Monthly Archives: December 2013

What I Learned This Week

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This week, well actually over the last few weeks, I have learned that the UK construction industry is incredibly conservative, even more than I previously realised. I’ve also learned that the younger generation of professionals appears to be conditioned by received wisdom without necessarily examining the issues for themselves. Any challenge to the sacred cows of construction is seen as an affront and not an opportunity to learn and improve. I find this very worrying for the future of our industry.

Those that follow my blog or tweets will know that I am not afraid to express my opinions. In fact it is one of the main reasons that Building Design included me in their ranking of influential people a couple of years ago. But I am finding that activism for change is falling on increasingly deaf ears in construction. The mainstream construction industry seems to be losing the ability to think about the issues, particularly when these involve unwelcome truths or wicked problems.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when I found myself in dinner jacket and black tie in the debating chamber of the Cambridge Union, which is modelled on the House of Commons, as part of a team arguing against the suggestion that “BIM is the Answer”. I chose to challenge two BIM dictums: that it will lead to more innovation and that it will generate greater collaboration. Lets be clear, I believe that BIM will be immensely helpful to the industry, but not in those ways.

Firstly, innovation is disruptive. Innovations come along and change the paradigm. Therefore it is not possible to model any innovation within the existing paradigm. That is why BIM cannot possibly stimulate innovation. A building information model can only be built from the existing paradigm and therefore true innovation is excluded from the modelled environment by its very nature.

Secondly, any technology that requires people to spend more and more time behind computers is a natural barrier to creative collaboration. Collaboration requires quality face to face time. Innovative businesses such as Apple and Ideo structure their teams to provide as much face to face contact time as possible to spark ideas which lead to innovation.

Counter arguments from the audience simply reiterated the cliches that BIM provides a less costly environment for innovation than bricks and mortar and that working on a common model equals collaboration.

I think that this reveals the complete misunderstanding in construction of what innovation really means. At The Atkins Christmas Debate on Innovation and Education it was clear that innovation was being defined by engineers as incremental improvement, not disruptive change. It is true that BIM will help deliver incremental improvement for construction, but that is not enough to be called innovation.

Construction teams are divided in order to drive down what is perceived as unnecessary expense. This is a barrier to collaboration so we invent management structures (of which BIM is one) to overcome it. As the management structures become more onerous we need to deploy staff simply to fulfil their demands. BIM is already the preserve of specialists that may never even meet each other. That is not collaboration.

Then last week we had the online Saint Gobain debate on whether there is a useful definition of a sustainable building. The discussion was wide ranging and should have provoked some genuine reflection on what it means to be sustainable in the 21st Century. In the end, the audience voted that there is a useful definition of sustainable building, even though nobody had been able to identify what it was. Once again the debate audience appeared to reject the opportunity to re-examine the issues but cleaved to the status quo.

I was on the losing side in both cases, but that is not what has made me sore (well only a little). No, rather, it is the retrenchment in the face of argument that concerns me most. As with climate change, we have almost reached a point where BIM and sustainability have become ideologies. The supporters and opponents of these positions become retrenched in response to any contrary argument and real debate about the issues is suppressed.

There have been other instances recently that have reinforced my jaded views. I can’t reveal confidential information but suffice to say I was invited to offer my opinion on a scheme only to find that the designers were not willing to discuss the issues, only to assert that their solution was sustainable despite evidence to the contrary.

Labelling buildings or construction tools as something they are not (or may be only a little) as pre-emptive defence against antagonists seems to have become prevalent. Has our industry become so beaten down that we now see every opportunity as a threat?

BIM has enough going for it already without making inflated claims to its capability. Sustainability is so wide ranging as to enable us to improve performance in so many ways, yet we still label buildings on the smallest justification. The fact that we have these tools and capabilities shouldn’t prevent us from striving to do better. Lets call a thing a thing and not pretend that it is more or less than it actually is.

(Actually politicians seem to think that they have magical powers that allow them to change the nature of something by calling it something else. This can be the only reason why the new Part L, which is to be enacted in April 2014, is called Part L 2013.)

The construction industry has been an amazing place to work for the last 25 years. It could be even more amazing in the future, but we need to stop hiding our heads, address the difficult truths and get on with making a real difference. Or am I just getting old and grumpy?

Saint Gobain Debate Final

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This is it. The final arguments are up on the Saint Gobain Debate Site, along with guest comments from Jon Bootland. The voting is still neck and neck so please make up your own mind.

I believe this debate has been really helpful in flushing out issues that we in construction must address. The debated question is somewhat ambiguous and the arguments deliberately provocative. We’ve received terrific contributions, which have extended the argument beyond what the debaters could have managed. The voting has been neck and neck throughout, which suggests that opinion really is divided.

Re-reading the arguments and contributions, there is one thing that stands out for me: the confusion over what sustainability actually means. We have debated various sub-sets of meaning but still have reached no useful definition of what a sustainable building is.

We’ve discussed rating systems which focus on impacts of constructing and/or operating a building. But these don’t address whether a building will be a benefit or a burden to society. Whether it will be loved and endure, or be hated and demolished. Whether it promotes wellbeing amongst its occupants and users. Local plans address some social and economic issues, but do not address indicators such as ONS’s national wellbeing or BRE’s societal cost of poor housing.

It is hard to evaluate these intangible, checklist unfriendly, issues. But we must confront these truths if we are to make the transition to a sustainable construction industry.

Most certainly we need to improve our understanding of building performance and the prediction models so that they better reflect actual outcomes. We must improve the education and skills of construction professionals and equip ourselves to tackle these issues. Then we must improve our communications in order to present truthful information about building performance in a useful way.

These however, are simply the business improvement actions required of a progressive 21st Century industry. Merely doing what is necessary will not transform us into a sustainable construction industry.

We should not delude ourselves that the transition to genuinely sustainable construction will be easy or cheap. It will require conviction and commitment.

Would a simple definition of a sustainable building be useful anyway? I think not.

Sustainability does not arise from a label applied to buildings. Sustainable is not something you do, sustainable is something that you are. Sustainability is an ethos, a thought process. Sustainability informs everything you do.

Creating ‘sustainable’ labels incentivises us to strive towards that particular goal, often at the expense of other significant issues. As long as we persist in labeling buildings using checklists, we will promote cherry-picking from a limited range of issues, glorifying a few good features to conceal the bad.

Delft University compared environmental rating systems and discovered that it was toughest to get a high score under BREEAM. This should be a mark of excellence. Instead it means that LEED has become the system of choice as it is simpler to gain the highest rating. The effort that should go into sustainable design has been diverted into effort to find the lowest hurdle.

To become a sustainable industry, we need to apply our professionalism and our imagination to eliminating all which is damaging or degrading.

We need to identify all possible harms that could arise from construction, operation and inhabitation of buildings and work to eliminate them.

We need to strive for Zero Harm. Zero Harm to the biosphere that makes life possible on this planet. Zero Harm to our fellow humans, including those as yet unborn. Of course my dream of truly Zero Harm construction is practically unachievable. But surely it is our duty as 21st Century professionals to get as close as we can.

Construction is good at managing risk. Why can’t we apply the same processes to managing harm?

Rather than using sustainability checklists that only address the common features of buildings, we would create harm mitigation plans bespoke to each building project. The development team could clearly demonstrate their understanding of the true range of possible impacts and the measures that they have taken to mitigate them. Such an approach also provides the essential flexibility required for design compromise, which is lacking in some of the checklist ratings.

If Sherlock Holmes were alive today, I am certain that he would concur: “When we have eliminated all possible harm, that which remains must be sustainable”. Isn’t that worth striving for?

Saint Gobain Debate Day 4

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Yesterday should have seen the rebuttal statements published in Saint Gobain’s debate. However for some reason their site has not been updated, so for those of you who want to keep up, here is my second piece arguing for the motion. If this argument sways you in any way please go to the debate site and vote. Remember you can change your mind and you can vote as often as you like before 19th December.

There is no useful definition of what a sustainable building is

My opposer seems to agree that, whilst there are assessments for a range of building performance issues, there is no overall useful definition of what a sustainable building is. Some assessments focus on construction, some on building performance, some on design quality and some on health and wellbeing. But where is the definition of a sustainable building that considers all of these aspects, and also the ones that the construction industry does not dare to mention?

We have both lighted on the Georgian townhouse as an example of a sustainable typology, even though sustainability, in its current sense, could not have been further from the architects’ minds. In fact Georgian townhouses are amongst the hardest properties to upgrade to current standards of energy efficiency, given their solid wall construction, often inhabited roof spaces and, typically, conservation status. This is sufficient demonstration alone that there is no useful definition of what a sustainable building is.

But what about those issues that the construction industry does not face up to? The industry is good at optimising buildings once a developer has already determined to build. How about the fundamental decision of what and where to build? Where are the sustainability indicators for communities who’s economic life is bled out of them by (sustainably constructed) out of town malls, for Code 4 housing estates built the wrong side of bypasses away from schools and shops, for the proposed demolition of a recent exemplar superstore because of a restrictive covenant on the building’s re-use?

The Qatar World Cup stadium has already been described as the world’s most sustainable stadium on the basis that it will use solar energy to power the vast air conditioning system necessary to stop the players collapsing in an environment hostile to sporting endeavour. Is this really sustainable? Could these resources not be better deployed elsewhere? How about solar power for schools in developing nations? Oh, sorry – they’re not wealthy enough to buy sustainability.

Then consider the shocking rates of death and injury amongst migrant workers building these facilities. We must surely ask ourselves – what is the purpose of this construction? Is it a genuine contribution to human development? How have the developers, designers and contractors acted to protect the rights and freedoms of present and future generations?

In order to be genuinely sustainable, we have to consider a much, much wider range of issues than we in construction are prepared for. The complete gamut of issues cannot possibly be condensed into a simple definition or single assessment methodology. Just because we measure whatever issues first occur to us does not mean that we have necessarily addressed the germane issues.

To presume that a singular method could reveal any meaningful understanding of the relative sustainability of a hospital and an office is nonsense. Businesses have their own measures of sustainable performance and success. In commercial enterprises these involve profitability and productivity ratios, whilst hospitals measure performance in terms of patient recovery times. These key business performance indicators will not yield to the methods of analysis applied in construction. In fact we barely even speak the same language.

Still further, these business indicators do not capture the social impacts on workers and other users of their services. Where are the measures for the impacts of long hours in a stressful frontline job? How do we account for affordable housing being an unaffordable commute away from a job in the building that we have so carefully and sustainably built?

We are only just beginning to realise what it might mean to really be sustainable.

Genuine sustainable construction requires expertise far beyond that which we can muster amongst construction professionals. Yet presently, we do not appear to be prepared to accept this fact. Creating a genuinely sustainable built environment to enable sustainable change in society will take immense effort and commitment. Yet, we persist in insisting that we can do it on the cheap with our simple checklist assessments. Perhaps we shouldn’t blame the industry alone, since our political leadership also lacks any significant commitment to sustainability.

For me however, the real problem is that the very notion of sustainability has become so deeply debased in the service of finance that it no longer has any currency.

In a 2009 poll, Building magazine asked the question: “Will Sustainability Survive the Recession?” Over half the respondents reported that “clients were already asking them to drop sustainability elements”. Fortunately, Building helpfully defined ‘sustainability elements’ as “renewable energy systems and sustainable building services”.

How can an element possibly be sustainable if its incorporation in a building is subject to whim and economic fair weather? If a building is sustainable, it will bring social and economic benefits that would make it more attractive in a recession, not less. This simply reveals that, in the common perception, sustainability has become synonymous with EcoBling. As EcoBling does not deliver tangible benefits it is considered an unnecessary expense to be borne only in placation of political vagaries.

The planning authorities, whether local or national, have created this situation by their rigid insistence for on-site renewables as the principal mark of sustainable development regardless of other environmental, social and economic impacts.

Well ‘sustainability elements’ are clearly back in vogue, to judge by the recent slew of project proposals appearing in the press, but we still have no useful definition of what a sustainable building is.

Sustainable Development or Emperor’s New Clothes?

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Many readers of this blog will be aware that, in the late 1990s, I was involved in designing the flagship Sainsburys store at Bugsby Way in Greenwich, an exemplar of sustainable design.

Photo: Millennium Sainsbury's

The store was the Channel 4 People’s choice for Building of the Year, received Millennium Product status, won the RIBA Journal’s Sustainability Award and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. It was described by Building magazine as “the most radical design in the history of retailing.” Yet, just 15 years later, this exemplar building is facing demolition because of perverse, anti-competitive action.

Sainsburys have decided that they need a megastore with non-food retail and that the existing site is simply not big enough, despite the existing store having been designed for extension. Sainsburys have therefore applied for planning permission for a new store at nearby Charlton. This leaves the obvious question of what will happen to the store that, according to Michael Evamy, architecure critic for the Independent, is: “the most carefully thought about supermarket in the world, ever.”

Well, a planning application for redevelopment has now been submitted by IKEA. As an IKEA store is typically a big box shed, they have proposed knocking down the existing store and adjacent unit to make space. This blog by 853 shows not only the extent of the proposed IKEA development, but also the paucity of information about the proposed development that the company is prepared to share with the public and its potential customers.

Now, I have never seen an IKEA store with daylight or natural ventilation. They are dark, air-conditioned boxes and the information available from IKEA leads us to suspect that this new store will not be any different. However the pitch they have fed to Greenwich planners is that the new building will incorporate the latest sustainable technologies. By this of course they mean EcoBling.

The original store was designed to minimise its energy consumption without resorting to renewable generation. It was a true fabric first approach from long before the term was coined, as shown by my original design proposals, which I published to encourage plagiarism. At the time I estimated that the energy efficiency approach could reduce the carbon emissions by around half compared to a typical store. I have since calculated that, if all the original features have been maintained, this translates to a saving of around £500,000 per annum on the current energy costs for the store!

Sainsbury Interior

So how have we come to the parlous state of affairs when a new development claims to be sustainable despite demolishing a 15 year old, exemplar energy efficient building to replace it with an EcoBling powered box with no natural light or air?

Well, this blog by Councillor Alex Grant, who was a member of the planning committee that granted permission for the Sainsburys store, hints at the unsavoury truth. Apparently this situation has come about because of a restrictive covenant achieved by Sainsburys that prevents the site being used by any other food retailer. Thus, their flagship store will be demolished simply to stop anyone else from using it. An apalling ‘if I can’t have it, no-one can’ attitude to restricting open and fair competition that would benefit the residents of Greenwich.

This state of affairs reveals that claims of ‘sustainability’ made by many big businesses and much of the commercial property sector is nothing more than the Emperor’s new clothes.

My friend and colleague, Paul Hinkin, with whom I collaborated on Sainsburys and several other exemplar buildings since, has started a petition to oppose the destruction of this historically and socially important building. If you feel that this building has more merit from continued existence than from extinction then please sign it.

Saint Gobain Debate Day 1

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For those who are not following on Twitter or have otherwise missed it for some reason, this week I am battling it out online in the inaugural Saint Gobain Debate. I am proposing the motion that: ‘There is no useful definition of what a sustainable building is’, which is being opposed by Jon Chadwick of Associated Architects.

You can follow the debate, contribute and vote here.

Otherwise here is a copy of my opening argument:

There is no useful definition of what a sustainable building is.

In order to have a definition of what a ‘sustainable building’ is we must first have a definition for ‘sustainable’. A widely recognised definition is that of ‘sustainable development’ taken from the Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

In this context however, ‘development’ is human development, not the bricks and mortar development of real estate. The Brundtland Definition is big picture stuff and cannot so easily be applied to individual buildings. Nevertheless, we should respect the principle. All human activity has impacts, construction and operation of buildings particularly so. We must certainly work hard to deliver functional and cost effective buildings at the lowest possible impact.

We have at our disposal numerous means of assessing impacts. BREEAM, the BRE Environmental Assessment Method, is probably the most comprehensive. BREEAM has been refined over many years to assess a building’s impacts in: energy and water use, health and wellbeing, pollution, transport, materials, waste, ecology and management. However, even this comprehensive checklist of impacts does not make BREEAM a measure of how sustainable the finished building might be.

Whilst BREEAM is one of the better checklists, we often see sustainable credentials claimed on much more flimsy grounds, such as the Passivhaus Standard or even Building Regulations SBEM. Referring to these limited issue assessments as making a building sustainable misleads the public and potential purchasers. It creates belief that buildings can magically become sustainable through the addition technology fixes to address headline issues like carbon emission.

That road leads to Eco-Bling. It is now common to see specious claims to sustainability made on the grounds of urban wind power or city centre biomass heating.

Focusing on any limited range of issues, without considering the entire system within which buildings exist, can lead to perversely un-sustainable outcomes. The principal competitor to BREEAM is LEED, ‘Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design’. Despite its arresting name, recent research by Professor John Schofield in the USA reveals that a high LEED score has no statistically significant impact on primary fuel consumption, nor carbon emissions associated with a building.

If an internationally recognised ‘sustainability’ rating system has no discernible impact on its eponymous objectives, there can be no justification for any claim on lesser grounds.

So, what is the alternative? The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘sustainable’ as “to be capable of enduring”. Thus, before labelling a building ‘sustainable’, we must consider its useful longevity. We need to have some measure of the period over which the impacts will amortise. In other words, we need to assess the quality of the design and its appeal to society. Whether it is best fitted to the occupants’ needs or is simply a money spinner for a developer. Most importantly, we need to assess whether the design is sufficiently flexible for a building to endure through numerous incarnations.

I suggest that some of the most sustainable buildings in UK cities today are Georgian terraced houses. The Georgian design ideals of proportion, space and light ensured that many buildings were valued by subsequent generations. Not only for their beauty. These buildings have proven sufficiently flexible to be reincarnated as shops, offices, multiple dwellings, museums and many other uses. Far from conforming to a modern checklist approach to sustainability, these buildings were simply designed thoughtfully with their future users in mind.

I believe that this is the key to sustainable buildings. A sustainable building is one that its occupants will want to go on occupying. A sustainable building is one that enables its occupants to be more comfortable and more productive, as well as consuming less energy and less resources. Sustainable buildings bring business enhancing performance benefits to commercial occupiers. How can any building be sustainable that does not contribute to the social development of its occupants and its neighbours?

Without assessing longevity, social contribution and business performance benefits equally with impacts and costs, we cannot make any judgements about a building’s real worth.

At least for now, there truly is no useful definition of what a sustainable building is!