IHBCEast MidlandsBranchConference: New Housing, History intheMaking June1998 Following on from last year's successful workshop 'Towards a New Vernacular', the East Midlands Branch aimed, in its 1998 conference, to consider the issues of new housing in greater depth. The successful event was held in June at the Inland Revenue HQ, Nottingham, a recent and much cited building by Sir Michael Hopkins, which although not new housing, is certainly new building design in a formidable form. New housing often conflicts with historic environments. Ironically, however, historic environments are often seen as the most desirable areas in which to live. We are not trying to encourage pastiche, as some of our speakers suspected, but instead to examine the possibility of housing in the new millennium which will blend with our historic settlements and stand the test of time. To be able to do this, design must be flexible, allowing adaptation and re-adaptation. Construction and use must be energy efficient. Materials must be long lasting, easily repairable and environmentally friendly. Houses must respect their location, capitalising on existing resources and enhancing the wider environment. The speakers at the conference were: Professor Brian Edwards, University of Huddersfield; Matthew Carmona, University of Nottingham; Martin Richardson, Architect; David Oliver, consultant architect/masterplanner; Tony Duffin, DTI Energy Technology Support Unit; Jane Gardner, House Builders Federation; and Karl Cooper, Derbyshire County Council. Keynote presentation - Sustainable housing: the new vernacular - Professor Brian Edwards Vernacular architecture is a local style forged by the use of regionally derived building materials and the meeting of essentially local needs. It tends to occur away from metropolitan centres and at times of unified social agendas. 12 The vernacular thrives in rural areas, is shaped by local craftsmen, and tends to involve slowly evolving building types. The principal forces behind the present push for vernacular have come from the Brundtland definition of sustainability, Rio in 1992, and Kyoto in 1997. Sustainability has become the unifying social agenda. If the three elements of energy, ecology and environment define the corners of a triangle, the space within the triangle provides for sustainable action. Activities that fall outside of the triangle are inherently unsustainable. Increasingly, legislation regulates environmental practice. The Maastricht treaty, for example, binds 15 (soon to be 24) nations to common environmental principles; the best known perhaps being 'the polluter pays'. Environmental problems are frequently global; they have no respect for national boundaries impacting on key resources, water, food supplies etc. Buildings and construction in Britain are responsible for: 50% of energy use; 50% of CFCs, HCFCs; 80% of lost agricultural land; 50% of industrial raw materials; 50% of water use. Because of the this, as conservation measures bite, a new style of housing will emerge. Industrialisation changed the tradition of building utilising locally sourced materials and designs that respected climate. Vernacular is essentially about fine grain, local crafts, local materials and local designs. Sustainable housing could therefore be defined as: "That which effectively integrates low energy design with materials which have minimal environmental or ecological impact (in manufacture, use and disposal) whilst maintaining social diversity." The definition requires that we: minimise non-renewable resource consumption; reuse, recycle, restore; enhance the natural environment; recognise and pursue quality; learn from experience; minimise waste and prevent pollution; use outputs from one process as inputs to others; adjust sustainable principles to economic and social ones; create non exclusive housing. Some factors that need to be considered when moving towards Sustainable Housing are therefore: Energy impacts ■ energy in use (revenue carbon) ■ energy in manufacture (capital carbon) ■ energy in transport (capital and revenue carbon) ■ maximise renewable energy use ■ minimise fossil fuel energy use ■ use orientation to conserve energy ■ integrate land uses ■ compact forms ■ sheltering layouts Environmental impacts ■ land, agriculture loss ■ water conse1vation ■ health (global, local, building, personal) ■ pollution (global and local) ■ building as resource (durable, adaptable) ■ visually rich ■ locally distinctive Ecological impacts ■ bio-diversity (global and local) ■ follow ecological principles (i.e. closed cycles) ■ maximum richness with minimum resources ■ use planting for shelter at building edge ■ consider building for other species (bats, owls) ■ use materials to enhance or extend habitats. Indicators can reduce the bewildering complexity of sustainable design. By taking one material, say brick, and considering its impacts, a score may be able to be established against sustainability principles (land lost to agriculture, manufacture and transport energy, energy saved in use). Then Context 60 December 1998
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