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FROM THE EDITOR
nder pressure to make positive steps to address the climate change agenda, the Government is overhauling Parts L and F of the Building Regulations (covering conservation of fuel and power, and ventilation respectively). Focused on issues in new housing, the consultation is designed to try and bring the industry to a point where it can deliver the Future Homes Standard in 2025 – i.e. a hefty 75-80 per cent carbon reduction compared with a Part L 2013-compliant home.
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Housebuilders and designers are given two options within the consultation. The first focuses on improving building fabric only, by 21 per cent in terms of energy efficiency. The second option is based around fabric plus bolt-ons such as PV and heat pumps, to give a 31 per cent uplift, and the Ministry for Housing is explicitly gunning for this option to be adopted.
The theory is that constructing new homes to this standard now will mean that they will not need to be upgraded to meet it in 2025. As Richard Harrall, technical director at the Chartered Association of Building Engineers commented recently, “for some this won’t be enough” – the Future Homes Standard will fall short of meeting a “full zero carbon metric,” and will thus be a “disappointment.”
However, it must be seen as a major step in the right direction, flying directly in the face of current planning policies that enable the opposite of futureproofing, and in fact lead to something more akin to ‘built-in obsolescence’ in terms of Regs compliance for housebuilding.
Making housebuilders upgrade design now to futureproof their homes against the standard is in direct contrast to how they have been able to build out a development slowly over time – meaning they only need comply with the Building Regulations in force at the time of commencement. This ‘transitional provision’ has led to developments being finished with homes that are not compliant, with Regs having been updated in the interim.
Slightly farcically, this meant 2017-completed homes were built to 2006 standards. The Government is ending this – from 2020 any home needs to meet the relevant standards applying when it begins construction. This may be a pain for housebuilders, but is the necessary rigour to close the book on what has been a controversial issue.
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Also, pulling together into one system via the new standard should help avoid the past issue of builders working on homes with various standards applying (such as the Code for Sustainable Homes), across various developments. This caused understandable confusion and, suggests Harrall, contributed to the performance gap.
If we hadn’t binned the Code, and instead made it mandatory, a lot of this central effort could perhaps have been put into something else.
James Parker Editor
12.19
ON THE COVER... Design Engine Architects’ new science and maths building at Charterhouse in Surrey is characterised by appropriately ‘vertical’ chimneys and roofs to tie in with the historic site.
CHARTERHOUSE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS CENTRE Design Engine Architects embrace the famous Surrey school’s verticality with a harmonious and highly functional STEM addition
PITZHANGER MANOR & GALLERY, LONDON Jestico + Whiles’ careful refurb and extension of Sir John Soane’s old house
Cover image © Jim Stephenson For the full report on this project, go to page 38
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF DECEMBER 2019
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