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Technological Innovation Sustainable Design Lecture

Philosophy and practice

So called low and intermediate technologies

History of Building

Historic methods of construction have responded to the materials that were readily available locally

–Sometimes if the client is the church, rich, powerful, respected: from further afield

Local stone, local trees, local earth, Cob
Through a process of trial and error
Techniques and materials were discovered, repeated, improved and refined

–Lime mortar, lime plaster, horse hair, horse manure, straw thatch, turf roof, hedge bank walls

–Lime paint, mineral dyes, insect dyes, egg, milk

SPAB, STBA
Traditional Techniques
Are those that have been successful over many repetitions
Work for the climate and required internal conditions
They have been adopted and skills developed around them

–Livelihoods build around them, reputations gained,

–Skills passed down father to son, master craftsmen to apprentice, and survived

–Craft based, Artisan, Labour intensive

Master Builders

Today’s Architect (minus building skills)
Significantly more wide ranging and appropriate knowledge and skills than today
Designed and worked with the artisan craftsmen tradesmen to get stuff built
Durable materials, natural materials, slow techniques, labour intensive

–Ropes, block and tackle,

–needing skilled and knowledgeable craftsmen

Created Cathedrals that last forever

–(with repairs and maintenance)

City Castle Cathedral Illustrated book

Master builders no longer

Over the centuries buildings got more sophisticated
Needed to be more complex, bigger, wider or taller
Needed to go beyond the limits of local and traditional materials and methods
Moving from Trial and Error,

–to Rule of thumb

–towards Calculations and modelling

General Contractors

With tradesmen employees
Full responsibility for the whole job
Joined up responsibility
Joined up thinking
Skills and Care
1850 Industrial Revolution
Coal Combustion Engines

–Mechanisation

–Mass production

Global distribution

–To and from Commonwealth

–British Empire

Global sourcing

–(uncontrolled abuses of everyone and everything)

Growing populations
and mobile workforce
Building needed to be built faster

–Still labour intensive

–Progressively labour becomes expensive compared to materials

–Need to develop faster techniques and faster materials

Cheaper, faster
Historic > 1919 > Modern (UK)
Solid wall construction moisture vapour and water permeable

–Ventilated by air leaky sliding sash windows and air bricks

–Lime mortar flexible mass masonry

Cavity wall construction separation and damp proofing

–No insulation requirement yet

–Ventilated cavity

–Cement Mortar rigid thin masonry

1950’s Oil Production
By-product of oil refining

–Hydro-carbon plastics

High oil consumption

–High by-product production

–Needs high by-product consumption

Design education:

–All about short life products

–Disposable consumer goods

‘Story of Stuff’ (Video)
1950’s Treaty of Rome
The beginning of European Law
Case law “Or Similar”
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Bomb shelters at city and family levels
Autonomy (from mains services)

–Water supply

–Sewerage

–Power

–Communications

Food not so easy underground

–Bottled, canned and dried

1960’s Insulation requirements started
1962 Building Regulations replace bylaws (Except London)

–U values start to be required (Except London 1980’s)

Inner leaf of cavity masonry

–Brick > Block

–Breeze block (Air permeable)

–Concrete Block (Dense aggregate)

–Later AAC (autoclaved aerated)

1960’s Housing programme
Call for Fast Construction Methods
Clear felling whole communities
Sky and ground scrapers in their place
Precast concrete sector responded
Uninsulated (or inadequately insulated)

–Thermal bridges at edges > Condensation > Mould or corrosion

Unskilled labour force
Rushed construction
Poor jointing of panels, condensation corrosion and catastrophic failures
1960’s Environmental consciousness
Remote wars

–environmental and human damaging

–radioactivity and chemicals

Student battles with establishment

–Civil Disobedience (done effectively)

Anti-apartite
Greenpeace against

–nuclear bomb testing in the ocean

–nuclear power,

–whaling,

–anti-PVC

1968 Apollo 8
Moon circumnavigation

–Apollo 8

First time an astronaut looked back at the earth
Saw it as a spacecraft carrying billions of humans
We need to be autonomous on our only planet, long term
1970’s Oil Crisis
2 price rises for oil by OPEC

–Protect the oil reserves

–Stop us squandering energy

China asked everybody to do everything possible to reduce demand
Australia insulated its houses
UK and USA complained again about the 2nd price increase
China and Aus. “Crisis? What Crisis?”
1980’s Passive Design
Enthusiasm for low energy demand houses across EU and World

–Solar gain

–Thermal mass

–Trombe walls

–Solar trap glass houses

UK Energy World at Milton Keynes

–Demonstrations of energy efficiency

–Passive design

A passing phase

–(gas discovered in the N Sea)

–Back to business as usual

New materials and new methods
Less natural and more chemical
More synthetic and petro-chemical
More inventive and innovative

–CFCs in blowing agents in plastics for greater thermal resistivity

–Less healthy

–(in many cases not knowingly so, but not always)

Less sympathetic to existing context:

–local materials, local trades

Manufacturer focus on cheap method of mass production
Many are worse for humans, nature and environment
Violet materials
Subdivision of training and professions into silos
Needed more professions to subdivide the design skills and develop them in more complex ways

–Constructor, Tradesmen

–Architect, Technicians, Structural Engineer, Services Engineers, Acoustic Engineers, Civil Engineers

–Quantity Surveyors

–Interior Designers, Furniture Designers, Signage Consultants

–Façade Consultants, Cleaning Consultants, Risk Assessors

–Later Environmental Assessors

Risk that nobody has the knowledge anymore rely on specialists
Silo mentality

–Nobody likes anybody else

–But everybody hates the Architect

Quantity v Quality
Quantity Surveyors

–care about the cost of everything

–and the value of nothing

Building Price Books

–CAPEX Capital Expenditure

–No interest in OPEX Operational Expenditure

–Violet Construction Violet prices

With Encouragement and Fiduciary Rules

–Client use QS to control costs

–QS only understand Cost Cutting

–Later: Value Engineering posh for cost cutting

Contractors replace Constructors
Biggest contractors
Run by Quantity Surveyors
Bean counters and cost controllers
Less interested in building quality?
Substitute quality with inferior products N#778
Procurement Methods proliferate
Clients want or are encouraged to demand faster programs
Different procurement methods experimented with

–to overlap design time with construction time

–D&B Design and Build

–MC Management Contracting

–CM Construction Management

–DMC Design Manage Construct

Permutation just to be different

–GMP Guaranteed Maximum Price

Passing on responsibility?
Only with clients explicit permission
D&B Design and Build

–(D&B&R Design and Build and Redesign)

A Brief not a Specification

–Employers Requirements

Contractors and Constructors are not designers

–But now they are expected to have the skills

Fiduciary Rules take over

–Substitution and Surreptitious Substitution

–Specification quality not controlled by Architect anymore

–Novation messes that up

Prescriptive > Performance Specification
Prescriptive:

–use these materials in this way

Performance:

–Wall must perform to these standards

–Make the wall out of what you want

Subdivision of responsibility
Contractors have not got the skills of Constructors
Nor do they have the continuity of responsibility, less joined up thinking
New Skills:

–Employers Agent, Project manager, Risk assessors, Package manager, Design managers

New Skills developed:

–Cover Your Arse letter writing,

–Claims making

Skills training but no time to care
Preoccupation with thinness
The industry remains preoccupied by thinness of construction
Building owners and developers

–To minimize thickness of walls

–To maximize floor areas

–To charge more for buildings

Results in encouraging manufacturers of plastic insulation

–to use ozone destroying CFC

–Later replace with HCFC, HFC, HFA

–To keep ahead of legislation

1980’s Environmental
consciousness reaches
construction
Convention On International Trade In Endangered Species Of Wild Fauna And Flora, (CITES)

–Tree species to be avoided in construction (ignored by many)

Red List
IUCN List
FoE Friends of the Earth: Good Wood Guide

–Discouraged use of endangered species trees

–Encourage Equivalent Performance Species timber

WWF World Wide Fund for Nature
Global warming down to man made Carbon Dioxide
Ozone layer destruction by chemicals

–Needs to exclude them from insulation, refrigeration and fire fighting installations

‘Global Warming’ replaced by ‘Climate Change’
Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE)

–Don’t make more heat than you need

–Don’t pump air conditioning heat to the atmosphere

Consumer/Specifier choices
FairTrade
Rug mark
FSC Forest Stewardship Council

–Challenged by PEFC as too onerous

–Lobbied and UK Gov. downgraded FSC to = PEFC

–EUTR Legal and Sustainable

ETI Ethical Trading Initiative

–Fair stone Paving (Private scheme)

ISO 26000 (Social Responsibility)
Low VOC paints

–(until they all have to comply in 2012)

1992 EU Standards Prevail
Construction Product Directive (EU)

–Construction Product Regulations (UK)

–No technical barriers

–Building Regulations: Regulation 7

–CEN: EN & EC replace BSI: BS and CP

Proper Materials

–BSI Kitemark, BBA Certificate,

–ETA European Technical Approval

Essential Requirements

–CE Mark

(minimum legal requirement to sell in EU)
Maximum permitted to specify in public procurement

–Later add LCA (basis for green claims)

Or Equivalent replaces Or Similar
Later: Green Public Procurement
Substitution: Or Equivalent
Public Procurement

–No Technical barriers permitted

–Must permit ‘Or Equivalent’

–Not permitted to require more than CE mark (legal minimum)

EU banned Reverse Engineering

–Copying an industry standard (eg. IBM PCs)

–Every company copied and exceeded std.

–But no evidence of policing

Health and Safety
reaction to fails I
Health & Safety at work
Controlled Waste Regulations

–After deaths at landfill sites

CHIP transporting hazardous materials

–Tanker discharges at landfill

–Tanker accidents/fires on the road

–FR Identification of content on vehicle

CDM Construction Design & Management Regulations

–Less hazardous construction and maintenance of buildings

–Architects design responsibility is growing

Health and Safety
reaction to fails II
Environmental Protection Acts 1990s

–Duty of Care

ODS Ozone Depleting Substances

–Long and slow (still ongoing) process of stopping production

–Blending gasses to keep it going longer

–Excluded from developed countries

–Permitted in developing countries

–Becomes a second problem at demolition stage

Health and Safety
reaction to fails III
COSHH Control of Substances Hazardous to Health

–Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)

–Often incomplete

Hazardous Waste Regulations

–240 materials reclassified

–Hazardous landfill sites reduced from 240 to 10

–Requires ‘treatment’ before landfill

REACH Registration Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals

–Because MSDS not always complete

–Reconsider recipes and ingredients

–Substitute It Now List (SIN)

–Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC)

Financing methods
Government decided they did not want to maintain an estate of building

–It wanted to provide Public services in buildings maintained by others

PPP Public Private Partnerships

–Shared expenses and profits

PFI Private Finance Initiative

–Upfront Expenses (£1m bid)

–With rear end rewards (charge what you like for services)

–10 x the true costs for alterations

BOOT Build Own Operate Transfer

–25 year contract servicing the buildings

–25 year warranties for short life materials

–Pay Insurance premiums for life

–Instead of paying for durable materials

Contractors gave up construction to be Facilities Management

–Some did both

Growing housing crisis
Developers will not build unless they can make 30% profit
Deliver slowly to keep market hungry
To ensure high sales price
But failing to close the ‘performance gap’
ZCH project to get competent buildings to help meet UK Carbon targets
Innovative Methods of Construction IMC
IMC is a term that covers a range of technologies and types of prefabrication and/or off-site assembly – it is also referred to as MMC,

–Off-site Manufacturing (OSM),

–Off-site Production,

–Off-site Fabrication,

–Modular Construction,

–Pre-fabrication,

–Pre-assembly,

–Standardisation.

The two basic forms of off-site manufacture are:

–volumetric construction, in which complete, fitted units like kitchens and bathrooms are prefabricated and transported to site in the form of ‘pods’.

–panellised construction, where elements like walls and floors are transported in flat packs and assembled.

Modern Methods of Construction
MMC
Though to be the solution to housing crisis
Mass Factory Production

–Off-site Prefabrication: Modules, Pods, Panels

Some (less waste in factory)

–On site assembly

Little waste on site
Fears of repeats to 1960’s sky and ground scraper problems

–Not normally concrete this time

–Panel and jointing issues:

Coordination Tolerance Accuracy
Air and Wind tightness
Thermal break
Thin panel construction

–Wrong insulation and overheating potential

BRE Green Guide to Specification (GGtS) (Book)
Uses Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to rank methods of construction

–1200 > 1600 elemental assemblies included

Greenwich Millennium Village

–(none applied to proposals therefore in the bin)

Based on environmental Impacts

–lots of theory and number crunching (expensive)

ABC banding A being lowest impacts

–ABC needed to be rebadged DEF and ABC were missing

–The least violet of the violet methods of construction

–PVC windows A rated (but none better than C)

Not Green and not about specification

–Biased towards Business as Usual materials

Industry sector data and averaging at every step

–Generic materials Ratings

–Company can hide behind sector averages or sector ratings

–No incentive to improve

Effective barrier to green construction materials and methods
Specfiers adopt it for the easy answer to violet choices
Green specifiers in the know do not trust it
Green/Healthy/Social labels
Are always about one manufacturer and one product

–(not sector averages)

Usually limited to one issue (not always)
Natureplus (German)

–Competent

–Healthy

–LCA

Highlights the best in class

–(Natureplus only the top 10% could achieve pass levels)

Incentive to improve
Specifiers choose product for their properties
Recycled Content Building Products and Materials
Driven by landfill legislation changes

–Landfill gate charges

–Aggregate Levy on virgin aggregate encouraging recycled

–Landfill taxes

–Escalating price differential between inert and hazardous waste

–Landfill capacity shrinking fast

WRAP drove program to reduce waste and divert waste from landfill

–Primarily focused on recycling in preference to reclaim and reuse

–Adding synthetic adhesives to bind recyclate to make new products

–More unhealthy materials in the market place

–Inadvertently shrank the architectural salvage and construction reclaim and reuse sectors

Improving Airtightness and Energy performance
Slowly increasing requirements for improved U values and reduced air leakage

–Requires competent vapour checks and Breather membranes in vapour-closed construction or

–Requires competent vapour permeable, air and wind tightness membranes in vapour-open construction

Improved airtightness lead to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) issues

–caused by off-gassing of materials and adhesives

–making building unhealthy places to be

Solutions include using:

–hygroscopic plant based insulation in vapour-open construction

–Plant- and tree-based (low solvent, no chemical) materials

–Mineral based paints with mineral pigments

Overheating
ZCH Zero Carbon Hub

–never really understood overheating after 10 years of research and publications

Building Regulation drives thermal conductivity and resistance

–Good to keep winter and summer heat in

Decrement delay ignored by regulations:

–time for solar radiant heat to pass through materials

–Good to keep summer heat out

Dense wood fibre, cork, cellulose fibre, cellular glass now available in the market
Particularly important in thin-walled plastic-insulated MMC and IMC construction
Low & Sequestered Carbon Materials
Timber sector large disjointed

–took decades to join together in common thread marketing

–Finally have low carbon and sequestered carbon as good stories for all to tell

Off the back of LCA

–embodied and sequestered carbon datasets are building

–And tools, ICE databse

–Embodied and sequestered carbon calculators enable accurate claims to be made

–T&CP Precedents have been made to compete with RE obligation % (Merton Rule)

Solid Wood Solutions (SWS)

–very prevalent in EU become popular in UK

–Cross laminated timber panels (CTLP) are popular

–Kier Construction Substitute it into projects for speed of construction

Adhesives in CLTP are not healthy

–Stacked plank and doweled (brettstapel) offers glue-free healthy solutions

Mineral Materials
The industry remains preoccupied by thinness of construction

–forcing plastics to destroy ozone.

Silica in solution minus water makes Aerogel

–conduction thermal insulation developed by NASA

–Used to minimize the effect of thermal bridges at door and window openings

–High performance (only beaten by VIPs)

Aluminium sheathed mineral balls evacuated air

–to make Vacuum Insulated Panels (VIP)

–Best conductivity performance

–but useless against solar radiation heat

65% lower carbon blended cement for concrete
Carbon sequestered manufactured aggregate for concrete
Health and Wellbeing
Increasing airtightness, poor materials choices and deteriorating indoor air quality

–Ill health due to IAQ and numerous wellbeing issues drive change

–Health and Wellbeing standards appearing in

Ska for Higher Education
WELL (USA)
BREEAM soon
Building Biology Association course
Low VOC paints driven by 2012 legislation
Lower VOC timber panel products and adhesives appearing in the market
Newer (1 – 2 decades) to the UK constructional systems
ISPS Insulated Structural Panel Systems
SIPS Structural Insulation Panel Systems
Extruded Fired Clay
Hemp-Lime
CLTP Cross Laminated Timber Panel Systems
SWS Solid Wood Systems
See LSBU Part 1 Year 1 seminar series for elemental construction methods
Newer (1 – 2 decades) materials to UK construction
Cellulose Fibre Flake
Dense Wood Fibre
Cork insulation
Cellular Glass
Clay
Unfired clay
Aerogel
Vacuum Insulated panels
https://greenbuildingencyclopaedia.uk/uncategorized/materials /
Graphene at Microscopic level
Carbon at microscopic level microscopic additions to recipes
Amazing properties of

–strength, toughness, durability and thinness

Has potential to revolutionize most materials and most sectors
Innovative materials probably has many applications, yet to find out
It is taking time to work out how
Graphene Revolution on the horizon
Product are starting to arrive
Lime paints with grapheme added to recipe
Many great properties
Many Green Labels
USB stick with literature

–and virus file on board

CAD
Is not new and you all have access to it
Software and Apps are developing fast
That allow us to design and make things without artisans
The challenge will be to join components together in an intelligent and competent way
CADCAM is not new tech
Computer Aided Design Computer Aided Manufacture

–Its having a growth spurt in the design world

Recent Developments are accessible to many of us and have the potential to make a big difference
Many technologies are becoming more accessible to designers than ever before

–I can CAD, CAD can, So I do

The Great Recovery project

–local innovation centres making prototypes is easy

Interreg project:

–‘Makers, Fixers and Hackers’

Furniture design

–No craft skills needed

–resource efficient design

–cutting parts from single sheets with minimal waste

Buildings can be made like this

–Wiki House

3D Printing +ve techniques
Lazar light rays in 3 plains project into liquid

–at point of light crossing the liquid solidifies

Scanning planned to work from bottom and middle

–working outwards and upwards until whole design complete

Liquid drained off away until the object revealed
Conran’s son had WCs prototyped in this way
3D Printing +ve techniques
Printing with dry powder in a thin layer over an area

–then scan by lazar light to fuse the powder in the layer in specific places,

–working like photocopiers;

–repeat layer upon layer with a different design in each layer until an object is created within the block of powder.

Like archeology the powder brushed away until the object revealed.
3D Printing
Machine head driven by computer
Scanning following pattern in computer model
Depositing material (endless supply)

–Plastic strip (unhealthy off gassing)

Bio-plastic (healthier) PLA PolyLactic Acid

–Metal (made molten at delivery head)

–Concrete (un reinforced)

–Clay > Ceramic

CNC 3D Milling –ve techniques
Usually of flat surface

–timber based board, metals, plastics

CNC Milling heads driven by CADCAM computer
Most interesting when cutting through surfaces with multiple layers of contrasting colour
Cut part way through to contrasting colour

–make signs with contrasting coloured letter in plain sheet