Sustainable Hypocrisy

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Doug King

If you have read my posts or tweets over the last few months then you will probably know that I am pretty peeved with Sainsburys over the future of the Greenwich store that I helped design for them back in the late 1990s. Sainsburys want to move to a more profitable location and, apparently, to stop any competitor gaining a foothold in the area they have placed a legal covenant on the land at Greenwich to prevent it from ever being used again as a food store.

The building was specifically designed to be the best and most energy efficient food store possible, mainly through a passive approach but also by recycling heat from the refrigeration plant and cooling the surplus with groundwater. To prevent this groundbreaking building being reused for its intended purpose is the anthesis of sustainable development.

The passive design features of the building (daylight, thermal mass, natural ventilation) would equally benefit many other retail uses, but the only party currently interested in purchasing the site is IKEA, who apparently cannot imagine how to adapt their big blue artificially conditioned box model to use daylight.

Both Sainsburys and IKEA have defended their respective positions. Their people in charge of sustainability have stated that the store was a prototype, things have moved on since 2000 and both new stores will incorporate the latest sustainable technologies. Well I think that shows just how little clue these corporate sustainability wonks really have. As far as I know daylight has been around for a while, is pretty well proven as a concept and is not likely to be superseded any time soon.

In IKEA’s case they state that their new store “will achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating and will include technologies to help minimise the store’s carbon footprint such as photovoltaic (solar) panels.” Funny that they consider this to be an advancement in sustainability when, 15 years ago, the original building achieved the first ever retail BREEAM ‘Excellent’ without any contribution from solar panels. IKEA goes on to state how they are reducing their carbon footprint across stores by 11% through switching to advanced LED lighting. Hmmm.. the Sainsburys Store reduces lighting energy consumption by around 80% simply using daylight! I think it is unlikely that IKEA will ever recognise the irony of generating electricity from the sun just to run their technically superior LED lights.

Then, the other day, I read an article about Sainsburys proclaiming their latest sustainability hit, a new store powered entirely by food waste, presumably the kind of approach that represents a “significant advance” over passive energy conservation as used at Greenwich. It seems that a new store at Cannock in Staffordshire is to have a private wire connection to a near by anaerobic digestion and generation facility and will send its food waste there for conversion. Yes this will divert food waste from landfill and put it to a better use, but this is not a sustainable solution. Food is for eating! What will happen when energy demand at the store increases, will Sainsburys start to deliberately divert food to the waste stream in order to keep feeding the anaerobic digester?

The supermarket retail model is largely responsible for the waste of around 40% of food. This is a HUGE problem! A business that was genuinely focussed on sustainable development would be working to reduce the food waste problem at its root: packaging, handling and overstocking. To try and greenwash a problem like food waste with pseudo energy efficiency really is the worst sustainability hypocrisy that I have ever come across.

If Sainsburys and IKEA want to demonstrate that they are genuinely concerned about sustainable development then they will have to try a lot harder, or they should simply shut up. At present all they are achieving is to demonstrate that they really are only prepared to pay lip service to sustainability in the pursuit of profits.

UN EcoBuilding

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Doug King

I’ve just returned from one of the most fulfilling building openings I have ever been to, that of the United Nations Ecobuilding in Podgorica, Montenegro. Even though this is technically no more advanced than any other low energy building I have designed, I believe that the potential for beneficial change that this building offers is greater than all the others put together.

The building, on the bank of the River Moraca, represents a ground-breaking new way of working for UN regional agencies as well as leading edge low energy building design. The building was the brainchild of Garret Tankosic-Kelly, formerly Resident Coordinator for the UN in Montenegro. The five UN agencies operating in Montenegro were working from independent locations in Podgorica. The creation of a new building was an opportunity to streamline operations as well as create synergies between the agencies.

UNEcobuilding1

The Austrian Government sponsored an architectural competition in 2005 to find a design for the building. I helped Daniel Fugenschuh, architect from Innsbruck develop the concept inspired by the sentiment ‘Delivering as One’ as described in the brief. All the UN agencies were to be placed on the same floor level and under a unifying roof form.

The Montenegro Government gifted land for the building in a prominent position on the edge of the Moraca River. The design responds to the location by recessing into the riverbank to create an iconic building without dominating the skyline. The work spaces project onto the riverbank like fingers, each housing two agencies with a fourth finger accommodating the café and terrace which can be used for informal meetings and social interaction.

Energy consumption has been substantially reduced compared to the norm for the region using simple methods such as providing plentiful natural light and natural ventilation in lieu of sealed construction and air conditioning. The river carries meltwater from the surrounding mountains and creates a natural pocket of cool air within its banks. This is utilised for passive cooling in conjunction with the massive, insulated concrete slab roof. Large rooflights, cut through the slab, allow daylight to penetrate into the offices below along with full height glazing on the western elevation overlooking the river.

The building is heated and cooled using a heat pump coupled to groundwater abstracted from a borewell on the site. Podgorica sits atop a vast underground catchment from the mountains, which surfaces in nearby Skadar Lake, the largest freshwater body in the region. The water temperature is a constant 11°C year round and for most of the year this is low enough to cool the building directly, but in the summer months a heat pump can be used to refrigerate the cooling system water to extract additional cooling capacity.

The primary means of cooling the workspace is a network of pipes embedded in the concrete roof slab. The slab is insulated on the outside and the concrete left exposed on the inside to form the ceiling of the offices. Heat from the interior is continuously absorbed into the concrete and any surplus is carried away by the circulating cooling water. This system will operate to deliver background cooling when internal temperatures rise above 22°C.

UNEcobuilding2

When the outside air temperature is low enough in the evenings and overnight the slab can simply be cooled by passive night ventilation using the opening windows. However the occupants will need to keep the windows shut during the summer when temperatures can rise to around 40°C for weeks at a time and remain above 30°C overnight. Under these conditions the ground water cooling will operate continuously, supplemented by conventional central air conditioning during the day when the indoor temperature exceeds 26°C

The solar heat gains to the building are mitigated by shading the roof with a photovoltaic solar canopy which, at 86kW, is believed to be the largest building attached photovoltaic installation in the Balkan region. The solar power generation will be sufficient to meet the majority of the building’s power needs. When there is a surplus of electricity generated, this will be fed into the national power grid, another first for Montenegro.

The building is well insulated and uses solar control, triple glazed windows to Passivhaus standards. With the relatively mild Montenegran winters there is typically little call for heating and the idea of heavily insulating the building was unusual for the local contractors. However the insulation pays dividends in limiting heat transmission in the summer and in winter the heat gains from occupancy will generally be sufficient to keep the building warm. However, for the occasions when the temperature does drop, the heat pump can act in reverse to heat the building, drawing heat out of the groundwater. The solar canopy has also had to be designed to withstand 1m snow depth.

When we started the project we unknowingly faced years of trying to persuade the Montenegran construction industry and regulatory authorities of the possibility of delivering low energy buildings in the region. Almost every feature we proposed was “impossible to achieve in this country”. Nevertheless we persisted and with time the awareness of new technologies and techniques grew and, with it, acceptance of what we were proposing. The breakthrough probably occurred when the electricity company changed their rules to allow grid connection of solar PV generation. Thus after eight and a half years the building is finally finished and delivers 95% of the initiatives that we hoped.

This project has clearly advanced the leading edge of building technology in the Balkan region. However, what is most significant is that the final design and construction was realised in Montenegro by Montenegran consultants and contractors, not merely imported from Northern Europe as typically happens. The local development and construction team have gained a huge amount of new knowledge and experience with novel technologies. This is the process I refer to as Co-Design, where we share our knowledge and expertise to enable others to raise their skills and knowledge, rather than simply presenting them with a fait accompli. The building meets European requirements for new buildings to be near zero energy consumers, some five years ahead of schedule and the Montenegran team now has the skills to replicate this indefinitely. This is a key outcome for Montenegro as it seeks membership of the European Union.

We now hope to set up a programme to monitor the performance and use of the building through the first few years of its life. We want to engage both the University in Podgorica and other European Universities in sharing knowledge on how modern architecture can evolve in South Eastern Europe without unnecessarily depleting the region’s resources.

Smart Buildings & People

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Doug King

Back in October I was invited to Westminster to brief The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee about Smart Buildings. I chose to talk about Smart Buildings and People. What follows is the brief written summary of my presentation which has been submitted for publication in the proceedings. The full slideshow is at the foot of the page.

Summary of a Presentation to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee

22^nd October 2013

Doug King FREng FInstP FCIBSE FEI HonFRIBA
Building Performance Consultant, Doug King Consulting
Visiting Professor of Building Physics, University of Bath

Information

The term ‘smart’ is applied to a host of enabling technologies in modern buildings, the ‘smart meter’ being probably the most familiar. Examination of smart meter technology allows us to begin to understand interactions between people and technology applicable to both dwellings and commercial buildings.

The equivalent of domestic smart meters, meters that signal half hourly consumption data to the utility company, have existed for many years in commercial buildings. If equipped with an in-home display (IHD) or commercial equivalent, the building occupiers can also access the data. However, in both cases the term ‘smart meter’ is a misnomer, as the meter merely conveys information. It is up to the occupier to do something smart with that information.

In-home displays (IHDs) need to present information in context in order to be useful. A PV generation monitor (right) can be easily calibrated against the size of array to present contextualised information. It is impossibly complex to calibrate an in-home display (left) against all the variety in UK households.

The presentation of data alone is of little value without context. Stevenson and Leaman (2010) said: “It is not enough to presume that the information from ‘smart metering’ will encourage people to reduce their energy consumption any more than a car speedometer will reduce speeding.” A car speedometer provides information, but the driver must have knowledge of the speed limit in order to correctly interpret that information. Without significantly improved energy numeracy amongst the populace it is unlikely that the smart meter roll out will deliver its full energy savings potential.

Engagement

A Study by Van Dam, Bakker & Van Hal (2010) found that novelty appears to play a significant role in the savings reported in short term trials of in-home displays. Revisiting households that had previously participated in a pilot study they found that the initial savings had generally not been maintained. Moreover, the lapse rate was more or less consistent regardless of how well the participants had engaged with their in-home display during and after the pilot study.

Results of a study by Van Dam et al (2010) suggest that energy savings achieved in pilot studies of in-home displays may be transitory regardless of the level of engagement by homeowners.

The study indicates a clear lapse towards prior behaviour over time, but was unable to corroborate the hypothesis that the magnitude of energy savings achieved correlates to level of interaction with the in-home display. It is clear that, if we are to make the most of the opportunity of smart metering, we need to better understand people’s interpretation of, and response to, energy information and tailor it to their needs in both domestic and commercial situations.

Control

It is not only in-home displays that need to be designed with attention to the human interface. The control systems in commercial buildings are complex, yet the design effort put into the user interfaces is poor. Bordass, Leaman & Bunn (2007) found that: “If user controls are ambiguous in intent, poorly labelled, or fail to show whether anything has changed when they are operated, then the systems that lie behind them are unlikely to operate effectively or efficiently.”

User interfaces need to be engaging, where possible intuitive, and make it easy for individuals to do the right thing, particularly given the increasing tendency to install complex controls in domestic situations, where the understanding of control functions is already poor.

Ambiguous controls create confusion and can lead to users distrusting the system or simply ignoring subsequent useful information or control signals.

Further, if control systems do not provide building occupants with the functionality and convenience that they expect, or feel they have a right to, then they will take actions to override the control systems in order to achieve what they consider to be more favourable outcomes. Thus, it is common in commercial buildings to find thermostatic controls being used as on/off switches and for daylight sensors to be covered with sticky tape to ensure that the electric lights remain on.

Management

Building structures are designed for long lifespans, whilst smart building technologies will fail or become obsolete several times during that span. As with any information technology system, it is essential that a clear upgrade path is available and is followed throughout the life of the building. All too often, building controls are allowed to become obsolete, making subsequent repair prohibitively expensive and leading to the controls being abandoned.

Completed in 1997 as an exemplar of energy efficiency, The BRE Environmental Building featured external shades which were designed to respond automatically to changing daylight and over-heating conditions. However, over time the state of the art control system became obsolete and the actuators progressively failed and were not replaced. Instead, simple manual blinds were installed to control glare and overheating. Today, the louvres remain static and the building’s occupants rarely adjust the blinds, even when daylight levels fall, as the lighting controls compensate by bringing the lights on even in the middle of the day.

Cohen, Ruyssevelt, Standeven, Bordass & Leaman (1998) wrote: “The myth of [building] intelligence is that it is ‘fit and forget’: buy it, and the electronics will do the rest. The actuality is that it is very much ‘fit and manage’. Complex engineering and control systems tend to work best in an environment in which the occupier can resource a high level of facilities and engineering management. Problems start to occur where sophisticated technology is applied in a management-poor environment.”

Design

To deliver smart buildings that sustain their smartness requires more thorough design than is presently the norm in construction. Greater interaction is needed between the building’s users and designers, both at project inception, to clearly articulate requirements, and after handover, to tune the systems and gather operational feedback. There also needs to be a much more robust system for communicating design and performance goals throughout the chain from design through delivery to operation.

Waide, Ure, Karagianni, Birling & Bordass (2013) wrote: “Building Automation Technology often fails to deliver its full potential because those specifying the system have limited understanding of how it will be operated.” They go on to assert: “The best design can only come from a thorough understanding of operation.” In order to be truly smart a building must be designed to be ‘user centric’. It needs to accommodate the habits, needs, desires and capabilities of those who will use and operate it.

People will use buildings in ways that can never be anticipated by the designers. A smart building must be flexible enough to accommodate the needs and desires of the users without forcing them into compromises, which will result in them ultimately overriding the systems.

Procurement

Mapping the typical, mass market construction process onto a systems engineering diagram (below) indicates that there are distinct gaps in the key generative areas for integrated design of smart buildings.

ConstructionSystem01

As an alternative one could propose a construction process diagram, including confirmation of performance outcomes and feedback into subsequent designs, that may be capable of delivering genuinely smart and sustainable buildings.

ConstructionSystem02

However, we need to acknowledge that the present methods of procurement in both the public and private sector do not allow the requisite interaction between users and system designers before and after the construction contract period. If we are to deliver smart and sustainable buildings we first need to address the shortcomings in the procurement process.

Conclusion

For a building to be smart, it must be designed to get the best from both its automated systems and from the intelligence and understanding of its occupants. It needs to be robust, cost-effective and not too complicated. Smart building design must account for the habits, needs, desires and capabilities of those who will use and operate them.

This creates major challenges. Although there are exemplars, in typical UK construction scant attention is paid to human factors, to the design of the product, and to the creation of properly integrated systems. Shortcuts are taken in the installation, commissioning and handover. Provision of complete operating information and user training is rare. Systems designers do not learn from performance in use.

These challenges are not insuperable. However, they will need to be addressed seriously if the potential benefits of smart buildings are to be realised. We need to significantly improve skills and education amongst the designers, constructors and operators of smart buildings. We must put the users at the heart of smart building design and operation.

“A ‘smart building’ is one that doesn’t make its occupants look stupid”
Adrian Leaman – The Useable Buildings Trust

References

Bordass, W., Leaman, A., and Bunn R. (2007) ‘Controls for end users: A guide for good design and implementation’ British Controls Industry Association report 1/2007, BSRIA
Cohen, R., Ruyssevelt, P., Standeven, M., Bordass, B. and Leaman, A. (1998) ‘Building intelligence in use: lessons from the Probe project’ Conference ‘Intelligent buildings: realising the benefits’, BRE Garston, 6-8th October 1998
Stevenson, F. and Leaman, A. (2010) ‘Evaluating housing performance in relation to human behaviour: new challenges’, Building Research & Information, 38: 5
van Dam, S. , Bakker, C. and van Hal, J. (2010) ‘Home energy monitors: impact over the medium-term’, Building Research & Information, 38: 5
Waide, P., Ure, J., Karagianni, N., Birling, G. and Bordass, B. (2013) ‘The scope for energy and CO₂ savings in the EU through the use of building automation technology’, Report for the European Copper Institute. Waide Strategic Efficiency Limited

Slides from the Presentation

The Root of The Performance Gap

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Doug King

A number of comments made during an industry dinner last week have crystallised a new understanding for me about the real root causes of the building performance gap that we now hear so much about.

The performance gap is the difference between the notional energy performance of a building predicted by its designers and the actual out-turn energy consumption once occupied. When you eliminate the obvious impact of regulated versus unregulated energy then there is often still a disparity between design and operation. In many cases this is due to failings in the design or construction, but equally often there is a failure in the management and operation of the finished product.

As is usual in the construction industry, blame for the performance gap is being attached to individual parties in the supply chain. However I now realise that the real problem is structural and embedded in the nature of supply chains themselves. Design and continuous improvement is a circular process, but the supply chain is linear. It is like that because procurement and project managers have made it so. Nowhere within the supply chain is any one party responsible end to end for the building performance.

The project manager who implements last minute omissions from the ‘expensive’ metering and control system is rewarded by the client for bringing the project in on budget. Facility Managers who reduce operating cost by disabling systems or purchasing the cheapest replacement parts are awarded bonuses for achieving financial targets. The chances are that neither party will even be working on the project when the consequences of such decisions come home to roost.

Further, at each link in the chain, we create incentives that promote short term thinking rather than action for the long term outcome of better building performance. Most client organisations separate those responsible for capital investment from those responsible for operations. They reward the procurement teams for achieving the lowest capital cost. Thus procurement is through competitive tendering which provides a clear incentive to do as little work as possible whilst achieving an acceptable, rather than exceptional, outcome.

The consultants need to win work at the lowest cost which constrains the time spent on design. The contractors need to make profit to pay shareholders so will select products on the basis of cost not performance. The Building Control Officers need to win future work and are unlikely to tell unwelcome truths about the building performance. The facility managers survive on their meagre fees by not spending money on extensive maintenance and quality replacement parts.

Even within organisations the way people are employed impacts on outcomes. Employees’ performance in regard to promotion and reward is often measured against annual or even monthly financial targets. When you combine this with a project based workload you create a clear incentive to move on to the next project as quickly as possible, rather than spend more time on delivering one project really well. People are then often ‘too busy’ getting work and doing work to plan the future of their business and still less the future of construction.

It is telling that the RIBA survey of chartered practices found that 62% do not have a business plan. I’d be prepared to bet that the most common reason for not having a business plan is being too busy to create one. Having worked in and run small businesses myself I am well aware of the pressure simply to keep turning over the work.

The building performance gap is not the ‘fault’ of the construction industry or the occupiers. It is a product of the systemic failure of procurement, management and operation of buildings.

More thoughts about the impact of procurement on construction value in follow up article ‘Race to the Bottom‘

Building Physics takes flight

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Doug King

I am really excited this month to have finally reached the point of establishing the Royal Academy of Engineering Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design.

UK Construction is changing rapidly as the industry assimilates new requirements for sustainability and new working practices. The education of construction professionals is also under scrutiny for its relevance to this new paradigm. The Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design will develop new research-led teaching for engineers. They will prepare engineering graduates to deliver the sustainable buildings the UK needs at substantially lower cost than is presently achieved.

This initiative stems from two reports that I wrote for the Royal Academy of Engineering: Engineering a Low Carbon Built Environment and The Case for Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design.

The first of these set out the field of building physics as one of scientific investigation into building energy performance, distinct from the activities of thermal analysis and building services engineering. It argued that an understanding of building physics was essential to the creation of low cost, low carbon buildings that save energy through good design rather than ecobling. The second report set out the first ever econometric analysis of the benefits of engineering education. The proposition was that by changing construction engineering education we could influence change in the construction industry from the grassroots. Graduates trained in building physics, energy performance and systems engineering would be equipped to innovate and solve future problems through design rather than ecobling. We developed a model for Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design and evaluated the impact of the potential graduates on UK construction. This showed that graduates from just four such centres could benefit the UK economy to the tune of billions of pounds.

Experimental Building Physics at the University of Bath

Practical experiments in Building Physics being conducted at the University of Bath

We have now completed the selection of the four universities to pilot the Centres of Excellence concept. Loughborough University, University College London, Sheffield University and Heriot Watt University are going to try out this model for us. The four universities will collaborate on delivering a common approach to interdisciplinary education for engineers while maintaining their own individual characters and interests. Our common aim is, as Prof. Chris Wise from UCL puts it so nicely, “to work together to grow the world’s best technological thinkers and practitioners in sustainable building design”.

With the level of enthusiasm for this change being shown by these universities I am feeling really optimistic for the future of sustainable construction in the UK for the first time in a while. Just imagine what could happen when the benefits in student recruitment and outcomes are demonstrated and the rest of the UK universities follow suit.