Design Building physics
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should be responsible for low-carbon design. There is no universally accepted scope of services for low- carbon design in the way that there is for the building services engineer, as set out in the ACE Conditions of Engagement. The work is often undertaken by consultants from wide-ranging backgrounds, who may not be conversant with the principles of building physics – or even engineering. This lack of consistency results in enormous variations in the standard of service provided by practitioners.
Wider alignment
Furthermore, it is now common for confusion to arise between the architect and building services engineer over responsibility for the specification of thermal insulation, building air tightness, solar shading devices and window performance. In order to achieve genuinely low- carbon design, we will have to reallocate design responsibilities on the basis of whole building performance rather than on the basis of components. The professional institutions
and trade associations must therefore recognise a multi- discipline, problem-solving approach to design and delivery that overthrows conventional sectarian relationships and embraces building physics and a systems engineering approach. CIBSE is ideally placed
Building
physics creates the opportunity for engineers to engage with the design when the critical decisions affecting passive performance are made
within the industry to adopt building physics as part of a wider alignment of science and engineering for low-carbon buildings. The institution will need to establish professional standards for conduct and service to ensure consistent and reliable delivery of low-carbon design. CIBSE should also develop new criteria for education and professional development, aligned with the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence. Government must prioritise education and skills
development in construction to deliver a manifold increase in low-carbon professionals that is vital to the achievement of national policy objectives. The current ‘trajectory’ for carbon reductions embodied in UK government policy requires a dramatic increase in skills right across the construction sector.
Skills shortage
Yet the skills that will be essential to delivering this scale of reduction are simply not taught at present in the majority of universities. Building physics needs to become a core part of undergraduate teaching for all construction professions. Government should also consider the opportunities
for training and re-education in the field of low-carbon design and construction for professionals throughout the industry. At a time when we need to increase the
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CIBSE Journal April 2010
professional skills necessary to deliver low-carbon buildings, the industry is losing swathes of experienced professionals through redundancy. A further pressing need is for reliable information
on the actual energy and carbon performance of recently constructed or refurbished buildings. This information is essential for the establishment of benchmarks and standards, and the validation of new designs and techniques. The dissemination of real building performance information, rather than the marketing hype so often published, will not just inform future low-carbon buildings, but also allow for the development of robust national policy and up-to- date, authoritative teaching materials. Government should commission post-occupancy
evaluation of all new buildings in the government estate constructed since the introduction of the 2006 Building Regulations. This would quickly establish a useful national database of design techniques and carbon performance. Government must also establish the benchmark for procurement practice, by setting and enforcing performance targets for its own buildings, something it has singularly failed to do to date. Achievement of carbon targets should be linked to financial outcomes for all publicly funded projects, with publication of the design criteria and measured performance data for the benefit of future designs. The need for a radical overhaul
in education and practice in the UK construction industry is
urgent and undeniable. Our national goal is to deliver an 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050. The scale of the challenge in reducing fossil fuel dependency in the built environment is vast. The rapid pace of change in the regulation of building energy performance has already created problems for the construction industry. Without a dramatic increase in skills, the proposed
acceleration of regulatory change towards zero-carbon new buildings by 2020 will only widen the gulf between ambitious government policy and the industry’s ability to deliver. The changes necessary to achieve a sustainable built
environment need to be far reaching in the areas of policy, finance, procurement practice and management. However, unless we urgently equip the industry with the fundamental skills that will allow it to design and deliver genuinely efficient buildings, the transition to a low-carbon economy simply will not happen. l
Doug King is principal of consulting engineers at King Shaw Associates and author of the recent Royal
Academy of Engineering report, Engineering a Low Carbon Built Environment.
www.cibsejournal.com
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