A new centre for sustainable and energy efficient buildings opens today in London. The Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings (CEREB) aims to provide facilities for research, demonstrations and teaching by hosting renewable and intelligent energy technology solutions.

The centre has been developed by London South Bank, Kingston and City universities and is located at LSBU’s K2 rooftop teaching facility. As well as trialing and testing innovative energy solutions, monitoring data will be fed back via the web allowing worldwide collaborative research. Thus providing an international dimension to the Centre’s activities.

More can be found here and here.

Photo credit CEREB

Dr Rachel Armstrong, teaching fellow at the Bartlett UCL, is this Thursday (26th November 2009) giving a lunch hour lecture on living buildings and metabolic materials. This fascinating approach to buildings suggests how buildings can be less like machines and behave more like biological organisms.

Looking at how a living system reacts to its surroundings through its metabolism, or how the reaction of one group of substances gets converted into another group – either with the absorption or the production of energy.

A metabolic material could take advantage of the entire surface of a building and use it as a dynamic membrane where metabolisms can be designed into the fabric which would allow desired interaction between the environment and the building. Dr Armstrong goes on to ask whether it would be possible to use this technology for carbon capture.

Photo credit: eco life

Ambitious targets for Britain’s carbon cutting will mean that households will need to spend up to £15,000 to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

The climate watchdog chief, Adair Turner, made the statement against a perceived drop in emissions caused by the recent economic downturn. Coupled with growing concerns that next month’s Copenhagen climate change summit could end in a less than satisfactory outcome, the claim is seen as a wake up call to home owners and legislators to act sooner rather than later. more

But is this costing realistic and how can we measure this outlay against overall cost savings? Certainly many of the measures required – boiler improvements, cavity and solid wall insulation, improved glazing – are currently costly for the average homeowner, however as time goes on and demand for such products increases, then the costs will come down.

How much value will home owners put upon such improvements when making a decision about buying property? Unlike most other purchases, decisions on whether to buy a certain property are an emotional response to a number of factors. It is likely that currently the environmental performance of a house will be lower on the list than the size, style, age and location of the property and will remain so for some time. However, as fuel costs rise then this factor will move up the scale of desirability.

As a long term decision, it’s certainly a good investment. If for no other reason than energy bills will only go in one direction…up.

Photo credit stevecadman

Perched high on the Kentish Coast and commanding dramatic views across the English channel, the Cliff House poses an elegant solution to some very real constraints.

Southwark based Architects Foster Lomas were asked to design a low-cost, low-carbon building in an area prone to land slippage. With a steeply descending site falling quickly away from an exposed timber structure the design of the Cliff House is as dramatic as its Cliff-top setting.

The timber frame construction has allowed for a high level of insulation in the roof, walls and floor without being excessively thick and should guarantee a high level of air-tightness after construction. Coupled with an efficient heating system and some provision of renewable energy, this house has shown that it can easily achieve level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, as was required by the Local Authority.

In addition to this the client’s brief demanded unobstructed southerly views across the English Channel. To achieve this the design has needed to account for the potentially excessive solar gains in summer and high heat losses in winter through large areas of south facing glass.

eb7 were appointed environmental consultants to this project advising on daylighting, solar design, energy and sustainability.

Read more in the Architect’s Journal Cliff House, Kent.

It could be that the recession will be the catalyst for alternative thinking when it comes to energy use. Certainly, in the US corporate leaders are increasingly taking note of this issue with regard to natural light.

Between 20 and 50 percent of total energy consumed within homes and offices is due to lighting. In addition to this there are significant health benefits to having a well lit and ventilated building.

Mary Carroll, a senior project manager at Francis Cauffman Architect, claims that the next generation of buildings will have to address the size of the office floor plate. “If you’re trying to get more daylight to penetrate through the space, you’re going to have longer, narrower floor plates than maybe you would have had 10 years ago. Nobody does perimeter offices anymore because they want the light to come through.”

With the economy in its current state of flux, this initiative will certainly find its way factoring into analysts’ assessments of the overall soundness of companies and their operations.

More here.

Photo Credit Freshview

It adds little to the confidence of environmental professionals but when most MPs are unaware of zero carbon deadlines, what hope is there that the message is getting out to the wider public?

The government set the zero carbon target for all new homes by 2016 in July 2007 as part of its building a greener future policy statement. However the Comres report issued this week has shown that most (72%) of MP’s are unaware of the Government’s target for all new housing to be zero carbon by 2016, with a third incorrectly believing that the target doesn’t come into effect until 2020.

Indeed 15% were unaware that all new homes must receive a code level rating based on their sustainability – i.e. the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Nick Raynsford MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sustainable Housing, which commissioned the research, said:

“The Government has set ambitious targets for sustainable housing in the UK, but it is clear that many concerned parties are still unaware of the all important details.”

Quite.

Photo Credit: **maurice**

Close to the environmental hub of the south west, Totnes, Dartington now offers a new sustainable school.

Utilizing wood fibre insulation u-values of between 0.17 and 0.2 W/m2K have been achieved. Also an average daylight factor of 4% creates good natural lighting. More here