Skip to main content
search

How to Design Sustainably (Brain Dump) G#40730

How to Design Sustainably Brain Dump

GBE > Encyclopaedia > Code > Brain Dump  G#40730

About:

Grand Designs Live 2023

Grand Designs Magazine Theatre

Panel Discussion: How to Design Sustainably

Facilitated by HiiGuru’s Dara Chen

What follows is the brain dump carried out before to refresh my mind and inform the discussions

See the Word file for colour coding of text (Green or Violet)

Video: Pending

HOW TO DESIGN SUSTAINABLY

  • Complete the brief before starting the design, sketching can start too soon, before complete brief resolution

DEFINITIONS

  • Sustainably = Environmental, Social and Economic
  • Economic means compromise towards business as usual, towards profits before people before planet
  • Sustainable outputs not sustainable business: Not Sarah Beeny’s approach
  • Buildings and their occupants that do not demand too many (more than an ethical fare share) of our only planet’s resources that prevent others (humans and wildlife) now and in the future, ad infinitum, from living comfortably on one carbon-rationed planet with finite resources.

RIBA Stages 0 to 7 = linear economy circular diagram; RIBA+ Stages 0 to 9 = Circular economy

SOCIAL:

  • Client’s Brief => Employer’s Requirements => Specification
  • Educate the client to make good green future-facing demands of the design team
  • Accommodation requirements, hours of use, lifestyle clothing v temperatures

ECONOMIC:

  • Client’s budget is the upper limit:
  • Set the building budget: deduct fees, preliminaries, profits, overheads, contingencies, land, landscape from budget
  • Use recent past projects costs as a guide (GBC GRC seminar)
  • Don’t let the QS define the violet cost plan for a green building, nobody needs to know how cheap it could have been
  • Its their major investment, give them what they asked for not what our industry normally provides
  • Don’t let a PM define a short sited programme, a realistic one for all the trades to work at comfortable speed and care

ENVIRONMENTAL:

  • Green and Future Facing:
  • Within the skillsets of the design team or get a better individual or team
  • Define requirements:
  • Written down, set priorities, weight their importance and
  • Hold the design team accountable

DESIGN LIFE & DURABILITY & MAINTAINABILITY

  • Normal Life: 60 years (50 years INT) sets the tone for many other issues

CHALLENGING OR LEGAL MINIMUM?

  • Form Factors to help set targets beyond regulation for low running costs
  • Form factor to influence Form or make an expensive building to heat
  • Regulations, Design Standards, Campaign targets,
  • Certification or targeting and missing
  • Not just U values, (winter heat loss) Decrement Delay (Summer heat gains)
  • Building orientation, window orientation and roof orientation
  • Glazing percentages in E, S & W elevation and competent solar shading to S
  • Thermal comfort, heating format and glazing specifications
  • Radiant heat requires Low Emissivity windows and rooflight

Calculated

LOW INITIAL COST v LONG TERM RUNNING COSTS (Ditto GBC)

  • Don’t focus on the first at the expense of the second

HERACEY™:

HEALTHY

  • (may have special allergy, EMR or other requirements)
  • Choosing materials and product to match requirements
  • MSDS Materials Health and REACH compliance

ENVIRONMENTAL:

  • Set targets then work to reduce to meet those targets
  • Do not BREEAM and record your bad choice
  • Carbon, Water, Chemistry, Emissions, Waste

RESOURCEFUL:

  • Existing building? Reclaim v Reuse, Circular economy,
  • Waste minimisation by design: waste is a design issue not a site issue
  • Ska (more comprehensive) not BREEAM (scratches the surface, green label for business as usual)

APPROPRIATE:

  • Understand the existing site and what it offers and design accordingly to maximise that which is free
  • Site specific issues, solar access, wind driven rain index, local, seasonal, climate, microclimate, flood risk appropriate
  • Mass: Moisture, thermal, acoustic, Specific Heat capacity
  • Ventilation: Family size, Smokers, VOCs, Summer bypass,
  • Orientation:
  • Maximise solar gain in winter and exclude solar gains in summer
  • Control solar gains from east and west
  • Do not overheat bedrooms
  • Optimise PV to work/consumption practices and minimise battery installation

COMPETENT:

  • Post Grenfell, New Regulation Landscape, Competency rules; Fire initially and all performance issues in time
  • RIBA ARB education only aspires to awareness not competency
  • RIBA ARB knee-jerk reaction is Focus on Fire and Carbon, as if nothing else matters
  • Product Competency: Databases and Green labels and LCA CPD
  • PAS 2035: Refurbishment Risk Competency

EFFECTIVE:

  • Designing to Regulations is ineffective and will not meet global targets
  • Working to Design Standards will get us closer
  • Complying with design standards and verification by testing makes a real difference

ETHICAL

  • Checking for moral and ethical standards in supply chains
  • No child labour, no modern slavery
  • Legal ownership, sustainably managed, sourced, chain of custody
  • If you don’t know you don’t care (B&Q challenge)

YARDSTICK

  • Benchmarking set targets
  • Calculated and compared with targets
  • Specifications adjusted if targets not met

© GBE GBC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan **
12th May 2023

Images:

Grand Design Live Logo

GBE CPD GDL How To Design Sustainably A04 BRM 120523 PNG

GBE CPD GDL How To Design Sustainably A04 BRM 120523 DOCX

© GBE GBC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan **
12th May 2023

See Also:

GBE Templates

GBE Brain Dump

Template

  • GBE Brain Dump (Template) G#20308 (this page)

GBE Brainstorm

GBE Books

GBE CPD

GBE Issues

GBE Issue papers

GBE Projects

W         http://www.pembrokeshirecoast.org.uk/default.asp?PID=474

Hardcore:

BRE Digest

W         http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=756

Avoidance of rainwater gutters on the barn and no sewers required the use of filter drains piped to soakaways in the site and in this case a cesspit for sewage.

Soakaway:

BRE Digest

W         http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=844

Project: Kew’s Wakehurst Place Visitor’s Centre

London Wildlife Trust.

W           http://www.wildlondon.org.uk

London Biodiversity Partnership c/o London Wildlife Trust, Harling House, 47-51 Gt Suffolk St, London SE1 0BS

W           http://www.lbp.org.uk/index.htm

Mr Dusty Gedge

W           http://www.dustygedge.co.uk

W           http://www.dustygedge.co.uk/links.html

W         http://www.blackredstarts.org.uk/pages/greenroof.html

Section through Brown roof (To see this in detail visit the Website above.)

W         http://www.blackredstarts.org.uk/pages/deptcreek.html

DEFRA publication addresses soil stockpiling.

W         http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb13298-code-of-practice-090910.pdf

MIE        Materials Information Exchange:
W           http://www.salvomie.co.uk

BREMAP

Pre-demolition sites, Demolitions sites, Recycled materials, Salvage yards, Sites with recycled product needs
Before you skip it, click it!
W           http://www.smartwaste.co.uk

W           http://www.bre.co.uk

W         http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/compost.htm

W         http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk

W         http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/compost1.htm

http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb13298-code-of-practice-090910.pdf

W         http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/bulkwild.htm

W         http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/germination.htm

W         http://www.aggregain.org.uk

W         http://www.devon.gov.uk/biodiversity/hedges.html

W         http://butterfly-conservation.org/124/farmland-and-hedgerows.html

© GBE GBC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan **
15th January 2019 – 12th May 2023

How to Design Sustainably (Brain Dump) G#40730 End.

Tags:

Next Post

Leave a Reply

Close Menu