Past Delusional

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Doug King

I am currently preparing my talk for the annual Lignacite Lecture which I will be giving next month entitled ‘Building on Evolution’. I have taken as my theme the tacit knowledge of historic builders and what we could learn from them. However this has also got me thinking about our tendency to allow nostalgia to blind us to reality.

How often do we hear that it was ‘better in the old days’, that Georgian or some other architectural period was the ‘pinnacle of achievement’, that pop music these days is not as good as the 70s, that the modern world is poor by comparison.

By comparison with what?

All aspects of our culture suffer from the same delusion. People of my generation often lament the decline of popular music. It was so much better in the 70s they say. Well that’s probably because they are judging the past by their own collection of music. They bought a small selection of what was available because it appealed to them, and it probably still does. However, they have long since forgotten all the rubbish that was also played on the radio. This creates a distorted impression of the past. Lets face it there was just as much rubbish recorded in the 70s as there is today, we have just forgotten about it!

Well, the buildings that we use to judge the past are also the few, finest examples of their genre. Lets face it, the majority of Georgian buildings no longer exist. They were not fit for purpose and have gone, they failed to endure. Many buildings of the Georgian period were cheaply built by speculators, just like today, and sometimes they even fell down.The Georgian buildings that remain are the ones which were well enough built to endure and functional enough to still be useful to future generations.

The same goes for Gothic cathedrals. The ones that we are familiar with are the ones that were well enough built as to not fall down already (although the reformation had a little to do with it too). But even enduring cathedrals show the signs of constant alteration and repair. The history of British cathedrals is replete with collapses and reconstructions; Hereford, Chichester and Lincoln all suffered major collapses amongst many others. However, the Gothic style developed through expression of the structural imperatives of construction and so such buildings can be easily repaired and altered.

So we could reasonably expect that buildings from any period in history varied in quality and only the best still survive. It is wrong therefore to assume that any period was a golden age based on only the surviving evidence. The buildings that survive are either the product of enduring institutions such as the church and government or they are buildings that managed to appeal to successive generations.

This appeal in surviving historic buildings must be tangible. The buildings had to survive long enough on their own merits to become historic and therefore worthy of legislative protection. So we should be able to learn an awful lot about how to make buildings for the future by trying to understand why historic buildings survived, physically, functionally and culturally. After all enduring is synonymous with sustainable.

Are Our Pensions Founded on Sand?

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Doug King

We are used to seeing environmental protection at the centre of sustainability arguments. We are not so used to thinking about the economic sustainability of what we do in construction. I believe that we may need to rethink the economic model behind commercial construction in the UK or face some dire consequences. Let me explain:

Back in 2009/2010, early in the recession, I was seeking new premises for my business. I identified a recent development in Bristol which was still unoccupied several years after completion. Normally, we would not have been able to afford city centre rents, but I thought that this building should have been ripe for negotiation, having no tenants. However, when I approached the agents I found that commercial property rent is not subject to the usual market forces of supply and demand. The agents gave me the following reason for being unable to reduce the rent. The asset value of the building is determined by the anticipated rental yield. Having purchased the building at a value based on predicted rent the landlord will not reduce the rent in order to attract tenants as this would reduce the asset value leaving them with a loss on their balance sheet. Apparently the paper value of a building is more important than it actually generating revenue. Why would this be?

Well, consider our typical commercial development model. A developer borrows money from the banks in order to construct a building which nobody actually wants. In order to maximise the potential return, the building is constructed to the lowest acceptable specification for its target market. Shortly after completion, the building will be sold to a landlord, typically a pension company. The pension company uses the asset value of the building to underwrite its future pension commitments. The pension company appoints an agent to market the building and then largely forgets about it. Rental revenue pays for the operation of the building. The developer repays the bank loans and pockets the profit.

So, now I understand. The pension companies hold these buildings on their books as assets on paper. It is these paper assets that underwrite the security of my (and your) future pension. However, it seems to me that this is based on the premise that:

the asset will generate revenue;
the asset will appreciate in value.

If the building does not have tenants and is not generating a revenue then what value does it actually have? Consider this other example:

Green Park is a business park development near Reading originally owned by Prudential. The park, which was valued at £500M – £600M in 2008, was held in the Prudential’s Life Fund. Green Park’s principle claim to fame is its highly visible wind turbine next to the M4. Green Park’s other landmark, 450 South Oak Way, the building facing the M4 motorway, together with its sister, 400 South Oak Way, have sat empty since completion in 2002.

450 South Oak Way has sat empty for 10 years, consuming capital rather than generating revenue.

These buildings were leased by Cisco shortly before the dotcom crash and never occupied. Cisco has been trying unsuccessfully to find alternative tenants since. Now, in order to prevent the building fabric from deteriorating, it must be the case that basic heating and cooling systems are kept in operation and basic maintenance is carried out. This will not be cheap considering the buildings’ fully glazed south facing elevations. So, without tenants, these buildings are consuming capital rather than generating revenue. How does that affect the asset value held on Cisco’s books? Well, Cisco gave up and surrendered their leases in July 2012.

So now the cost of maintaining these empty buildings falls once again on the landlord. Interestingly, by now, Prudential had also gotten out of Green Park, selling to Oxford Properties, the property arm of a Canadian pension fund, in 2011 for £400M (a loss of at least £100M for the Pru, such are the shenanigans of the property world). So the costs of maintaining these “assets” must now be borne by Canadian pensioners until tenants are found. I wonder if they will fare any better than Cisco or Prudential did.

In the past, commercial property has clearly been a good investment for pension funds as the assets typically always appreciated. However, this paradigm is changing. As regulations on building energy consumption are continually drawn tighter, underperforming commercial buildings will quickly become obsolete. Commercial tenants are beginning to demand energy efficiency in buildings and, further, from 2018 landlords will be unable to offer for rent any building with an EPC rating lower than E. 450 South Oak Way is Band D according to the agent’s particulars and so it is not in immediate danger of becoming obsolete. Nevertheless, the longer that buildings such as this sit empty the less likely it becomes that they will ever find a tenant, as newer buildings come along with substantially better energy ratings. Do we face the prospect that recently constructed buildings may even be demolished without ever having generated revenue? I wonder what this does to the asset value recorded in the pension fund’s books. Will we find ourselves in a few years time faced with pension funds loaded down with a whole load of toxic assets as bad as the sub-prime mortgage situation?

I’m not an economist and don’t know the answer to this question, but I do know that if my business does not produce revenue then it has no value as an asset and cannot be used to underwrite borrowing or liabilities. It worries the hell out of me that my pension might be underwritten by assets with no value other than paper. Does anyone else have any insights on this situation?

New Professionalism

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Doug King

Many of the institutions that I’m involved with or watch; The Edge, RIBA Building Futures, CIBSE, even universities, are presently debating what it means to be a construction professional in the 21st century. We all recognise that construction has to change to deliver the required new paradigm but we haven’t yet figured out by how much.

The main problem as I see it is that society stopped trusting the professions a long time ago. When it has become normal for patients to challenge their doctors over diagnosis or choice of treatment, you can be pretty sure that public appreciation of professionality in general has been completely degraded.

It takes considerable time and effort to become a professional. A Chartered Architect or Chartered Engineer will require around 7 years of education and employment training to qualify, similar to the qualification period for a doctor. This is not something people undertake unless they are committed to their profession.

The public interest in ethics appears to be at an all time high.

All members of professional institutions sign up to a code of ethics. These generally impose a duty on them to act in the best interests of society as a whole, not only of their clients. Yet, whilst the public is clearly interested in ethics, it seems no longer to recognise that professionality is synonymous with such ethical behaviour.

This loss of trust is reflected in many aspects of professional life. I often help evaluate applications for public funding of some sort or another. I also help assess applicants for professional qualifications. In both of these areas assessors are often urged to use their judgement to establish clear differentiation between applicants. Yet the awarding bodies deny assessors any freedom to exercise professional judgement by requiring us to follow a strict checklist process. As professional assessors we are no longer trusted to independently exercise our professional judgement.

The rise of project management in construction is another clear symptom of the death of trust in professionality. Clients, particularly in the public sector, require project managers because they no longer trust architects and designers to act in their best interests. They evidently believe that without the controlling hand of an overseer, highly trained and committed professionals would simply run amok. While it is true that there have been a number of high-profile public building debacles, the vast majority of construction professionals do in fact place the client’s interests at the forefront.

In some cases it is clear that high profile projects have gone wrong because the public sector client was unable to contain its ambition or to manage the procurement process. Equally, some of the blame in these cases must attach to the professionals who failed to advise the client properly and allowed the project to run out of control. Nevertheless, there are cases where architectural ambition has exceeded the clients budget, needs or capability. Whatever the cause, the professions as a whole are tarred with these failures.

The professions need to police themselves, and visibly so, if we are to regain the trust of society. Surely a key feature of the ethics of professionalism is the protection of the reputation of one’s entire profession? Public figures can have honours rescinded. Sportspeople can be castigated for bringing their game into disrepute. Should we name and shame the architects and engineers who blithely ignore their clients real needs or promulgate overpriced, underperforming buildings to the detriment of their whole profession? I wonder which of the professional institutions will have the ethical strength to actually enforce such a code of ethical practice?

I agree that we must find a new professionalism for construction. However I fear that unless we also address the shortcomings of the old professionalism, particularly the enforcement of existing codes of ethics and standards of professional conduct, then we will simply be constructing our houses on sand.

What is Sustainability Anyway?

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Doug King

I think that I must be getting past it, it seems that I simply don’t understand “Sustainability” anymore.

I recently found it necessary to argue in the Architect’s Journal that teaching “sustainability” as subject matter is nonsense. Sustainable designs arise from a deep understanding of the issues not by adding a separate layer of activity on top.

I’ve recently been told that I am wrong to suggest that sustainability is an inherent characteristic of a construct or system rather than an additional feature. Presumably I must be wrong because that kind of thinking jeopardises the lucrative new industry of Sustainability Consultancy.

I have also come across many discussions about what it takes to be a ‘sustainable business leader” or how to “leverage sustainability” in business. Apparently there was even a Sustainable Leadership Conversation on Twitter, which fortunately I missed completely.

Now this is what I don’t understand:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines sustainability simply as “the property of being sustainable”. It also defines sustainable as “to be capable of enduring”. Now we should all want to be sustainable shouldn’t we. Consider the antonym: unsustainable. This is where we start to expose some of the nonsense in the current jargon.

If a business is not sustainable it clearly will cease to function. Definition. A business leader who fails to lead a business sustainably will bring about the death of the business pretty quickly. Therefore the leaders of any viable businesses are sustainable business leaders. Any business that is providing a service, making a profit and investing in its future must by definition also be sustainable. That’s a lot of people and businesses, much more than the self-proclaimed.

The Oxford English Dictionary also defines the term environmental sustainability as “the degree to which a process or enterprise is able to be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources”. So environmental sustainability is a property of a system or rate of activity, such as constructing buildings or consuming fuel. Clearly such a property can only be designed into the system or activity as it surely cannot be added as a feature afterwards.

A hero of mine, Ted Happold, once said that an engineer is someone who can do for a penny what any fool could do for a pound. To me that is the definition of sustainability pure and simple. The ingenuity of engineers delivers financial, resource and fuel efficiency as a routine part of their work. In order to continue to do what we want to do as a society we need to be able to do it whilst consuming less. Less money, less resource and less fuel.

Gordon E Moore observed that the number of transistors that engineers could pack into an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. This ability to do more operations with less silicon has revolutionised computing and communications. Further, by increasing the capability of individual chips you reduce the overall power demand for computers and equipment. So Moore’s law predicts the increase in computing and communications capability as well as the reduced demand for electricity to run these devices.

Indeed we are now seeing the situation where electricity demands for IT are falling as obsolete equipment is replaced with new more efficient equipment. This is clearly a sustainable state of affairs, social development is accelerating whilst the cost of devices, both financial and energy are falling. This is clearly a property of the system. We simply need to balance the demand for products, to address needs not wants, with the rate at which we can safely extract raw materials.

I find myself in agreement with former CIBSE President, Prof David Fisk when he called for the word “sustainability” to be banned from technical discourse. It has become so corrupted as to not only be meaningless, but actually to obscure the real issues that we need to deal with. Lets talk knowledgeably about resources and energy consumption and social development and the economy and protecting our vital biosphere. If we are still talking about these things in 2050 then surely we will have sustained.

Education for Sustainability

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Doug King

This week AJ Footprint featured a series of views, including mine, on how architectural education should address sustainability. Unfortunately this feature does not appear on the AJ website so I cannot link to it. So here instead is the original text from before the editor’s scalpel was applied to fit it into a reduced space:

Clients often consider sustainability to be an optional feature. It isn’t. Government seems to think that BIM will drive sustainability. It won’t. I believe that teaching sustainability as separate subject matter in universities is nonsense and reinforces these “technological fix” fallacies.

For a sustainable future, I believe that we simply need to teach thinking. INTEGRATED, SUSTAINABLE, DESIGN, THINKING. This is the core of successful buildings: remember Vitruvius. Unfortunately, the complexity of modern buildings exceeds the expertise of any single profession to think through.

We must recognise that all components and systems of construction have a wide range of attributes, which must be managed simultaneously. For simple components cost and embodied carbon are clearly important, but so are attributes such as strength, insulation value, durability and manufacturing toxicity.

No single professional can manage all the attributes of even a simple component, such as a façade panel. Some will be expert in weathering, some in energy and some in deflection. Formulating designs based on a limited range of attributes, such as cost and appearance, is obsolete. We must instead collaborate across professions in order to optimise designs over the gamut of attributes.

In complex systems, including buildings, many other factors come into play, such as spatial organisation and human performance. Whilst concentrating on the environmental impacts of construction, to be sustainable we must focus equally on cost, operational efficiency and social benefits. We need a method to manage all these diverse issues in synchronicity.

If I could redesign education for sustainable construction I would teach all professions an awareness of the gamut of attributes that need to be managed and proficiency in DESIGN. Properly executed, design is the most powerful tool that we have for solving complex, multi-dimensional problems.

I would, however, teach these skills in an interdisciplinary context. I’d challenge professionals to apply their creativity to jointly solving real-life problems. Then they will evolve their own sustainable solutions rather than simply aping received wisdom. They’d also develop a healthy respect for the contribution of their peers.