Healthy Retrofit

A good event on 'Healthy Retrofit' at Cullinan Studio's newly refurbished Foundry building on Wednesday last week, with retrofit challenges and achievements covered by Johnny Winter of Cullinan Studio, Neil May from ASBP and Richard Griffiths of Parity Projects.

The 'Healthy Retrofit' talk was hosted by Cullinan Studio in their new BREEAM 'Excellent' retofit offices.

Brendan Sexton of Cullinan Studio introducing the evening and our latest annual sustainability report.

Johnny Winter of Cullinan Studio began the evening with a talk on the retrofit of 

our Baldwin Terrace studios, including some of the lessons learnt from the process.

Neil May's talk on (a seemingly dry subject) -  'How sustainable products can assist with moisture control in retrofit' - was particularly timely.

Neil May of ASBP.

29% of UK housing stock is solid wall construction. As a nation we have to upgrade it successfully if we are to reduce our carbon emissions and provide comfortable homes that people can afford to heat.

Under the Green Deal, this widespread form of construction is labelled 'hard to treat'.

It's an odd situation to be in. At last, and for all the Green Deal's faults, something is being done to tackle the challenge of widescale retrofit of our existing housing. Now there is a growing pressure to get this work underway. But do we actually have the technical solutions?

The general 'golden rule' for the Green Deal is that the cost of carrying out improvement works is matched by savings in fuel bills. 'Hard to treat' properties can't meet this rule: the cost of insulating solid wall properties far exceeds the savings in fuel bills. To get this work done, additional subsidy is needed. This comes from the utility companies' 'Energy Company Obligation'. This subsidy is not given away but is paid for by a general increase in all our fuel bills. The utility companies are obliged to meet set carbon reduction targets, hence the pressure to get this work underway and fast.

Building Magazine on 8th February reported Encraft's recent study, which showed that the costs of the upgrading 'hard to treat' homes has been woefully underestimated.The effective cost per ton of carbon saved they estimate to be £180 compared with the government's £80, a difference we will all have to bear through increases to our fuel bills.

So it is more than ever important that the technical solutions employed do actually work.

Neil's overriding point was that we do not yet have robust, widely applicable, whole building solutions based on sound science: inappropriate and partial solutions seriously risk causing a new generation of moisture-related problems, from mould growth and ill-health, to fabric degradation and premature decay.

To meet this challenge we need the pace of research and dissemination to accelerate.

In the meantime, we need some good rules of thumb to guide us. In this debate the five 'principles for building' still stand up*. What are they? Two overriding constraints, two overarching objectives, and the fifth a guiding caution.

• 'High to low' restates what should be obvious, that gravity generally makes water flow downhill, that temperature goes from hot to cold, that vapour diffuses from high to low vapour pressure.
• 'Separate lives' reminds us that buildings are assembled in a process and that different materials move and decay at different rates, processes which if ignored cause premature failure.
• 'Continuity' of performance is an implicit objective for the building envelope. The increased performance we now expect from our building envelopes, where internal conditions are held further apart from the external environment, means design has to be more rigorous to achieve this. Continuity of the measures to achieve continuity of performance has become more critical, whether at the air tightness line or thermal insulation. This might be obvious but it is only the Passivhaus standard that appears to recognise that continuity (by truly avoiding cold bridges and demanding a demonstrable air tightness performance) is an essential rather than a nice-to-have. By its nature, 'continuity' is often in conflict with 'separate lives'.
• 'Balance' is the objective that encompasses the equilibrium of environmental conditions, of structural forces, and distribution of resources. Achieving balance is often in conflict with the constraint of 'high to low'.
• The fifth, cautionary principle can be called 'creative pessimism' - accepting that in the world of building what can go wrong at some point will, and creatively anticipating it. I enjoyed Neil's restating this as the 'principle of forgiveness'.

The relevance of all this is that accepting and working with these principles by following some rules of thumb - 'going with the flow' - rather than fighting them against does reduce the risk of failure. Increasing thermal resistance towards the cold side and increasing vapour resistance towards the moist side is one such rule. External wall insulation still needs to be continuous but is inherently less risky than internal linings. Fighting against the principles always requires more highly stressed solutions, such as 100% vapour barriers. That is why we should all be concerned about the prospect of 'hard to treat' homes being internally lined with insulation.

Colin Rice, Cullinan Studio

*Addleson and Rice, Performance of Materials in Buildings, 1991

 Richard Griffiths from Parity Projects.

Q&A session following the three presentations.

The 'Healthy Retrofit' talk was presented by ASBP (Alliance for Sustainable Building Products) which is a cross sector, not for profit organisation, comprising building product manufacturers and distributors, specifiers, designers, architects, contractors, public interest and sustainability organisations, academics and other building practitioners.

The ASBP are committed to accelerating the transition to a high performance, healthy and low carbon built environment by championing the increased understanding and use of building products that meet demonstrably high standards of sustainability.

Rio Housing workshop

Last winter I found myself with 3 other London architects 'exporting' different aspects of UK design in the depths of the Belgrade snow.  This year I was one of six dropped by the British Embassy into a 2-day workshop in the humid warmth of Rio de Janiero. Both times I had the opportunity to discuss UK attitudes to sustainability as an essential part of good/great design.

Before he stood down, President Lula launched a programme, Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House My Life), to begin to address the massive popular housing shortage across Brazil http://www1.caixa.gov.br/gov/gov_social/municipal/programas_habitaca.  Having built 1 million homes last year and just as importantly having created 1.4m jobs, the Brazilian Ministry of Cities has much to be proud of as they move into the second wave of 1.4m homes.  But some questions were beginning to be asked about the long term impact of the programme; were the same mistakes being made in the drive for numbers as we have all made in the past. 

The workshop was a really brave initiative by Government inviting their critics from the academic world to review this programme and we were there to give some wider perspective.  We probably didn’t tell them much that they didn’t already know but by the end of the second day there was a general agreement about what might make a difference; on reflection such openness would be unthinkable in Whitehall. 

Following a meeting in November with the energetic programme leader Junia Santa Rosa at the AA, coordinated by Jorge Fiori, it seemed that we did have real expertise in areas that might be both new and helpful, especially Design Review.  So I was asked to make a presentation in the introductory session about the benefits offered by Design Council CABE Design Review, Building for Life 12 http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Documents/Documents/OurWork/CABE/Building%20for%20Life/Building%20for%20Life%2012.pdf and the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel http://www.cambridgeshirehorizons.co.uk/qualitypanel/; I chair the latter with John Worthington and we review large housing schemes as (long-standing) critical friends under the four Cs - Community, Connectivity, Climate and Character.

Gilles Alvarenga of ZEDfactory and I spend two half-day sessions in the sustainability and technology group chaired by Junia Santa Rosa.  Our conclusions were not dissimilar from those of the other two groups in wanting better social and physical connectivity with the existing communities, proper social infrastructure, schools, health centres etc and accountable masterplanning.

But the strongest area of concern was the lack of significant regional variation in response to the varying climates and cultures; we proposed that there should be a series of smaller pilot projects to demonstrate regional needs and responses. Further we argued that all the schemes needed to be audited using a transparent tool like Building for Life to provide feedback and learning.

Overall we challenged them to think about the legacy of the programme; while recognising that 'you cannot change the tyre while riding the bicycle' as one delegate put it, there really is a need for the programme to evolve into My House My Life My City.  Discussions are now under way to see how we can develop the relationships established with the continuing support of the British Embassy.

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