Communities Scotland

Transcription

Hello The presentation you are about to see describes recent research work undertaken within the Sustainable Building Design programme at the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde. The work aims at drawing together both theoretical and practical components of architectural design in a way that can inform and support a self-reflective approach within practice around the development of (or refinement of) particular principles and processes that can be applied by the practice in designing buildings that consume fewer resources, use less energy, and enhance the lives of their occupants. The best architecture has always been about these things of course, but the increasing prominence of the “sustainability agenda” in both architecture and urbanism today suggests that a more widespread shift in design decision-making within practice may well be underway, wherein design priorities are changing to reflect a new reality in part constructed on various definitions of what sustainability is, of aspects ecological architecture, environmentalism, Green Architecture, low energy zero-carbon design. These terms, with sometimes conflicting values, are variously adopted to describe a sustainable approach. The word “SUSTAINABILITY” is increasingly used within the vocabulary of architecture but its popularity is coupled with a conceptual ambiguity. On one hand it suggests balance and setting limits while on the other there is an implied expectation of development (often aligned with economic development). The most widely accepted definition of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is that provided by the UN Brundtland Commission in 1987, as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Of course the notion of “MEETING NEEDS” is a complex and relative issue but those collective needs must consider - how we can provide adequate shelter for the estimated 9 billion people who will, within the next generation, occupy an increasingly inhospitable natural environment. The big challenge for those involved in shaping the built environment in the 21st Century is to achieve this while ensuring that our architecture and our cities can continue to be instruments in our progressive evolution. Our collective ambition should be, not just to cope with crises, but to develop as a species in harmony with our environment - to move towards forms of synthesis and equilibrium between the built and natural environments. And if, as is being suggested, a tangible shift towards “sustainability” is indeed what is happening in architectural design practice an important question for those of us in academia is how is this being informed (or underpinned theoretically)? How do designers choose which of a variety of interpretations to align with? There are issues of identity at the core of this. From a wide spectrum of values and approaches, ranging from technology-based to ecology-based responses what are the design principles and processes that are currently being adopted and embedded by practice? And how do architectural practices position (or re-position) themselves in response to this spectrum in a way that can inform their future work and support their developing design ethos? The presentation addresses these questions in summarising a process of structured engagement that has taken place over the last year or so between researcher Carol Moultrie and a number of local practices. Finally I would like to take this opportunity of thanking the practitioners who gave their time generously to the study and hope that it has been a useful experience for them and offered them an opportunity to reflect on how their own distinctive approach to architectural design is responding to the social, environmental, and economic complexities inherent within sustainability. Hello, this work has involved me engaging with practitioners from Hypostyle, Page & Park, Assist, GAIA, Archial, Haa Design & Arup, and the presentation provides an insight into their sustainable design approaches and reflections on the study. All the practitioners will describe their practice sustainable design ethos and underlying principles. The case study buildings are both new-build and retrofit, and from social housing, private developer housing, commercial office and educational sector, and provide an opportunity to see the principles & processes in action. One of the case study buildings, Arup’s retrofit and extension to Scotstoun House is shown in more depth with interviews from Haa Design & Arup. But first the framework for the presentation. Key text from leading ecological architects and an environmental group identify a sustainability spectrum. Exemplar buildings are blueprints that are shaped by their principals are shown alongside. Sim Van der Ryn championed low-energy and ecological design in the 1970s and was a pioneer in integrating ecological principles into the built environment. In ecological design, Van der Ryn & Cowan set out 5 principles formulated by their many years of research in practice. The application of these principles involved an engagement or integration, and sharing of knowledge across many sectors. The concept of an individual dwelling that can be self-sufficient with regard to its own energy and resource needs, by for example harvesting rain and recycling waste, was described in the seminal book ‘The Autonomous House’ by Brenda & Robert Vale. Some years later in Green Architecture Design for Sustainable Future, the Vales went on to describe 6 principles as a basis for the green design process. “The importance of designing buildings that are resilient to climate change, mitigate damage to the environment, and are capable of adaption leads to a crisis planning scenario in adapting buildings & cities for climate change, a 21st Century survival guide”. The author of the book Sue Roaf, describes the need for buildings to be resilient to climate change and be designed for longevity with low embodied energy. A holistic approach to sustainability reaches beyond buildings to encompass sustainable communities and lifestyles. The environmental group Bioregional and the World Wildlife Fund have developed the “One Planet Principles” to enable sustainability to be embedded into any process. “One Brighton”, designed by architect Fielden Clegg Bradley is a mixed-use residential development and is one of the first to use the One Planet Principles, and is aiming to be both zero-carbon and zero-waste. As a summary, a principles matrix shows the alignment of the key texts reviewed. The matrix indicates that a core set of principles align across all four sets. Additionally the One Planet principles outline social economic principles that are applicable to resident lifestyle choices, for example with respect to food and fair trade. The process model developed for the case study analysis has the environmental brief at its core. The environmental brief encapsulates economic, social and environmental principles as well as functional requirements, and is continuous throughout the design process. Integrated environmental strategies are set at an early stage, influenced by parameters to meet the design intent. With the emphasis on passive design as a way of reducing energy loads in buildings, computer modelling tools such as IES are used at the design stage. Evaluation systems such as BREAM are an increasing client requirement at the design stage with post-occupancy evaluation testing the design intent and closing the loop. The sustainable design process matrix maps the principles, environmental brief, parameters, environmental strategies, evaluation, and tools & techniques on to the RIBA outline plan of work. It indicates a spread from setting sustainable principles at the outset (stage A), to post-occupancy evaluation of a building in use (stage L). The principles & process model is used throughout the study for review and discussion. We begin the practice interviews with Hypostyle Architects, and their case study building, Miller Street in Hamilton. Clyde Valley Housing Association ran a limited competition in 2001 with partners “Communities Scotland” and “Hamilton Ahead” to design a sustainable social housing development that would contribute to the continuing urban regeneration of Hamilton town Centre. Hypostyle Architects won the competition and started design work in 2003. The completion was in 2006. I’m here with Gerry Henaughen, director of Hypostyle Architects. Hello Gerry. Hello Carolyn Can you describe your practice’s sustainable design philosophy ethos, and do you have a set of principles in place? Yes, we have a policy, a sustainable policy, a 2-page document that outlines a holistic approach to sustainability and the practice’s holistic approach to sustainability, and its 3 principles which are social, economical and environmental. We’re developing our principles further, that’s a long term thing. I think the thing that we’re finding is the analysis of how the client approaches and responds to our principles, I think the response of the client sometimes is based on more the economic side of things rather than the social and environmental side of things, so the principles we’re trying to develop at the moment is to try and almost educate the client from a social and environmental point of view, because although those principles, although they’re set for the practice, the best response comes to them from the client because if you don’t have your client on board then it becomes much harder to develop a sustainable design at the end of the day. I think the policies themselves help our staff but they’re a better benefit almost to the client. Can you describe the environmental brief for the project? Yes, the environmental brief was essentially to design around 28-30 flats on a very tight urban site to sustainable principles which looked at environmental issues and energy issues at the same time. Can you describe the design intent of Miller Street? The design intent is essentially to create an environmental barrier on this transition site between the suburban area to the south side and the more urban area to the north side of a very busy main road. What were the environmental strategies for it? The environmental strategies for that were really to look at it from 2 aspects, both a passive and an active aspect. From a passive point of view all the living spaces were south-facing and we’ve created an environmental barrier to the north. The north side of all the villa blocks essentially have kitchens, bathrooms or stair-course, so the living spaces face south, they have solar gain. The north face is super-insulated all the way along, the larger windows are to the south side. So that’s almost a very basic look at the passive ways we’ve looked at environmental strategy. From an active point of view we have solar panels on the roof which preheat the water. We also have, normally in a villa block of this type with 7 flats in it you would have designed an individual boiler to each flat, in this instance we have 2 communal boilers of the same size which heat all the flats in the property, so it’s almost a communal heating system to each property. We’ve tried to use recycled materials, that was one of the initial principles. It didn’t work out quite as well as we hoped at the start of the design process, we hoped to have a recycled stone wall. It proves too expensive and we had to use a reconstituted stone wall. We also looked at using a recycled steel frame. Again from an economic point of view, we did quite a lot of investigation into it with the structural engineer, and it again proved too expensive. The next practice is Page\Park Architects and the case study building is Carrochan, a new-build office for the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park Authority. The competition brief was for a building to be a community hub, flexible workspace, and to promote the sustainable principles of the national park. Page\Park were appointed in 2005 and the building was completed in 2008. I’m here with Karen Pickering, director of Page\Park, hello. Hi there So to begin, I ask the practitioners to describe their practice sustainable design philosophy ethos and if they had a manifesto or set of sustainable principles in place. Well, we’ve been developing our sustainable principles for quite a long time at Page\Park and now we really feel as though they’re embedded in our whole design ethos in all of our projects. Initially we did have just a few projects which had the ‘sustainability’ label on them but now all of our projects, we give these principles. We have a sustainability checklist in the office which all our architects work to, and we have a sustainability policy which we all adhere to. So that’s not just how we design, but it’s also how we run our office, how we travel to the office etc. So it’s very much now a very strong ethos in the office. We do also have a sustainability group and this group has an overview of all the projects, and we kind of input within the design process. We have design reviews and a person from the sustainability group will look at those design reviews, so there’s always that kind of check all the way through the development of a project. What was the environmental brief for the project? Well we were lucky in that we had a very good environmental brief from our client here. They really had a strong sustainability strategy and they wanted this building to represent what they wanted in that. So right from the onset we were part of a competition process to win the project and sustainability was high on that competition agenda. So when we won the project we started right from the beginning, thinking of how we can make this building and how it could represent the national park. The national park is made of trees and rock etc and slate, so we’ve made the building from the green timber frame, the natural stone, cladding on the front, the natural slate roofing, and also the timber cladding. And we found that during the development of the brief that things came out from the client which also influenced how we designed the building. The building has now been complete for 3 years, so we can see that the physical nature of the building works and meets the sustainability brief, but what we’re finding now is the social sustainability of the building is also working and that’s coming to fruition now. The people who work here really enjoy the building, the natural light, the natural ventilation, and they had this open-planned nature of working which they didn’t have previously. In their old building they were in cellular offices and they were all quite insular. Here, all the departments can see each other and they can interact. They can meet within the street, which is a nice, light, airy space with top-lighting. So it really is a good place for them to work and I think has improved their productivity. The engagement process, was it of value to the practice and could you see value to other practices for future research work? Well, we found it very valuable because it enabled us to reflect on how we design in a sustainable manner, and check what we were doing. You kind of made us reflect on that. Now I think from your point of view, how you could maybe use your research to take to other practices, which don’t have such a strong sustainability policy, you could maybe market that and help that practice develop that, so you could really set up the template, and really help them set up their own checklists and their own way of designing in a sustainable manner. Thank you Thank you The next practice is Assist Architects and the case study building is a combination of conservation, retrofit and modern intervention of 2 Grade-A listed 19th century tenement buildings in the Grassmarket, in Edinburgh’s historic old town. The client for the project was Hillcrest Housing Association in collaboration with Edinburgh World Heritage, Energy Saving Trust, Communities Scotland and Edinburgh City Council. The environmental brief was to refurbish the buildings for social housing in an energy efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. The design team led by Assist Architects were appointed in 2006 and work started onsite in 2007, with completion in 2008. I’m here with Andy Jack, director of Assist Architects, hello Andy. Hi Carolyn Can you describe your practice sustainable philosophy ethos; do you have a manifesto and set of sustainable principles in place? We have environmental policies in place and we have a whole series of drivers that we use to ensure that the practice of architecture within Assist is sustainable. This embraces an ongoing commitment to ongoing skills training. We have in-house accredited passive house designers, we have in-house RIAS accredited sustainable architects and a whole raft of in-house skills that are always applied appropriately on an individual basis to each project that we take on. The use of this knowledge and skill base ultimately is to provide a balance between innovation, practical solutions, and cost-effective solutions for our client. I would say that is most probably a reasonable summary of how we would approach a project at the beginning. Can you describe the design intent for Gilmours close? The design intent had a variety of drivers. The first, low carbon. Low cost to Hillcrest Housing Association’s tenants. Planning gain in terms of conservation, respecting its location, and also the environment of how the project was procured, where multi-partners worked together providing different types of resources, from financial, through grants, to support though expertise and knowledge, that without the partnering environment the project would have been very difficult. What were the parameters in environmental strategies? In all these situations one strategy alone won’t work. You’ll find that a combination of different strategies would need to be applied here to be successful. With an existing building, the first thing that has to be put in place is to improve the thermal envelope of the building as much as possible. This was done at Gilmours Close, providing U-Values of walls, roofs, windows & floors in excess of the new-build standards that were required at the time. We felt that this would provide a thermal envelope which we would then be able to address in terms of introducing micro-renewables and various forms of passive solar strategies and forms of heat recovery. The feedback that we are getting at the moment is anecdotal, and we have to take it on board the fact that we’ve been through one of the severest winters that we’ve had on record. That the modelling that was carried out in terms of heat losses, sizing of ground source heat pumps, the amount of heat recovery from our mechanical ventilation heat recovery unit and the sun spaces were all modelled on an outside temperature of -6C. During the course of the recent winter, for days on end we were experiencing night-time temperatures falling below -10C and much lower. Therefore the system has been presented with quite a challenge and we are keen to find out how it has performed. And the thermal images that you’re showing us, what do they prove? The thermal imaging was carried out by Edinburgh World Heritage and their analysis has confirmed that compared to the buildings round about, there is a significant improvement in the internal envelope resulting from the work we’ve done, which is again important to be able to have evidence to suggest that what we thought in theory is actually working in practice. This is the whole part of the process so we can find out what has worked and build on that, and areas which may have not worked so well, we need to look at these. The ongoing research that we’ve got with the Mackintosh School where we will monitor the buildings with data-loggers over a period of about 2 or 3 weeks, recording 24 hour temperature profiles, humidity profiles, air quality profiles. That detailed information will then be used to see how the other strategies of ventilation, sunspaces and the heat-pump, how they have all worked together. Are they working as we hoped they would? Have they worked better or have they worked worse? It will also be associated with daily diaries of how people are using the building, particularly with a slow response technology, the likes of the ground source heat pump which requires time to build up heat within the property. Is that matching with how people are using the building? And have they adapted their lifestyles to the type of energy that’s used for heating their flats. Has the engagement process with myself and the university been of value to your practice? Yes, it’s been very valuable in that the history of Assist is very much embedded in universities. Assist initially was a research unit of Strathclyde University, and we have tried to maintain links with academic institutions including Strathclyde and other architectural schools through our practice. The schools should always be at the forefront, evaluating what practice is doing, reporting back on what they’re doing right and what they can maybe do better, so this is an essential part of our approach to continual improvement and the research that you’re doing Carolyn is very welcome. The next practice is GAIA Architects and the case study is the Carrochal School on the Ardmamurchan peninsula. The client, Highland Council, wanted a pilot sustainable school and set high aspirations. GAIA Architects were appointed to develop the brief in 2004, and subsequently to provide architectural services. The building was completed in 2009. I’m here with project architect Sam Foster, hi Sam. Hi Carolyn Can you describe your sustainable design philosophy and do you have a manifesto and set of principles in place? Yes, we do have a manifesto which was originally set up by the principal of the practice, Howard Liddell, when he set up in 1984. That manifesto still applies equally today as it did back then, it’s on our wall, we see it every day. But from that we’ve developed 6 principles for guiding each of our projects. And those principles are minimising pollution, enhancing biodiversity, using resources effectively, creating healthy environments, supporting communities, and the 6th most important one is what we call ‘ managing the process’ which is making sure that all of those 5 things and the targets in those 5 criteria actually happen. Can you describe the design process for Carrochal? Well we did use those 6 principles all the way through and it was a very good project. The first thing we did was look at the community side of things, and we made sure that the staff, the children and the community of the existing school were heavily involved in the design process. And through that design process we came up with a very simple layout for the school, and that layout had a very welcoming central core with classroom wing facing south off to the left as you come in, and a community wing up to the right to give you that flexibility of function. The layout itself was designed to be as compact as possible and the shape of it was optimised so that it was as efficient and compact as possible, because we were trying to make it as efficient as possible. The way we did that was to maximise the insulation and maximise the air-tightness, so reduce the amount of draughts lost through that. We have a lot of roof lights, we have a lot of windows which are there to provide a lot of daylight so we don’t need artificial lights. And that’s complimented by a natural ventilation system so we’ve got low-level and high-level windows in the classrooms which are operated by a combination of the users and the building management system to keep the building nice and healthy. In order for us to have a very energy-efficient healthy building, we decided to use a construction system called Brettstapel, which is a glue-free solid timber construction system. And this was the first example of its kind in the whole of the UK, so it was very exciting for us and for the client. And that’s delivered a lot of positive things for us, but one of the best things is that we’ve ended up with a very small heating demand, and that heating demand is met by a wind turbine up on the back of the hill just behind the school. And the Brettstapel provides the timber aesthetic, how did you decide on the finishes and the colour? The Brettstapel itself provides the internal finish to a lot of areas in the school such as the entrance, parts of the corridors, parts of the classrooms, and the Brettstapel is very good because when you use it on a ceiling you can put what’s called an acoustic profile in. And that helps to reduce the reverberation times in the classrooms, which assists in learning. As well as the Brettstapel, which is very good at helping to control moisture and provide and provide reductions in the thermal fluctuations, we’ve also used untreated materials like clay plaster and other bits of untreated wood, linoleum, solid oak floors, and all of these are chemical-free materials which are very good for the indoor air quality. And all of those materials were complimented by a comprehensive colour strategy that was applied through the school. The colour strategy was originally developed for the inside and the outside of the school, but for one reason or another we just used it internally. And the colours that have been chosen aren’t arbitrary, they’ve been selected very, very carefully by a very good colour consultant to enhance wellbeing and increase social interaction, and provide very comfortable spaces for the children, the staff, and visitors to come in and use. And we’ve even had very good feedback from people coming in saying who calm the spaces feel because of the colour. What other feedback have you been getting? How is it working? We have been employed by Highland Council, the client, to carry out a post-occupancy evaluation on the school for 2 years since it was completed, and the school was completed in May 2009. So we’re still carrying out our post-occupancy evaluation just now. Each of the classrooms has feedback monitors, we’ve got relative humidity, we’ve got carbon dioxide, temperature and daylight meters in each of the classrooms so that the pupils and the staff can see what’s going on. That’s been very, very useful because all of that information is also fed into the building management system so we can record what’s going on in terms of those 4 parameters, and we can see whether the temperature is going up too high, the relative humidity is too high or too low. And so far the feedback has been quite good, we’ve found out that the relative humidity is staying generally between 40-60% which is good for human health. Temperatures aren’t going too high, they’re not going too low. Carbon dioxide importantly is not going too high either, so the feedback has been ok, it’s not been too bad. We’re quite proud of what we’ve achieved so far. So have you experienced any issues? There have been one or two. All innovative new projects have teething problems and we’ve found not so much that the Brettstapel has given us a problem, that’s been very robust and we’d recommend it for certainly other education projects, where they get a bit of stick, but we found that the clay plaster we used to ammealuate the relative humidity levels, it’s not as robust as plaster. So where it’s been applied at lower level it’s been bashed and in hindsight we are only using clay plaster now on areas above the damage zone, up to above 2 metres we use clay plaster. Energy-wise it is performing quite well, the readings from the energy meters are suggesting that it’s performing within the top 25% of schools throughout the UK. The next practice is Archial, and the case study is Craigwood Homes, a development of 36 eco-houses for the private market and 12 affordable homes. The rural Greenfield site north of Inverness is part of a larger master-plan to develop the town of Dingwall. Archial have been developing proposals with the client OER Group since 2006. I’m here with project architect Neil Harper from Archial. Hello there. Hi there Can you describe your sustainable design philosophy and do you have a manifesto and set of principles in place? In relation to Craigwood, we’ve been working with a sub-division of Archial called ‘Archial Sustainable Futures’ to help us inform the best practice that we follow. Their and our policy is based on a document which was developed at the World Architects Congress in Chicago in 1993 which helps set out a policy of best practice to follow on a day-to-day basis. And for Craigwood what was the environmental brief? The environmental brief on this one was to create a contemporary house which avoided the attachments of ‘eco-bling’ that are sometimes found on projects of this type, but really to get the fundamental design principles of the house right. To create a house type that is cheaper to run on a day-to-day use. And how did you work this through the design intent? Well, basic first principles of the site are that we face south which is ideal for a house of this type. As well as the fantastic views out towards the Cromarty Firth and the Black Isle which the site offers, that helps us set up a quite unique plan. We’ve flipped the living accommodation to put all the principal living areas like living rooms, dining rooms and kitchens, where the family really comes together, putting that up on the top floor of the house. With the actual gradient of the sloping site allows you to view over the house in front. We’ve also looked at 3 levels of specification for the house. We didn’t want to tie the client down to any one spec at this early stage given the length and duration of the project. So we’ve looked at a house-type which we can adapt, both in size and also in terms of its specification, whether that’s something that meets & exceeds building regulations at the moment, or something that leads all the way up to ‘Passiv-Haus’ certification. And how was this tested? In-house we have IES software, which is environmental software which allows us to test every aspect of the building, from the way in which it’s built up, and the wall constructions, roof constructions, windows, doors, U-Values, the whole lot. It can all be tested and refined to meet the expectations of the client. And is this part of the marketing strategy? In a way yes, unlike a lot of developers we’re creating a prototype house, a show-home which will actually be lived in, potentially by the family themselves. One of the members of the client group has suggested the idea of moving in with his family for a year into the first prototype house, showing commitment to the buyers and also to allow us to fully test the environmental credentials, and confirm in real-time the testing that we’re carrying out at the moment. So it’s quite a unique model in that respect and all of this information will be fed back to their main website which will allow potential buyers, as they’re keeping an eye on the project, to see how these houses are actually performing. And we’d hope that they’d perform as well, if not exceed the performance that we’re expecting from them. And they can visit the house? They can, the client has even suggested that if buyers are interested in taking up one of the plots then he would offer them the chance to stay in the house with his family overnight, to experience a day & night living in a house which is quite unique and quite different to your ordinary ‘cookie-cutter’ style housing. I’m at the office of Arup, Scotstoun House, to talk to the designers and end-users about the retro-fit and extension to the modernist building. Scotstoun House was designed in 1965 and is located in the semi-rural outskirts of Dalmenny in South Queensferry. In 2005 Historic Scotland listed the building as Grade B due to its iconic modernist design. The design team was led by Haa Design who provided architectural, interior design, workspace consultancy and landscape services. Structural and services engineers, environmental and sustainability consultants and project manager were all Arup. The QS was Neilson Binnie McKenzie. Construction started in 2009 and the office was operational once more for Arup in June 2010. The main contractor was Ashwood Scotland What was the brief for the project? As you’re aware, the building is 45 years old, the original building. The building had become inflexible. It was tight in space for workstations, the area itself was 1000 square metres. The original building could accommodate 90 workstations, we now have 140 workstations. The planned aim basically to bring new life to the original building and to extend the facilities, and these facilities are new meeting rooms, new entrance area, nicer breakout areas and better facilities for the staff themselves. I’m now joined by Sarah-Jane Stewart, a mechanical engineer and BREAM assessor with Arup, and sustainability co-ordinator for the project. Sarah-Jane, how would you describe Arup’s sustainable design philosophy and do you have a manifesto set of principles in place? Arup have got a design & sustainable buildings strategy which we set out just before we started on this project. The principles are very high-reaching so it’s a set of goals to aim for at the start of each project. The key goals are carbon neutrality, self-sufficient by collecting and re-using water, built using sustainable materials, able to cope with future climate change, able to provide benefits to the local community and also sustainable in operation. These are the key targets that you should try and achieve in all projects. Can you run through how these were achieved at Scotstoun House? In Scotstoun House we started looking at the actual building itself, because it’s an existing building we had to upgrade the insulation, we had to put in much better windows, we put in a whole load of light pipes so that we would get daylight across the floor-plate, we also installed a biomass boiler to provide part of our heating load for renewable energy. In relation to “self-sufficient by re-using water”, it wasn’t possible for us to install a rainwater collection tank, so all of the water appliances within the building are all low water use. In relation to “built using sustainable materials”, we re-used the building itself, we also re-used the garden wall and we selected materials that have got a Green Guide rating of A. In relation to “able to cope with future climate change”, we designed the drainage system so that it would use sustainable urban drainage techniques. So we’ve got porous paving and we’ve got swales. In relation to “community” aspects, we developed the design with consultation with the local community and Historic Scotland. And we also installed bird-boxes, bat-boxes, and various ecological improvements. And finally we looked at “sustainable in operation”, because there’s no point in designing a low-energy building and the lights are left on all the time. So when the sun comes across, all of the lights on the floor-plate dim down so that you just have sunlight providing the light. We also provided controls for the biomass boiler and when there’s no-one in the building, none of the systems are on. These are going to reduce it further. How were the targets met in the design process? We set out the targets very early on at brief-stage, and we had a target rating of “very good” which we agreed with the planners in relation to BREAM. We also had a 10% renewable targets, also agreed with the planners, and an Energy Performance Certificate of A. And because we’d monitored this throughout the design process and tried to better it constantly, we got a lot higher than we originally targeted, so the final building got an Energy Performance rating of A+, it used 15% renewables from the biomass and we also got a BREAM “excellent” rating, so we did a lot better than we’d originally targeted for an existing building. And how would you describe the design process? The design process had to be collaborative and holistic, and all of the solutions had to be developed closely with the architect. The ventilation strategy, it’s all naturally ventilated, the day lighting strategy, how to update the fabric but meet Historic Scotland’s needs. So we worked very, very closely with the Designers, Haa. Thank you Sarah Jane You’re welcome I’m now joined by Gillian Lockyer, associate and project architect with Haa Design. How would you describe Haa Design’s approach to sustainability? Haa have been designing sustainable buildings for a number of years, and using BREAM for about 7 or 8 of them. Although we don’t have a set of set principles or guidelines, we have an inherent approach to sustainable design, and we tend to tailor each of our designs individually to our clients as opposed to having a fixed set that we use to. In saying that, we have been looking more recently at developing a set of guidelines or general principles, however that’s more been driven by the changes in the industry and client awareness, than actually changing the way we design within our own systems. And for Scotstoun House, how was sustainability embedded into the process? Sustainability was embedded from day 1. The client made it very clear that sustainability was an issue with the project, and therefore we started on a platform of sustainability and through constant collaboration, conversation and dialogue developed solutions to the problems at hand. How would you define the parameters for this project? Probably the most challenging element was the fact that’s it’s a Grade B listed building, not only that, it’s also a “modernist” building. That prevented standard things in terms of sustainability for added insulation. So it was a bit more of a creative approach to what we could do. It was also very keen that we had to provide a good, flexible environment, and also that it was not sustainability at any cost. The items that we put in or the measures that we used had to have intrinsic value, they weren’t “tokenist” issues. And can you describe briefly the remodelling of the building? Effectively we retained the existing building, we put it back to open-plan, we inhabited the internal courtyard and closed it off. We then built an extension building off to one side of it which housed most of the core facilities and additional meeting spaces & social spaces, good places to break-out. And the material choice that was your remit? It was our remit, again the listed building and the listed status impacted on this also. The materials were c hosen for a number of elements. 1) again we were asked to echo the existing building and the Grade B listing, so we have similar elements of timber, concrete, steel, lots of glazing, large open windows. It’s set against some very simple white plasterboard and white finishes, and dark carpets. So effectively we’re creating a very classic base which can have different fit-outs added on as the years go past. Thank you Gillian Thank you very much. I’m here with Wayne Butler, mechanical & services engineer with Arup. So Wayne, can you tell us about the key environmental strategies of the project? A key issue for the project was to make sure that the thermal comfort for the occupants was optimised, something that we do on all of our projects. For this building it was key to make sure that the heat gains were minimised first for the building, so we spent an awful lot of time doing daylight analysis to get the arrangement for the solar tubes correct. By getting that arrangement correct, the artificial lighting would be turned off, so there would be no artificial light & heat getting into the space. We also invested quite heavily in a high-performance glass for the perimeter of the building. Again, that was to reduce the solar heat gain in to the space. And finally, we put in an active thermal-mass system. That system allows us to absorb heat from the building in the daytime, and release that night-time with night-time cooling system through motorised ventilation levers. This approach is shown on the first slide of the presentation, and it shows the way that the building uses buoyancy forces for natural ventilation, and the high-performance glazing and the solar tubes. The next slide shows a plan of the building, and what I’ve done for this is to summarise the thermal analysis results for the worst-case corner for the building, which is the South-East corner. The next series of slides show the results of our thermal analysis software. The way that we approach it is to look at the comfort of the buildings rather than just the temperature within the space. So that looks at things like the air movement path, range in temperature, what the people are wearing and what they’re doing, and the relative humidity. And by optimising those, then we can improve the comfort of the people. So the slides go through from 9 o’clock in the morning until 3 o’clock in the afternoon of a comparison between a “building regs compliant” building, and what we did for Scotstoun House. So on the left hand side of this screen is the 2building regs compliant” building, and Scotstoun House is on the right hand side. Now, to explain the colours on the graphics, we would want to be in the green or yellow range of conditions, which is a percentage of people of who are dissatisfied. So at 9 o’clock you can see the conditions for both models are pretty well identical and ideal. As you then roll through to 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock, you can see n the left side of the screen the conditions for the “building regs compliant” building are starting to creep up into the 20-30% range. So that would start becoming slightly uncomfortable for the occupants. As you roll through the rest of the slides, you’ll see the Scotstoun House model on the right hand side stays within the optimum range, whereas the “building regs compliant” building is starting to become quite uncomfortable for the occupants. Since we’ve occupied the building we’ve now monitored the conditions throughout the building, and the last graphic shows a sample of a couple of weeks during the summer period when we had just moved in to the building. The red line shows the external temperature for the building, and the blue line shows the internal conditions. So you can see that the internal temperature was ranging between 20 – 23C, whereas the external temperature was going up as 25C at times. So that shows quite nicely that the thermal mass in particular is working really well with the night-time cooling strategy. Conditions in the office have been comfortable for the occupants. I find Scotstoun House a really enjoyable place to work. I’ve got my own workstation so there’s nobody interrupting me there. It’s a nice, quiet environment, however if I’ve got clients coming in we can sit down in one of the meeting rooms, or sit down in one of the informal breakout spaces and have a coffee. My favourite thing is the ability to cycle to work, because it’s a good, sustainable way to get to work. It’s a good way to start the day and we have the ability to do that here. We’ve got quite nice storage facilities, we’ve got a nice shower area, we’ve got our own lockers, our own personal shower room & changing room. I also like the comfort levels within the office. The temperature is quite stable, the fresh air, CO2 monitors. It’s a pleasant place to work. It was a very emotional building to me. I started work here as a graduate in 1978, and it was a super building when I first came here and Arup were very, very proud of it. And I think one of the best things about the extension and alterations, it’s worked very well together. Firstly it’s engaged with the walled-garden in an improved way. We’ve got better workstations, much more open-plan and superb breakout spaces, and the meeting rooms are excellent. I’m also proud of the fact that we’ve used our own environmental skills to create an environmental building that we can be proud of. As way of a summary and for comparison and cross-referencing, a principles & process summary is given. It shows applicable principles from the key text along with components of the processed model. Now to summarise. The practices reveal common approaches as well as divergences in their principles & processes for sustainable building design. Though not all have a defined set of principles in place, all have transformed their design process to embed ideals of sustainability. There’s no one common metric for sustainability and the spectrum is wide. The key texts show us the principles can be more than a useful checklist, and can define an ecological approach. The first creative step is given as an alignment of practice ethos with established architectural principles across the sustainability spectrum. This ongoing research work supports the proposal that partnerships between academic research and architectural practice are fundamental in developing informed approaches to the sustainability of the built environment. In an increasingly competitive professional world the ability of practices, that may otherwise be committed to sustainable design and architectural quality, to afford time to independently reflect on decision-making processes and to develop principles that inform an ethos could be necessarily limited. We propose here that a method of evaluating a practice’s approach against well researched sustainable design philosophies, with practical application, could help them move forward. And that a structured dialogue between researchers and practice representatives, can support a self-reflective approach, and an alignment of systematic principles and processes with the distinct design philosophy of the practice involved. Thank you!