall in new housing – we need 244,000 new homes a year but last year only registered 112,500 new homes

·         How to help the Government integrate the regulations affecting housing and not just binning them all.

·         How to meet the very real challenges of (low and) zero carbon homes

·         How to support the transformation of our existing housing stock – we have to reduce their emissions by 80% at the rate of 1,600 a day between now and 2050.

Today the housing industry is gathering in Covent Garden for the NHBC Annual Lunch and will be hoping (in vain?) for words of real policy change from the Deputy Prime Minister.  Either way and despite the dire triple dip economic situation the NHBC will respond to these challenges in the interest of the industry and the wider community.

Employee Ownership Association conference 2012

At Cullinan Studio we have shared the ownership since 1965. This has had the invaluable benefit of a low turn over of people, meaning we retain  our knowledge and experience of projects and construction methods. It also keeps us adaptable to our clients needs. 

Cullinan Studio is a member of the Employee Ownership Organisation, (EOA), Roddy, Kristina and I attended their annual conference in Birmingham last Thursday.

Simon Fowler, Chair of the EOA and MD of John Lewis Oxford Street introduced the conference inviting Iain Hasdell, chief exec of the EOA. Iain made the strong point that the Chancellor "should be ashamed of himself" for looking to remove the rights to maternity, redundancy, unfair dismissal in exchange for share incentives, which he felt confused the benefits of an employee owned company to irrevocable undermining of an employees rights. It also ignored all the advice the EOA had given to HM Treasury.

He went on to note that the number of businesses joining the EOA has grown by 10%, and that EOA companies should strive to provide 10% of UK GDP.

Graeme Nuttall of Field Fisher Waterhouse then gave an address. he had been responsible for producing "Sharing success - The Nuttall review of Employee Ownership" for the Government. He noted Employee ownership is now government policy and advocated each member there yesterday should get our voice out into the local community on the benefits of employee ownership.

We then went to various seminars throughout the day. A highlight for me was hearing Ali Parsa, chief exec of Circle Health.

He noted great companies succeed due to their values rather than their products. Sony was started on a shoestring after the war, their vision was to use Japanese skills "to solve the problems of the world". They therefore had a dream rather than a business plan, which excites people and carries the employees along. Any business should be about satisfying the customers not shareholders and giving a better service than your competitors.

He also noted that if you want to do something amazing you need to persuade others to help, but they need control of what they do; to make them feel they matter. The opposite of ‘great’ is ‘good’ and to achieve great things needs ambition. At Circle they asked the 1700 staff of Hinchingbrooke hospital to write the business plan which the board at the time laughed at but they got 1200 responses.

A vision needs to state three things; what do we want to achieve, how do we get there and what are the barriers to achieving it. Employees also want three things to feel they have a say in the running of a business: autonomy, complexity and a link between effort and reward.

Other thoughts he shared were that in Germany approx 40% of companies are employee owned, and that the UK economy should move to a mass ownership of enterprise rather housing as is currently the case.
             
The event closed with a rousing clarion call from George Thomson, General Secretary of the Post Office, to make a transformation of society through employee ownership. He described it as the 'middle way'  - between UK PLC where everyone works for the benefit of the few, and the Unions who have had to fight back for workers rights. Echoing Corey Rosen earlier in the day, he said Employee Ownership makes people happier at their work while making their company more prosperous.
           
What's to lose?

Durable doors

 I'd like to share an experiment in joinery detailing to keep maintenance to a minimum.

 Last summer's porch reconstruction just needed some doors to complete the work. 

There are three identical doors - two on the left to make a double door entrance, and a single one on the right leading to the woodstore. They're 2.35m high and 560mm wide.

The concept is a frame, rebated to take the glass, with a full width cover piece to the sides and top, and an aluminium 'sill' below. This drains the water away from the ventilated cladding to the lower part of the door. The 4mm toughened glass is dry glazed with a neoprene foam strip, squeezed in place.













The frame and cover pieces are made of  lengths of 120x27mm American Yellow Pine, beautifully straight-grained, hard and resinous. I cut the rebates and half lap joints on my radial arm saw, and glued up with exterior PVA without fixings. The inner frame is finished in Danish Oil and the cover pieces are left untreated. They are fixed with M6 stainless steel countersunk set screws, tapped into 5mm diameter holes. The lower cladding is untreated Douglas Fir, fixed to shallow battens over a breather membrane to created a rain screen cladding. Hinges are parliament hinges to get a solid fixing into the main frame. Handles are rescued samples.

I've waited a few months to see if moisture movement would be a problem with winding and binding but all seems surprisingly stable.  Goodbye putty and paint!

Launch of Cullinan Studio

Since Ted Cullinan set up the practice as a cooperative in 1965, we were 'Edward Cullinan Architects'. Today we changed our name to 'Cullinan Studio': we are the same people, Ted still works with us and we continue to operate as an employee-owned architects' practice.

Our move to new studios in October this year seemed like a good time to change our name to reflect the wider scope of services we provide than the term 'Architects' suggests. Ted's philosophy and design approach has infused the practice's work, methodology and cooperative structure - the name 'Cullinan' has come to represent a way of doing things - a culture. 'Cullinan Studio' reflects this.

Yesterday evening we had a party to launch our new offices and new name, where we also launched an anthology we have created about what inspires us, who we are and where we are.

A big thank you to: Global Generation who provided the food, which was all sourced locally to London; artist Bobby Lloyd, who created the art installation 'Choreographies', which was a response to the internal re-workings of the space from artists' studios and gallery into our work space; Calverts who printed the anthology; and Jonathan Marfleet and friends for providing the hospitality.

Thank you also to everyone who came along and made it a very enjoyable evening.

Here are a few photos from the night:

After giving a speech about the new office and our new name, Roddy Langmuir invites the guests to join in a game to celebrate collaboration

 Global Generation preparing the delicious food

Shenley Academy Opening Event

On the evening of Tuesday 30^th October, the team from our office, (and my family), attended the official opening of our newly completed Shenley Academy, Birmingham.

With specialisms in Science and the Performing Arts and catering for 1100 pupils it had opened for the start of term in September, after an eighteen month construction period.

The building looked resplendent as we crossed the grounds to the main entrance, the oranges and yellows on the façade picked out by the external lights. We made our way into the main entrance foyer where a host of guests, staff and pupils were gathered. Almost immediately the Academy Choir began singing from the first floor gallery, as we looked up and enjoyed the show.

A number of speeches were then made, starting with Ruth Harker, Principal who personally thanked Edward Cullinan Architects for their all their hard work on the project and stressed how overjoyed they are with the new building.

Chris York, Chair of Governors at Shenley Academy followed by Sir Bruce Liddington, Director General of E-ACT then made short speeches that reinforced this message and also impressed upon those gathered how the excellent Shenley Academy staff team will now use this building to sustain and build upon their already impressive teaching record. The building was then officially opened by Councillor John Lines, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

All guests were then taken on a guided tour of the building that showcased in particular the Performing Arts. We saw street dance in the Dance Studio performed by Antics, former pupils, and workshops with Birmingham Rep theatre in the Performing Arts Studio. The highlight for me was a specially commissioned piece in the main theatre and involving a group of students from Key Stage 4 and the Sixth Form. They had worked with ‘Upswing’ on an acrobatic dance piece called ‘Spark’, inspired by their logo, which involved some of the dancers suspended on wires from the theatre soffit.

The evening finished in the dining room where the builders, Lend Lease, staff, sponsors and us all enjoyed a buffet dinner.

The original school is currently being demolished, to be replaced with a new landscape. This will be completed next summer when we will make a return visit for the full opening of the site.

Photos © Simon Warren

Visualising carbon emission

This is a great video of New York's daily emissions by Carbon Visuals

http://www.carbonvisuals.com/ 

Beyond Zero Carbon Housing

Yesterday the Nottingham Sustainable Building Research team held their second lively symposium moving from 'Towards Zero Carbon' in 2007 to Beyond Zero Carbon in 2012.  It should be no surprise that we know a lot more now than we did in those giddy days and it is not all good news.  Almost every speaker had tales of woe ranging from serious peformance gaps to profoundly depressing bodging and yet all were keen to build on this knowledge and press forward with designing good-live-in low energy housing even if much of it is nearer Code 4 than Zero Carbon.  Mentioning just some highlights of the day:

Richard Partington kicked us off with the development of ZC regulation and his heroic efforts to get that better, so that it is achievable and achieved.  He insisted we all read the excellent  report on the Leeds Met research into 2 pilot houses in his Temple Avenue Project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which is  available on their website http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/temple-avenue-project-energy-efficient-homes

Alan Shingler described Shepherd Robson's journey from their £60k Prescott challenge house, through the Code 6 Lighthouse at BRE to their huge scheme, the first phase now built, at Barking Riverside - we must go all and see it. Alan made the essential case for the higher market value of these low energy homes although the valuers have yet to get it!

Former Cullinan year-out student Ben Hopkins and his two collagues described their heroic efforts to design and make the award-winning UK entry for the 2010 Solar Decathlon in Madrid; pre-assembling it in Nottingham, then moving it to Eco-build in London, then erecting it in Madrid in the wettest June in the pouring rain. And now it is nearly finished as the 6th house in the University's brilliant creative energy homes displaywww.nottinghamhouse.co.uk.

The charming Mario Cucinella talked about creative empathy (his train to Nottingham had caught fire and everyone had to climb out!) before discussing among other projects his delightful school in Gaza, about to start to site having been marked on GPS as 'not to be bombed'! Thisis onthe frontof his webste http://www.mcarchitects.it

Then Code 4 Green Street in the Meadows in Nottingham built after an invited competition, which we didnt win.  The local developer Blueprint (Igloo +) described the scheme by local architect Marsh Grochowski before PhD student David Bailey (sic) went on to describe his emerging findings having fallen on his feet; here was a scheme with one phase in timber frame and one masonry with wet plaster built next door to one another to the same spec with the same contractor - how rare is that!  Julian Marsh later described his really delicious 'holistic' house, office and vegetable garden nearby.

Bill Gething encouraged us to read his TSB Design for Future Climate report on adaptation and get ready to buy his new book but its not out till after Christmas.  CIBSE are shortly to launch UKCIP-made easy Pro-clip graphs; dont use current weather data as it is already out of date!  In answer to a question he reminded us that 'Team' GB put 25% of the CO2 up there so we had better get cracking and do something about it......

Fionn Stevenson reminded us of Gibson's theory of 'affordance (I was embarrassed that it was new to me but as in a chair affords sitting) and drew on her POE experience to insist we architects (and engineers) 'design for users'; we have loadsd of unhappy occupants of 'dumb' housing that oveheats, has poor cross-ventilation and very poor air quailty - DO BETTER fast!

As it turned out my slight anxiety about our not having built any ZC Housing didnt matter and a brief description of our carbon neutral garden city for 60,000 at Shahat in an area of high housing need in Libya coupled with a plea to direct our (and the students') attention to the existing stock seemed to strike a chord (forget HS2 and sort out out existing hsouing etc).

But that was not all as, after the symposium, we were whisked off to Brian Ford and Michael Stacey's new Energy Technologies Building to see their astonishing inaugural Prototyping Architecture Exhibition www.nottingham.ac.uk/abe. But us Londoners can see the exhibition, well it can only part of it, when it comes to the Building Centre in the New year - 11 Jan to 15 March. 

And then it was off to the centre of Nottingham to put the world to rights over a glass of red wine or two - we need to stay close to Nottingham.

Setting the Conditions For Innovation

On Monday night myself and Robin attended the Edge debate at the Dept. of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). The Debate was entitled "Setting the Conditions For Innovation"

Richard Miller, Head of Sustainaiblity at the TSB chaired the debate. Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture kicked off the evening with the need to debunk the myth of the lone genius  During the industrial revolution we were resource abundant and population scare. Now we are resource scare yet population abundant, so future products should be made with less materials but employ more people in their manufacture.

Peter Head, chairman of IfS and Founder of the Ecological Sequestration Trust pointed out the need to change to a procurement system based on performance targets for buildings; cost should come second. It worked on the "Severn Crossing" project and it drove innovation.

Robert Webb of Quiet Revolution indicated that globally we need to spend £1trillion per annum to de carbonise the planet. We are resource rich if we turn our back on fossil fuels and look to renewables. The government need to be more focused.

Here are some snippets from the debate that followed:

• people need to be given ownership of the problem, otherwise they feel powerless/don't bother to affect change
• innovation needs the over turning of the present moral-lacking, consumer-driven, out-for-oneself society
• Behaviour change is close to impossible (questionable?)
• Intellectual Property Rights are sometimes bought to bury ideas, we need to be more open with our ideas.
• Stronger links between academe and industry
• R&D isn't on the minds of construction company board members unlike other industries (the construction client gets the benefit of innovation while in other industries it is the innovator who benefits)
• Olympics was a great example of British Innovation
• It has been said that the fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate, take more risks!
• Government and industry should not be afraid to publish failures
• Why are there so few young people in the room?
• Innovation often comes through fine tuning over a long time, not new concepts out of the ether.
• Make building performance transparent. DECs for all

The wave snake by Pelamis

Downland Gridshell - 10 years

The Downland Gridshell at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum is 10 years old this year. 'Cluster' an exhibition at Fabrica and a special report edition of Unstructured, celebrate the anniversary of the Gridshell.

Fabrica is Brighton's leading contemporary Art Gallery and 'Cluster' is an exhibition of woven forms by artist and basket maker, Annemarie O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan's organic forms take inspiration from the Downland Gridshell and are made from the engineered Sweet Chestnut material pioneered by the Flimwell Woodland Enterprise Centre, also celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Unstructured, the web-magazine portal of Fourth Door, features articles making the connection between the woven forms of the two gridshells, traditional basketry and the emerging field of art-related basket makers, and a number of land artists, whose work focuses on woven, basket-like 'wild' structures made in and on the land. Highlights include:

The Downland Gridshell ten years on - Project Architect Steve Johnson has written an extensive overview of the building's genesis

Cluster overview and Annemarie O'Sullivan feature - these complementary pieces outline the connections and overlaps between the projects different elements

Cullinan's timber path after the Downland Gridshell - how Edward Cullinan Architects have continued with timber architecture since the Downland Gridshell, culminating (so far) in the recent John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.

Learning from schools

Last Tuesday As part of our Sustainability Series, Carol Costello (Cullinans), Andrew Cripps (AECOM) and Roderic Bunn (BSRIA) gave 3 excellent short presentations. During the subsequent discussion 11 headline messages emerged:

• Clients need to consider the energy consumption of their appliances and computers as part of their building's performance
• Schools are rightly used for many different activities and lie at the heart of many communities, Mr Gove!
• Isnt it time our energy modelling was realistic not predective?
• There is an art to energy calculations as well as a science
• Legibility is key to a school's success
• We need to recognise the importance of the caretaker
• Most existing schools have value to their community beyond their mere fabric
• Controls must be simply designed for pupils and staff and located so they are encouraged to use them
• Busy people though they are Headteachers must know more about energy
• Choosing the right procurement is essential - D&B can easily undermine an integrated design
• We know orientation is key so why don't we pay it sufficient attention?

For a slightly fuller write up see today's AJ Footprint: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/footprint/footprint-blog/edward-cullinan-architects-top-ten-tips-for-sustainable-school-design/8633095.article


--

Mirrors of Awareness

Myself and two friends - Rebecca Gregory (Metropolitan Workshop) & Eddie Blake (Studio Weave) were given the unique opportunity of filling an exhibition space in 14-16 Cowcross Street, with no particular brief.  It was exactly the opportunity we were looking for to explore our common areas of interest and have a bit of fun! 

We were interested in exploring the interaction between the individual and their urban environment.  One’s everyday life can cause their physical surroundings to be assumed and then invisible due to the repetitive nature of social practice.  We developed a scheme to transform 14-16 Cowcross Street, aiming to facilitate a moment of self-realisation for the many daily inhabitants of Farringdon; not by interrupting a social practice per se but by holding up a ‘mirror’.  The architecture would be re-instated and used as a tool to reflect & comprehend one's position in the urban environment.

'We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things & ourselves … Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen.  The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world'

(Taken from ‘Ways of Seeing’, by John Berger)

Inspired by Berger, our installation encourages visual & physical connections in order to playfully animate one’s social & spatial awareness in the city context.  The art of perspective projection was utilised, the geometries of which become perfectly legible from one vantage point only.  Move from this point, and the message will distort into abstract forms, dissolving the individual back into their everyday experience.

interaction with the installation on the opening night

image projected on the facade: highlighting the window composition and the plan of the individual's interaction on the street

The installation started as the first line was drawn (22/06/12) and endured until the last line was removed (11/07/12).  The creation of the installation itself was deemed to be an event, as significant as the completed piece itself. 

creation of the installation

Throughout the creation of the installation, we engaged with many passers-by, developing relationships with some of the inhabitants that form Farringdon - from the local 'hoodies', Network Rail construction workers, the local drug dealer, commuters, the ABA caretaker, tourists - the list goes on.  It was a privilege to engage in a community who all actively appreciated and engaged with the installation we were creating.

interaction of the passer-by

write up: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/8632054.article

IIPSI Brickwork

The scaffold has started to come off the tower of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation at the University of Warwick, and the brickwork looks really good.

Two months to go to completion...

David Morley's FIVE by 5

Last evening David Morley www.davidmorleyarchitects.co.uk gave a stimulating presentation of 5 projects in the WORK Gallery www.workgallery.co.uk in Kings Cross as the third in a series of 5 that will lead to a book to be published by Artifice (Black Dog www.blackdogonline.com ) later this year.  With each talk David is refining the 5 stage diagram of his working method which starts with 'tuning in' to the client's needs.  Their buildings tend to have 5 or 5 pairs of bays, vaults, rooftop shells etc but they are all logically analysed, developed and detailed.

What intrigued me though was the way he described using the DQI for post-occupancy evaluation and more recently soft landings as though this was quite normal.  When challenged by Kate Trant to ask the first question, I said how delighted I was to hear a top architect using these tools properly to improve their practice and not as another pointless tick-box exercise, as too many others do.

After the talk over a glass of rose, in recognition of the first hot day of summer, I told David about how the DQI www.dqi.org.ukemerged as a result of my being challenged by the (Egan) Movement for Inovation Board to find a way of measuring design quality; and how Soft Landings www.bsria.co.uk/services/design/soft-landings emerged at Cambridge University when we and a number of other practices supported its development by Mark Way under David Adamson in response to our Maths Building and RMJM's Microsoft Building.

Are Housing Mutuals the answer?

Last evening 30 of us squeezed into a small upper room in Westminster to take part in the second of Res Publica’s celebrations of 2012 being the International Year of the Cooperative, the topic being ‘Housing Mutuals: Social Ownership for Community benefit’; see http://www.respublica.org.uk/.
We heard the uplifting story of the Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Mutual supported by the equally heartening story of Phoenix Community Housing. Rochdale is of course the birthplace of the Cooperative Movement and there are 50 Coop businesses in the Phoenix area of Lewisham.
Chief Executive Gareth Swarbrick explained how he had led the Rochdale ALMO process only for it to run out of money and then how, with the help of academic facilitator Prof Ian Cole, the tenants and employees decided the solution was to form the Mutual. Parts of Rochdale ranks as the10th most deprived area in the country and yet now the tenants and the Housing Department employees ‘own’ and manage 13,800 homes backed with a £120m funding package.
Ministerial approval in July 2011 was followed by a 76% vote in favour in December allowing the transfer to be completed in March this year. Tenant Lynn and local Housing Manager Phil discussed how the tenants and employees collaborated well right from the beginning, although it was a lot of hard work.
The innovation at Rochdale compared with the normal Gateway model is the establishment of their Representative Body with 15 elected tenants and 8 elected employees with 2 Council nominees and 3 external stakeholders. This body set the framework and lobbies the Board to which it appoints 6 members as Non-Executive Directors; they work with 2 Executive Directors on the (non-representative) Board of Directors to run the operation.
The panel explained some of the legal, financial and inter-personal issues but the realisation of their shared vision in an area of high financial stress is inspiring. As is the Phoenix Group in an equally stressed part of London who co-own 6,500 homes, 77% of which were built before 1940 and were the worst in the Borough. Funding was provided with £42m of gap funding and £70m from Barclays; annual rents and service charges amount to £25m. These are serious businesses
Phoenix Chief Executive Jim Ripley explained the successes but stressed the need for constant vigilance and encouragement. The Phoenix is owned by 1811 tenant shareholders and 100 non-voting staff as well as 400 Gold (Coop) members. They have just completed their 4,000th internal property improvement and are about to build themselves a bright but modest new office and community centre with training facilities, community cafe and space for the credit union.
The well informed audience chipped in their experiences and frustrations with other housing coops but for me the two most heartening were
• the confirmation that there was no operational or legal barrier to transforming all housing associations into mutuals and

• that a small FSA-approved organisation called Abundance was focussing on community ownership of renewables. www.resilientenergy.co.uk/pb/wp_1612d80c/wp_1612d80c.html
Footnote

The evening was hosted by a gang of young res publicans one of whom was continuously tweeting; the tweets were projected live but seemed to be more about who was speaking than what they were saying! Copies of Res Publica’s ‘At the Crossroads: a Progressive Future for Housing Associations’ were made available.

The Edge Debate on Shale

The Edge met at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 23^rd April to ask Is Shale Gas a Game Changer?

This debate moved the discussion of shale beyond just the potential environmental effects of its adoption to the implications of shale gas becoming a major source of energy in the UK and globally. Chris Huhne chaired the event with John Miles of Arup, Mark Whitby of Davis Maquire + Whitby and Bill Bordass as speakers.

Huhne’s opening gambit introduced the idea that Fukushima has brought about a reduced interest in nuclear leaving a vacuum for a new and abundant energy source while in America, where shale gas has been energetically extracted, land rights mean that landowners are happy to exploit wealth locked in their land by selling the gas. The US has had an infamous lack of environmental controls on the shale extraction process as explored in the shocking film Gaslands and Methane is a dangerous by-product. Of course, closer to home, Quadrilla have been looking to extract new found shale in Lancashire. It is understood that shale is abundant in many regions of the world; enough for it to play a significant role in future energy production.

In the States, gas prices have halved over the last 3 years following high gas prices being linked to and possibly contributing to the economic crash. The suggestion arose that low energy prices facilitated by shale may stimulate economic recovery by attracting inward investment because low energy means low manufacture costs which means more manufacturing. China and South America have a great deal of shale, with the likelihood being that it’ll get used. Can the UK to be a leader for responsible extraction?

The UK cannot rely on other countries’ supplies of gas in future and the drive to a nuclear renaissance has been stopped in its tracks following Fukushima. This points to shale being a helpful energy source as long as it is affordable and the CO₂ captured by CCS. Whitby explored how gas pricing in the UK/Europe where its link to oil prices differs to that in America where pricing is independent and open to offer/acceptance. Decoupling gas prices from oil prices through abundant shale would make shale cheap.

If shale was taken on internationally, there may be no significant exporters of gas any more, particularly if gas prices became unlinked to oil and decreased. This might in turn enable a switch from coal to gas which would on the surface see great CO₂ emissions reductions. The belching elephant in the room here is methane, which with a global warming potential more than 20 times that of CO₂ could see force a warming tipping point. International shale extraction must therefore be meticulously monitored, but, if done properly offers an energy source which in global warming terms is preferable to coal. CCS would be a crucial development to minimise the global warming impact of shale. Further, might shale gas be a natural, cheap partner to wind?

Should shale be broadly adopted leading to lower gas prices, might a sensible strategy be to force energy companies into fixing gas prices per unit as they stand and investing any profit into renewables? That way, shale could be seen to be a bridge towards a renewables-based energy portfolio.

Following broad debate about the economic, scientific, political and environmental aspects of shale, personal carbon allowances were mooted as a crucial intervention regardless of where we source our energy. The room was wary of a plentiful new fossil fuel which may distract the energy industry, public and governments from the need to switch to a carbon neutral lifestyle which underlined the simple need to reduce energy demand. How long until a political party can be elected with personal carbon allowances within their manifesto?

Creative Continuity

'Void' is an installation by the artist, Aeneas Wilder, which completed construction today on the building site of our new studios in Islington. The site-specific project, sponsored by the contractors, Jerram Falkus, and co-curated by August Art and Kate Goodwin of the RA, will be supported by, and ultimately destroyed by, the building and is part of Cullinans' continuing collaboration with artists.

The building began life as a Victorian foundry and was converted into artist's studios in the early 1990s when Cullinans bought the building along with their current offices on Baldwin Terrace. 'Void' will be created in the building that is now undergoing extensive reconstruction, with a new steel frame to support the listed facade and roof trusses. Hovering above the ground and spanning almost seven metres, Wilder's work consists of hundreds of pieces of wood wedged between two of the columns. His previous installations have involved precariously balancing small pieces of wood to create free-standing, large scale, complex structures which he ceremoniously knocks down, in seconds, at the end of exhibitions. This time he will not destroy his work, but allow the installation to collapse of its own accord.

The installation, with builders working around it, will be projected via a live webcam into August Art's gallery space on Shoreditch High Street and will be visible from the street from 3rd May to 2nd June 2012. The gallery will also publish pictorial and text 'essays' exploring some of the forces, both physical and metaphysical, that create, threaten to destroy, and effectively are integral to the work.

Photos: Aeneas Wilder

'Void'
3rd May - 2nd June 2012
August Art Gallery: 224 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ
Open: Wed - Sat, 1 - 6pm
Location of installation: Baldwin Terrace, London N1 7RU (visible from street, but no access allowed into building)

Steps towards more sustainable specification

Last Thursday we hosted our spring sustainability talk. Graham Hilton, Gary Newman, and Brian Murphy of the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) gave the assembled crowd an engaging and fast paced presentation of the difficulties in specifying environmentally sound products.

As energy use in buildings falls (due to improved efficiencies of mechanical and electrical systems) the embodied energy of building materials becomes a more significant proportion of its carbon footprint. Part of the aim of the recently established ASBP is to tackle this issue and demystify what is a “green” product. Any visitor to Ecobuild will be aware that the vast majority of suppliers claim to be conscious of the impacts of their products. While many are likely to match their claims there is no standardised method of providing hard evidence. If a system such as Natureplus was in place, specifiers could consider this figure along with cost and aesthetics when choosing which brick, plasterboard, etc. to pick. Brian painted an image of manufactures fiercely competing to win gold in their product category.

There was interesting question and answer session afterwards, most memorable was the debate regarding the BRE’s Green Guide to Specification. It’s author Jane Anderson discussed it’s strengths and weakness, along with ways in which the ASBP’s work can address it’s shortcomings. Our guests left with an awareness of the urgent need for clarity in this critical carbon cutting area of construction.

Here at Cullinans we will be enthusiastically following the developments of the ASBP in the future.

NHBC: two political events in a week

Lynne Sullivan http://www.sustainablebydesign.co.uk/ got the last question and Tim Yeo, Tory Chairman DECC Select Committee, grabbed it; Yeo agreed with her suggestion that we should reverse the tariff structure for electricity and charge those who use more at a higher rate rather than at a lower rate as now; then he went on to suggest that what we really needed was personal carbon allowances - hurrah!

So we finished on a high although I doubt that the Chancellor will be worried. This NHBC Foundation and APPG for Sustainable Housing debate at the House of Commons was well attended by senior NHBC people, housebuilders, contractors, manufacturers and some concerned architects. Elegantly chaired by Nick Raynsford ("this winter the only heating we needed in our new highly insulated flat was the towell rail for one hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening"), Hilary Benn and Tim Yeo discussed the need for More Homes and Greener Homes with support from David Smith, Sunday Times Economics Editor, and Zero Carbon Hub Director Neil Jefferson.

David Smith set the tone by declaring there would be no 'sudden thawing of the economy any time soon'. But what surprised me was the quiet but almost universal criticism of the Government's lack of understanding and general vacillation; this from a fairly conservative audience and Yeo did little to counter it.

Then yesterday the same people gathered at NHBC's office in the City at 8am to hear Boris Johnson on the hustings; we were joined by the specialist press and charities such as Crisis and Shelter so the wide-ranging and focussed critical questioning resulted in a mixture of pledges and evasion. Boris's face is a great ever-changing puzzle with those tiny eyes that narrow when he is thinking; he entertained us of course, enjoying sailing close to the wind eg. "That person known as the Jaws of Death...George Osborne."

More style than substance and on his own, without any heckling, I thought he was a bit lost and kept invoking Ken Livingstone for something to attack. Of course he took credit for all the activities that Ken had commissioned in the previous regime and defended his 'cleanest bus in Europe' but there were precious few ideas.

Lets hope NHBC can get Ken so we can see how he performs without a punchbag.

National Heat Map

This week DECC and the Centre for Sustainable development released the National Heat Map. The mammoth task shows heat usage of buildings across England.

The user friendly map is a a helpful way to assess areas which would benefit from low carbon heat projects.

http://ceo.decc.gov.uk/nationalheatmap/?stateID=5b85fd263f69752dcbc6b7a533f06585#

Please don't scrap BREEAM Mr Gove!

It has been suggested that the Goverment is about to sign off the scrapping of BREEAM as a requirement for school design following Sebastian James' singling it out as part of 'the excessive burden of regulation'. While not being perfect, BREEAM has achieved some major changes to our industry and it seems reckless to chuck it out without reallocating the best bits into the Building Regs and Planning. UKGBC and the Aldersagate Group have written an excellent letter which was reported in Building's Breaking News on Tuesday
http://www.building.co.uk/5030948.article?origin=bldgbreakingnewsletter.

So yesterday I wrote to Secretary of State Gove on behalf of the former Zero Carbon Task Force:

"I write as the Chairman of the former Zero Carbon Schools Task Force (2009-10) to express my concern that you may be considering the dropping of the BREEAM metric. My understanding is that, far from being a major burden, the construction industry has responded pretty well to this challenge, as it usually does, and that BREEAM Excellent has delivered significant carbon savings at next to no cost (+ 0.7%).

The industry needs certainty of work flow and the progressive raising of standards to a timetable so that it can prepare and not waste money gearing up for a phantom. The overall task of saving 34% of UK emissions by 2030 en route for 80% reduction by 2050 is a difficult challenge and schools have a key role to play both in the actual reduction of emissions and in the behaviour change of tomorrow’s citizens, whose futures we can so easily jeopardise.

Few would defend the last letter of BREEAM and some of the items have passed or can readily and more properly pass into the Building Regulations and the Planning process; BRE could certainly feed back much more to the industry. The Department has a long tradition of research and learning from what has and has not been achieved in school design. So I hope I am mistaken in being led to understand that your Department is preventing Partnerships for Schools from publishing the excellent Post-Occupancy Evaluation work that they have done. At a time of major change as the industry strives to mitigate the effects of the changing climate, we desperately need this feedback in order to do for less and to build more resilient schools.

So please do not abandon BREEAM until there has been a full review of its impact and the key elements relocated, as is being done with the Code for Sustainable Homes at CLG. And on behalf of the Zero Carbon Task Force, I would be grateful if you could re-convene a meeting of the TF so we can explain to you and your officials how Energy and Carbon Savings can be made at little or no additional cost to prepare your estate for a more sustainable future."

Demolition or Refurbishment

On Monday evening Prof. Anne Power from LSE gave a thought provoking presentation at the Institute of Civil Engineers. She began by tackling the governments notion of a housing shortage in the UK. We currently have 25million homes (17million 3bed+). Also called into question was the idea that we reuse plastic bags but not a house!

She weighed up the argument for demolition or refurbishment in terms of

1. Economic cost

2. Environmental cost

3. Social Cost

She questioned some of common misconceptions in the refurbishment debate and spoke at length about the green deal.

For an hours watching well spent click on the link below for a recording of the lecture.

https://ice.adobeconnect.com/_a884535394/p36vt59xnyr/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal (some compatibility issues for windows 7 users)