A NEW DECADE: Refocusing in 2020 & Our Ten-Point Manifesto for Building & Environmental Sustainability
This journal article is primarily based on new buildings, and recognises that the most challenging concern is decarbonising many existing buildings.
A future journal article will address our approach to re-generating existing buildings.
We look forward to working with our clients and design teams in 2020, guided by the following principles, and refocusing our passion for sustainable design into the next decade and beyond.
REFOCUSING ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY FOR OUR BUILDINGS
OUR 10-POINT MANIFESTO FOR BUILDING & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
As the recent bush fires in Australia have recently shown us, a red sky at night or even during the day is now not necessarily a shepherd’s delight.
The current climate emergency requires us to rethink our broad-based sustainability agenda, and to refocus our efforts on carbon reduction both in the construction and operation of buildings.
WHAT DOES SUSTAINABILITY MEAN IN AN ERA OF A CLIMATE EMERGENCY?
What does ‘sustainability’ really mean in the era of accelerated climate change? It’s said that we only have 12 years left to make a meaningful change in carbon emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change and associated economic effects. Buildings in New Zealand contribute approximately 20% of our carbon emissions.
It could be said that previous attempts at Sustainable Design have been too diluted and ineffective.
The situation is extremely critical, and buildings need to respond to this imperative effectively.
Moving towards a low carbon future will require moving away from the traditional ‘mickey mouse’ model of sustainability with short-term, first cost economic arguments dominating the sustainability agenda, to a bullseye approach that recognises that without a long-term, all enveloping approach to the environment, there is no viable future.
In a climate emergency, the main design challenges for a new building are therefore the whole-of-life performance of the building, particularly operational and embodied energy and carbon. Also, to quantify the whole of life cost rather than just first cost to building owners.
As building professionals, as a community, as families and as individuals, we have a stark choice about the type of future we want to create -
Carry on, business as usual and live with the consequences or
Remake the built environment so that it produces no CO2.
Our primary response has been to integrate sustainability into the design process for all our projects, and to develop a 10-Point Plan for projects to reduce:
a) Operational Carbon (7 points)
b) Embodied Carbon (3 points)
A range of other important sustainability initiatives will also be targeted alongside this primary response.
OUR SEVEN-POINT PLAN FOR OPERATIONAL NET ZERO CARBON
We would adopt a 7-point operational carbon reduction strategy for buildings:
1. Optimise The Facade in terms of load reduction and developing a high-performance façade with appropriate WWR, glass type and thermal insulation levels.
2. Maximise Ambient Energy Use by using mixed mode natural and heat recovery mechanical ventilation and daylighting. Window openings and dispositions.
These first two elements of the strategy would be optimised and maximised using a combination of thermal, daylight and energy modelling with early prototyping in an ‘Engineering without Engines’ approach.
3. Maximise High Efficiency Equipment and Systems
This element of the strategy would be achieved by using best in class systems and equipment including:
High-efficiency heat pump heating and cooling. Where feasible, use passive cooling and reduce the cooling load and extent of refrigerant charge as far as possible and move towards transitional lower Global Warming Potential (GWP) or natural F-0 refrigerants.
Mixed mode natural and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery in winter for the mechanical system.
A building management system for intelligent control of the services based upon the time of day, the presence of people and the prevailing climatic conditions.
Low energy long life LED lighting and a lighting control system that provides intelligent control of the lighting based upon the time of day, the presence of people and available daylight.
High efficiency energy star appliances.
Heat pump or solar hot water heating.
Low flow hot water fixtures.
A high standard of testing and commissioning.
4. Engage Sustainable User Behaviours
This element of the strategy would be achieved by a strong level of engagement with operators and users, including:
First year fine tuning and energy targeting/monitoring.
Use of infographics and building dashboards to communicate building performance and achievement of targets to users.
Potentially extending the monitoring to develop local sensing precincts. These could collect data such as water quality, temperature and humidity from the local community.
5. Avoid Fossil Fuel Use
The use of gas should be avoided entirely. If a kitchen is required, this could use electric ovens and induction hobs.
6. Reducing Peak Demand & Overnight Energy Use
Grid electricity is currently around 80%, and the 2025 target is to increase this to 90%. The remaining use of fossil fuel (gas) is largely related to periods of peak demand, primarily in winter. We should therefore look at ways to reduce the peak winter demand, and the evening and overnight parasitic losses. Measures to do this include:
Minimising the peak heating demand by using low-e double glazing, high levels of thermal insulation, reducing air leakage and using heat recovery mechanical ventilation.
Using hot water storage systems.
Use of thermal mass.
Load shedding via the BMS.
Battery storage associated with the PV system.
7. On Site Renewable Energy Generation
Wherever feasible, the building should be designed with a roof array to make the building net zero energy over the course of the year. Where parts of the building have extended operating hours, the aim would be to avoid excessive export to the grid, PV installation batteries should also be considered, as noted above. There could also be potential in the system to export to other uses, including public open space, street lighting and electric vehicle charging points, as part of an eco-precinct concept.
OUR 3 POINT PLAN FOR MINIMISING and OFFSETTING EMBODIED ENERGY
“Materials are just that: they’re very tactile, very visual, they smell and they even taste. They’re the skin and bone of the buildings and they should be used with a certain reverence, for where they come from, for what they have done, and for what you are asking them to do.” – John Ringel
Our 3- point plan for minimising operation carbon would be to:
8. Timber Construction Where Feasible
The role of timber in the carbon economy needs to be recognised alongside its role as a resource.
Timber contributes to long term carbon emissions abatement in numerous ways, including:
Capturing and storing atmospheric carbon in growing forests.
Providing long-term storage of carbon in durable wood products.
Providing a renewable substitute for much more emissions-intensive building materials, such as steel, aluminium and concrete.
9. Careful Selection Of Materials
Environmentally friendly materials are those in which, for their production, placing and maintenance, result in low environmental impact. The materials strategy for a building should give precedence to durable, reusable and recyclable materials and where feasible they should be sourced locally.
10. Offsetting Embodied Energy
An approach to further reducing and potentially offsetting embodied carbon in a net zero energy building is to incorporate a surplus of renewable energy capacity that can act as a contingency for operational energy and which may also be applied to offsetting the embodied carbon over the service life of a building with a target of 20 years.
OTHER IMPORTANT SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES WE WILL INTEGRATE:
INTEGRATING SUSTAINABLE DESIGN INTO THE DESIGN PROCESS
“Sustainability can’t be like some sort of moral sacrifice or political dilemma or a philanthropical cause.
It has to be a design challenge” – Bjorke Ingels.
Integrating sustainable design requires a much more holistic and interactive design approach, which involves all the design team members and client stakeholders. By being inclusive & understanding, we identify and then join all the dots to capture the opportunities offered by projects to provide real sustainable outcomes. Adopting an Integrated Sustainable Design Process (ISD) has significant advantages for integrating a high level of sustainability into a project. In effect, sustainability is woven into the DNA of the project with input and buy–in from all stakeholders.
Design opportunities will be explored and developed jointly during the various design stages. The design process recognises the inter-connectedness of the various design disciplines, which will help to integrate the architecture and ancillary disciplines as the design develops. Integrated Sustainable Design (ISD) ensures excellent collaboration to identify and solve the sustainability question. The key tenants are the 3 E’s: ‘Everything, Everyone, and Early’ around the design team table.
ISD is an inclusive process of a series of expertly facilitated design workshops for the design team, the client and key stakeholders.
