INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER: WORKING TOWARDS ZERO CARBON 43
Our expert commentator, architect Rodrigo Moreno Masey, cautioned that clients “all want zero carbon, until it’s costed,” so they need to be made to see the longer-term advantages. The availability of certain building materials will partly dictate how much design compromises could be avoided, but one commenter added that rather than very thick walls, more important was to tackle “linear thermal bridging, and design less corners, which means simpler buildings.” Another commenter advocated “a simplification in the building’s form factor and glazing design and location in a building. The challenge is to make designs look less ‘boxy’.” In urban areas there may be greater challenges on size, with project viability being affected if minimum space standards are to be maintained: “Thicker walls and other measures might have to result in less restrictive planning.”
Another respondent concurred with the idea that buildings will become simpler in form, saying that solar PV “requires simpler roofs, which therefore means simpler shapes; energy efficient envelopes work best as simple shapes.” They added that larger windows might be a rarer sight in new builds: “Overheating requirements will reduce the amount of glazing allowed and which will affect the ability to use large windows as features.”
Passivhaus & other standards We asked our survey cohort whether Passivhaus was the only guaranteed way to achieve ‘accredited’ net zero’ on projects. One commenter said: “All new buildings be built to as close to Passivhaus standards as possible,” adding however that “more clarity on embodied carbon calculations is required.”
EXPERT VIEW
Louisa Bowles of Hawkins\Brown says that Passivhaus isn’t the only show in town for zero carbon: “Passivhaus is the most robust and tested way of minimising energy use, but with good operational energy analysis processes there are other ways of achieving the targets. For residential, it is great, for other typologies it is not as straightforward to implement, and there are other options.”
The Passivhaus Trust believes that it is the “only realistic way to achieve zero carbon without massive renewable energy expansion coupled with a significant investment in grid capacity.” Two-thirds of our respondents however believed there were other methods. The Association for Environment Conscious Building’s AECB Building Standard is potentially a less intensive option than Passivhaus, claimed to reduce carbon emissions by 70% compared with the UK average for buildings in each typology. It’s also claimed to combine “relative ease with low cost,” and is suitable for projects from individual self-builds to large-scale residential and non-residential. LETI (originally the London Energy Transformation Initiative)
has produced its own standard to help designers to move towards zero carbon buildings. Also a reportedly lower cost option, its Climate Emergency Design Guide provides building fabric and services, and covers operational energy and embodied carbon, as well as “the future of heat,” “demand response” and “data disclosure,” and sets requirements for both small and larger houses.
Conclusion: The role of design There is much uncertainty around energy prices, and the feasibility of many design solutions, in the current economic and political turmoil. However, one way forward for designers, said a commenter to our survey, is to make measurement of carbon “as simple and clear as possible,” and to relate back to the building fabric, technology, and behaviour as critical for success. Many of the building fabric improvements needed, even to Passivhaus levels, are believed to not of necessity require a huge uplift in investment. Leaner, less product-intensive constructions can enable architects to still create attractive, liveable and workable low carbon buildings, but require less of the ‘all bells and whistles’ approach the industry has previously taken, for affordable results across the board. This might be the industry’s biggest challenge, among many inherent to zero carbon.
How will architects’ role and importance change as we enter a very demanding phase, and the industry begins to attempt to make zero carbon a reality a mainstream proposition? Our survey respondents’ thoughts ranged from the prosaic (“a lot more paperwork,” “be practical, not hyper theoretical,” and “we need to gain new skills” – to better understand carbon impacts), to the more controversial: “What has to change is the self-righteous indulgence in promoting ‘high carbon’ solutions.” Clients needed to be educated, our survey said, but this will be largely down to their architects, who often don’t have the leverage in projects that they require to drive this. And there is little time to begin this proactive work of managing client expectations. Finally, despite our survey’s finding that aesthetics need not be a stumbling block, one commenter addressed the potential elephant in the room – that low carbon needs to come before aesthetics in designs. They commented: “There is still too much emphasis on aesthetic considerations.”
EXPERT VIEW
Rodrigo Moreno Masey says sustainability is a fundamental part of good design: “It needs to stop being an optional extra. When we talk about ‘good’ architecture, sustainability has to be built in.”
However, Louisa Bowles believes that architects must upskill to include sustainability expertise: “Architects need to have this knowledge inbuilt within their training, and not rely on specialists who they only see in a meeting every two weeks. Low carbon design needs to be the first consideration on a site, not an after-thought once the concept is developed.”
ADF NOVEMBER 2022
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