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Sustainable Building Developments, UK

Sustainable Architecture - UK News

Barratt Zero-Carbon Home
Barratt Developments unveils what they claim as the first zero-carbon house developed by a volume housebuilder. Aug 2008

BRE Sustainable Schools Report
An environmentally friendly BREEAM rating can be achieved at little or no extra cost to schools, a new report claims: Sustainable Schools UK. Aug 2008

More Microgeneration Money
Scotland to triple its budget for microgeneration projects. Spending to rise to £13.5m a year, divided between community projects, householder grants & business loans (now expanded in scope to include microgeneration and well as energy efficiency).

BERR's Low Carbon Buildings Programme householder stream
New UK-wide Lottery funding - up to £2500 for your home, but only if:

a. insulated the whole of the loft of the property to meet current building regulations e.g. 270mm of mineral wool loft insulation or suitable alternative
b. installed cavity wall insulation (if you have cavity walls)
c. fitted low energy light bulbs in all appropriate light fittings
d. installed basic controls for your heating system to include a room thermostat and a programmer or timer.
You must undertake a number of energy efficiency measures before you are eligible to apply for a Low Carbon Buildings Grant.
More information : www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk

Domestic Wind Turbines Axed
U-turn as proposed exclusion of wind turbines dropped (Mar 2008) from new permitted development rights for homeowners wishing to install microgeneration installations. Planning relaxations will come into force in less than a month’s time, from 6 April. The domestic relaxation will now apply only to solar photovoltaics, solar thermal water heating, heat pumps, biomass heating & CHP. Wind turbine domestic relaxation might materialise later in 2008 with a 45 decibel limit. Permitted development rights for microgeneration to commercial & agricultural businesses is also on the cards.

Size limitations will be in place, however. Solar panels attached to the building must not protrude more than 200 millimetres from the roof slope and stand alone panels must not exceed four metres above ground level or more than five metres from the boundary. Regulations were laid before parliament last week, but so far there is no sign of any planning circular on the DCLG website.

Code for Sustainable Homes
UK government announce late Feb 2008 all new homes will be required to have a Code for Sustainable Homes rating from 1 May 2008

Scottish Eco-Town
Scotland's first ‘zero-carbon settlement’ is 5,000 home Cardenden Eco-town
Fife
Zero Carbon Proposal
Welsh Assembly Government ‘aspiration’ that all new buildings should be zero carbon by 2011. Proposals incl. Severn barrage, marine power, biomass community heating schemes, community wind power and at last changing planning guidance to make installing domestic micro-generation technology easier. 28 Feb 2008

Age-friendly buildings
UK government unveil strategy for 'age-proofing' of all new homes, a Lifetime Homes design regime it expects to be in place by 2013 with regulation threat if it isn't.

London Plan
Ken Livingstone announced Feb 2008 a requirement for ‘living roofs and walls’ on all major developments where feasible. An example would be DSDHA’s Paradise Park School’s ‘vertical garden’

Ken Livingstone proposals for sustainable planning policies:-
decentralised energy systems
requirement for 20% reduction in carbon emissions by new developments through use of renewable energy
requirement for living roofs & walls

Developers are to evaluate combined cooling, heat & power: the London Plan offers a hierarchy of CHP and communal heating options. Sites are to be designed to maximise future opportunities for decentralised energy.

20% renewables
The Scottish Government needs to match or exceed the European Union's target of 20% of all energy coming from renewables by 2020 to hit its ambitious carbon-cutting objective.

Jason Ormiston, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, told Alex Salmond in Feb 2008 the key to achieving these targets is promoting the use of renewable technology to generate heat for homes. Half of all energy use in Scotland goes into heating homes. Mr Ormiston argued that to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, as proposed by the Climate Change Bill, the Scottish Government needs to support the renewable heat sector so that it is as easy to install a heat pump in a home as a flat-screen TV.

Scottish Timber
Ministerial Launch of Timber Development Programme & "New Timber Architecture in Scotland" Publication by Peter Wilson - Scottish Building News

Sullivan Report Launch
Low Carbon Building Standards Strategy for Scotland : Sullivan Report - Sustainable Architecture News

Low Carbon Performance Awards
The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) launched the Low Carbon Performance Awards 2008 to recognise and celebrate actual, proven achievements in delivering carbon savings in buildings. It will also publicise these achievements to the building services sector, to its clients and to the wider public.
6 Feb, Grosvenor House Hotel, London. The awards are organised by CIBSE and presented as part of the CIBSE Annual Dinner - www.cibse.org

Scottish Sustainable Building Panel
Expert panel proposed to recommend ways to make Scottish buildings more energy efficient: Sustainable Building News

Home Information Packs
The introduction of Home Information Packs - and their included Energy Performance Certificates - will now be phased in from 1 August, rather than applied nationally from 1 June but details for Scotland awaited.

Scotland's Executive will be introducing a mandatory information pack for property sales in Scotland, the details vary slightly from the England & Wales version and will be known as the Single Survey Scheme or Purchasers Information Pack (PIP).

Sustainable Building News 2007

Planning Guidelines SPP6 Renewable Energy
Jack McConnell declares immediate 15% reduction in carbon emissions for new buildings: new planning applications for building types over 500m2, in all Scottish local authorities, will have to demonstrate how the 15% reduction in carbon emissions will be achieved.
Consultation is proposed later this year on removing the requirement for planning re wind turbines and solar panels on existing buildings.
220307

Zero Carbon Homes
Chancellor Gordon Brown removed stamp duty from "zero carbon homes" up to the value of £500k in the Budget

The DTI's low-carbon buildings programme launched in 2006 has been suspended due to major oversubscription

Zero Carbon Home
Stewart Milne Group have developed a prototype affordable zero carbon green home. The house will go on show in Jun 2007 at BRE in Watford. For many years there has been an ‘Eco house’ at the entry to BRE’s site.

Sustainable Housing Guide
Revised & expanded 'Sustainable Housing Design Guide for Scotland" launched end of Jan 2007

Sustainable Housing
UK Housing minister Yvette Cooper: tour of sustainable housing in Sweden & Netherlands 2006
Yvette Cooper called for new UK homes to import their techniques + UK companies to better Scandinavian performance within 10 years
Design for Manufacture competition - Second stage: late 2006
emphasis on low carbon, eco-community developments

Sustainable new town in UK
Northstowe, Cambridgeshire, England

Code for Sustainable Homes revision
due to be issued 2006/2007

PPG3 revision
sustainable housing policies amendments, due to be issued 2006/2007

Energy Performance Certificates – EPC’s
due to be introduced as part of Home Information Packs from 1 Jun 2007

Sustainable Architecture - Carbon Neutral Homes
Gordon Brown has made significant pledges re carbon neutral housing in the UK
Dec 2006

Zero Carbon Buildings – Wales
The Welsh Assembly has set a zero carbon target in Feb 2007 for all new buildings by 2011, using devolved Building Regulations. This is 5 years ahead of the UK government target for zero carbon homes. All new buildings funded by the devolved government must be built to the BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard within six months.

Sustainable Architecture - Scottish News:

Donside Urban Village - Aberdeen
’environmentally-friendly urban village’:
Sustainable housing - proposed hydro-electric plant; solar water heating

Scottish Carbon Extraction Power Station - halted
£500m 'green' power station at Peterhead put on hold by BP / Scottish and Southern Energy. Proposal extracts carbon from gas landed at St Fergus, uses it to generate electricity and pipes the carbon offshore to the Miller field. Uncerytainty re part-funding by UK government may be the reason for the delay. The project would provide 'clean power' for estimated 500,000 homes so cancellation would be disastrous for Scotland.

Hydrogen Office - Fife
£2.8m energy-efficient office & demonstration centre unveiled for the Energy Park in Methil 160107

Sustainable Architecture: main page

Sustainable Buildings Code
All major new developments in Edinburgh will be forced to cut CO2 emissions and provide renewable energy sources on-site to comply with a new green building code. This at last brings the city into line with London, and meets the Scottish Executive's Micro Renewables policy: new housing & other developments to generate at least 10% of their energy on site from renewable sources: Sustainable Buildings Code

Sustainable Architecture : Lighthouse 'Sust' Programme

Scottish Wood Architecture

Architecture Sustainability - Scotland, UK
“Sustainability” was the hot topic of the day as dignitaries and invited guests from The Lighthouse, Scottish Executive, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, and Loch Lomond Shores jointly launched Re:Motion: New Movements in Scottish Architecture, at Loch Lomond Shores on the banks of the world-famous loch. This visionary Sustainable Architecture exhibition, commissioned by The Lighthouse from eight leading Scottish architects and architectural firms, will now begin a Scottish tour following its recent successful unveiling at the International Architectural Biennale in Rotterdam. Re:Motion will be open to the public at Loch Lomond Shores Retail Crescent, Balloch.

Eight futuristic, 6-ft highplywood-framed, tent-like pods make up the exhibition, each with strong graphic images stretched over their wooden framescontaining a striking mix of interactive media, projected images, models and text. Re:Motion will play a key role in The Lighthouse’s ongoing Sustainable Architecture project, “Sust.”, which explores the themes of mobility and transport and offers inspired solutions for providing more efficient transport systems in the future which minimise consumption of natural resources.

Dr Stuart MacDonald, Director of The Lighthouse, said:
“We are delighted to launch Re:Motion to the people of Scotland, and to share with them the innovative thinking of some of our top designers. The eight architectural practices taking part were given a brief to come up with alternative transport and mobility systems for the future, always keeping sustainability of natural resources to the fore. They have responded magnificently, delivering workable solutions and concepts which challenge our current thinking while also preserving precious natural resources.

“As Scotland’s national centre for Architecture, Design and the City, The Lighthouse, is the natural choice to deliver this forward-thinking project on behalf of the Scottish Executive. “Sust” will continue to promote best practice and nurture innovation to shape practical solutions which will make a difference to our future built environment.”

Gillie Thomson, Convenor of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, added:
“I am very pleased that the National Park Authority has been able to support Re:Motion’s first showing in Scotland. I am especially pleased to see that it explores new ways of looking at development since sustainability is at the heart of the National Park’s aims.

“The Park Authority itself is committed to sustainable design in developing its own buildings, one excellent example being the Gateway Centre by Bennetts Associates here at Loch Lomond Shores, recently awarded a Civic Trust Award for outstanding building design*. Another is at the Ben Lomond Memorial Park at Rowardennan which used traditional building methods in its construction. We are also at the planning stages of our permanent headquarters which will be built with good contemporary and sustainable design in mind.”

Kevin Johnson, Chief Executive of Loch Lomond Shores, commented:

“I am delighted that Re:Motion will have its Scottish debut at Loch Lomond Shores. As well as providing a stunning setting, the location is an ideal example of the joining of sustainable design and architecture and what great results can be achieved, especially in an area of such natural beauty and environmental sensitivity. Almost a million people to-date have enjoyed the unique view of Loch Lomond that has been created as a result of this project.

“The award-winning designs of the Drumkinnon Tower and the National Park Gateway Centre have attracted widespread praise and commendation from the world of architecture and beyond. It is fitting that both architectural practices involved in the creation of the buildings, Page and Park and Bennetts Associates, are also involved in the creation of Re:Motion.”

THE ARCHITECTS BRIEF

Bennetts Associates: examine the environmental cost of transport systems especially regarding co2 emissions.

Dualchas: examine reinstating ancient transport and communications routes in the Isle of Skye - a necessary consideration for the sustainability of rural communities.

Gareth Hoskins: propose eliminating congestion by relocating suburban dwellings to a new 'Rivercity' located in the River Clyde, a ‘bluefield site’.

Gross Max: re-examine Cumbernauld - a widely considered architectural and planning failure, although iconic of its time as the first new town to be designed for the car. New approaches could regenerate this ‘shrine to the car’.

McKeown Alexander: consider mobility within the home based on changing working and living patterns. They also explore the importance of a view of the landscape.

NORD Architects: to consider the upkeep of rural transport & communications links. The alternative is to see the demise of rural communities like St Kilda. A key element of this exhibit is the St Kilda ‘Mailboat’.

Page & Park and Miles Glendinning: examine the evolution of the city of Glasgow with changing emphasis on importance on transport systems in shaping our cities.

Sutherland Hussey Architects: propose futuristic - but realistic - forms of transport that are more sustainable and that require less infrastructure than traditional means of travel, eg airships and seaplanes. Using the city of Edinburgh as an example of the ‘future’.

Sustainable Architecture Campaign by Lighthouse - Sust PR
17 Jul 2003

Sustainable Architecture : Lotte Glob House

Sustainable Timber Architecture

Sustainable Architecture : David Douglas Centre

World Architecture : e-architect - key buildings across the globe

Buildings / photos for the Sustainable Architecture page welcome: info@e-architect.co.uk

Sustainable Building News : page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt