ecoterrace.co.uk

We took part in this week’s Climate Change Festival in Birmingham, talking to visitors about the ecoterrace project and discussing how some the ideas from the scheme could be adopted by others. Throughout the week an excerpt from our upcoming DVD is being shown on the screens around the event, you can watch it on the web via Google videos:

Local newspaper The Sentinel has published an article covering the opening event - click here to read the report by Phil Corrigan.

The first two properties were launched this morning with the help of Ecologist David Bellamy.

If you’d like to come along and see the results be sure to visit us on one of our public open days - see the visit page for more details.

Here’s a copy of the presentation that we gave at this year’s Think08, use the buttons to move through the slides or click the ‘view’ option to see the explanatory comments for each slide on slideshare.com

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When the construction first began on 63 Both Street we took part in an interview with Radio Stoke to explain the aspirations for the project. The attached file is an mp3 recording of Mike Menzies from Axis Design Architects describing the property and talking about some of the issues around sustainable refurbishment…

Radio Stoke: ecoterrace project interview (mp3 link)

May 12th will see the official opening of the first two properties at a specially organised launch event. After that 63 Booth Street and 91 London Road are being opened for public viewing over several days in May 2008.

If you’d like to take a look and discuss the project with team members, feel free to visit us on one of the following dates:

91 London Road (map link) and 63 Booth Street (map link) will be open on the following dates:

Saturday 17th May, 10am - 2pm
Tuesday 20th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 21st May, 10m - 3pm
Tuesday 27th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 28th May, 10am - 3pm
Saturday 31st May, 10am - 2pm

Rob Annable from Axis Design Architects will be attending Think 08 next week and taking part in the session at 4:30pm on the 7th, thanks to an invite to present from Phil Clark.

Here’s the summary of the session:

Embracing the existing estate and communities

What’s already built is a much greater part of our built environment than new development. How do we tackle the existing estate to deliver greater sustainability in social, economic and environmental terms? A panel will discuss the issues generated and solutions required by outdated workplaces, ageing housing stock and the sustainability problems they cause. This will include a consideration or legislative hurdles in tackling the built stock as well as a live example of green refurbishment work being carried out on Victorian properties in Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

Chair: Denise Chevin, Editor, Building
Kate Symons, Associate Director, Building Research Establishment
David Strong, Chief Executive, Inbuilt Consulting,
Rob Annable, Director, Axis Design Architects
Dr Douglas Robertson, Head of Applied Social Sciences, Stirling University
and Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Roger Hawkins, Director, Hawkins Brown

And here’s the PDF of the full program: Think08 program

To ensure that the project was learning from the very latest debates on energy saving refurbishments, I visited this year’s Ecobuild conference and attended the session on tackling the existing housing stock. Here’s a few notes from some of the presentations I found most useful at Earls Court a few weeks ago.

Sustainable cities - what we would do if we were serious
Alan Simpson MP, Chair, Parliamentary Warm Homes Group

Simpson proved to be a rare breed of politician; seemingly walking the walk as well as talking the talk, giving an excellent overview of the key issues and speaking knowledgeably about his own efforts to improve matters. Admitting that the current government simply wasn’t doing enough, he cutely announced himself as ‘…inline early for the next manifesto…’ rather than out of line with current policy. The remainder of his speech was largely informed by his admiration for German sustainability policies; citing inter-city competition for improvement, preferential rates on energy sold back to the grid and the resulting community empowerment that has grown to an extent that it is shielded from party politics. Even a regime change wouldn’t be enough to derail it.

Carbon trading? A mythical market with mythical benefits that only benefits the financial services industry. He pointed us to cheatneutral.com for a comparison. Expanding on the topic to look at food production and consumption cultures he talked about Cuba’s enforced self-sufficiency - if they can do it why can’t we?

Further anecdotes about Germany brought us to a summary that proclaimed the need for greater sharing of ideas between countries, which he eloquently summed up by quoting Edward Thompson’s description of ‘…cargo’s of intellectual contraband…’.

Refurbishment according to building type
Dr Paul Ruyssevelt, Director, ESD

A rousing opening polemic delivered by a seasoned politician is a tough act to follow when you’re armed only with Powerpoint. Enter Ruyssevelt with the reassuring news that there is some good work being done in the refurb field already, despite the fact that Yvette Cooper suggests we should think about it for another 10 years before taking any action.

The importance of carbon emission reductions on existing stock was quickly demonstrated with the following graphs (taken from his slides, a version of which is available online here: The Built Environment is just that - BUILT!)

First, this one shows the reductions possible if we just spend the next 40 years just fiddling with new build:

Next, we see the number of existing properties per year that we need to refurbish to reach the hoped for 60% reduction by 2050.

And here’s the rate per year we have to hit if we mooch about doing nothing with existing houses for the next 10 years as Yvette Cooper suggests.

While we wait there are three main initiatives tackling housing refurb: Decent Homes, Warm Front and the Energy Efficient Committment. The level of change from these being perhaps best explained by highlighting that Decent Homes calls for only 50mm of insulation - a provision that Ruyssevelt prefers to call indecent.

Once again the Germans are doing it better with examples such as the KFW Housing Modernisation Grant. An example of a scheme benefitting from this is Freyastrasse in Mannheim:

Having spent time looking for comparable precedents for my ecoterrace project, I was delighted to learn about the next few references.

Ruyssevelt encouraged us to get in touch with John Doggart from the Sustainable Energy Academy if we had a project that might be suited to his Old Home, Super Home project.

A network of exemplar energy efficient old dwellings, which are local and publicly accessible within 15 minutes to nearly everyone in the country. Making them accessible to the public helps homeowners and local authorities to get hands-on knowledge and be inspired to transform their own housing; we plan to have 1000 exemplars within 5 years, equivalent to one per Tesco. Use the link to the left to use an interactive map of the current Superhomes on the scheme.

I’ll certainly be offering ecoterrace.co.uk. Also, May this year will see the launch of the Existing Homes Alliance, which will be seeking to build up a database of best practice refurb examples. Ruyssevelt’s very informative talk finished with a slide that reassured me that our project could prove to valuable to the rest of the industry. Of the innovative refurb schemes he was aware of, how many were being monitored to assess their performance?

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That dramatic action needs to be taken quickly to reduce carbon could hardly be argued, but as we listened to the discussion panel at the end of the session talk about the housing market and sustainable investment it seemed to me that something was missing from all the debates we’d heard. Spending the money on technologies like efficient boilers, solar panels and high levels of insulation may make for good carbon emission reductions, but does not result in an attractive, enjoyable place to live. Housing market renewal is equally dependent on the quality of the living environment delivering long term financial sustainability, than whether we get complete carbon emission neutrality.

In the midst of all the maths, graphs and scare stories I want to hear about housing that keeps its place in the market and continues to be desirable to buyers because of its design quality. Where’s the discussion about how to make our houses into better pieces of architecture?

cross posted on Rob’s personal blog: http://no2self.net

The summary of the previous posts explaining the design concept can also be viewed as a slide show:

At the time of submitting our bid, our client (Staffordshire Housing Association) had already purchased two specific properties it hoped to use for the project; giving us the opportunity to apply our design proposals to a real example:

The solution for a particular property: 4 + 6, Victoria Street, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffs

• South-east frontage and north-west facing rear elevation - requires solar space to be angled towards westerly, afternoon sun.
• Direct off street access and tunnel back service entries.
• Front doors onto street to have draught lobby for privacy and security
• Rear gardens filled in by extensions to suit previous commercial usage.
• Removal of all rear outbuildings and extensions to open aspect and recreate usable garden area
• Thermal upgrading of walls by internal insulated lining and blockwork/acoustic stud skins to party walls.
• Existing roof stripped and insulated using warm roof 40mm over and 80mm between and/or cold roof 50mm between and 80mm under rafters all to U value of 0.2.
• Windows all to S by D, PAS 24 and high performance thermally U value 1.8
• Internal windows single glazed for useful gain
• Passive solar spaces glazed full height with upper level vents to outside and into attic zone.
• Existing rear brick walls used as thermal store and new concrete slab tiled to increase thermal lag.
• Rear Bedroom to open onto sun space, balcony to improve aspect to garden and provide galleried living potential.
• Sunspaces able to work at 45/45 and 60/30 degree configurations to suit orientation and adjacent boundaries.
• No 4 has boundary wall to walkway and features end of terrace option.
• Option to site boiler at high level, minimise flue runs, site close to solar thermal panel pre-heating and remove from kitchen food prep areas.
• Existing shop front windows and door openings remodelled to recreate street integrity.
• Ground floor toilet to part M accessibility with option for shower outlet
• Upper floor part and full ensuite options available
• Rear gardens to take shed, patio, lawn, bins and water butts

The summary of the proposals discussed here are available as a slide show in the following blog entry: the slideshow.