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)